1/2nd Nassau-Usingen Light Infantry

One of the integral battalions in the defense of Hougoumont was the 1/2 Nassau Light Infantry battalion. I was looking forward to painting this unit for several reasons. First it is always nice to paint a new army and this was the first unit in the Army of the Netherlands that I have got to paint.  The other great thing about the Nassau was that they were a part of the Confederation of the Rhine earlier in the Napoleonic wars, so they can serve on either side depending on the year. Very useful indeed. I also really liked painting the Perry Hanoverian metals, they are beautifully proportioned figures and lend themselves to my technique. I went back and forth between the Front Rank and Perry, and eventually decided to go with Perry and believe I made the right choice. The only really downside was the amount of flash (which is just incredible), you chip it off before priming, and find that there is still multiple pieces to remove. It really was an endless job. Front Rank really are much better in this sense, but I do like the less robust figure.

Here is a nice print from Knötel, which well illustrates both the centre and flank company figures. I found the green a little unbelievable though (I find it hard to believe that 19th century dyes gave bright colours or were very colourfast), so I kept on looking.

I found this image in the NYPL digital gallery and it just seems more real to me, so I just to emulate this shade.

The 1/2nd Nassau was in the Netherlands order of battle in the 2nd Netherlands Infantry Division, 2nd Brigade under Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar. The Nassau battalions were all quite large and the 1/2nd had 889 men all told. This makes it a large Lasalle unit, requiring 6 bases. The Nassau battalions had 6 companies, 4 centre and 2 flank. The centre companies were distinguished by their shako pompon colour: Yellow, white, blue, black, numbered 1 through 4. An excellent resource is the St Jean Cent Jours website for all things Waterloo.


I decided to go with the usual white primer, followed by a thin wash of GW Catachan Green, then a drybrush (yes I do occasionally drybrush) of GW Camo Green. I did not want to go too yellow with the leather so used Vallejo Sand Yellow and used Vallejo Flat Yellow as the facing colour. A Maverick Flag linen was used for the colours, but this was heavily retouched with a bright yellow wash. I apologize for the quality of the photos, I did not use accessory lighting, so I really had to rely on photoshop to lighten up the images.

Flank companies.

Here is the command stand, I decided use a busby on Captain Büsgen, the mounted figure represents Colonel F.W. van Goedececke, chef de corps.

Well just one more battalion to paint and I am ready to run the Hougoumont scenario!!

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30,000 visits

Missed it, too intent on Hougoumont,I suppose. Almost there......24 more figures to paint!

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2ème Régiment d'Infanterie Légère

The 2ème was the largest French regiment at the Battle of Waterloo and comprised 4 battalions of 2294 men and officers. This unit and the 1ème légère made up Bauduin's brigade in Prince Jérome Bonaparte's 6th division. As we all know by now, Bauduin's brigade was the initial unit sent to attack Hougoumont. I know little of their history, their only battle honour was Friedland.

This is one of the biggest single unit painting projects that I have taken on. I only had 6 of these figures on hand when I started, and my plan required 96 figures. I have been at it, off and on for about 6 weeks. I actually timed myself and it took a little over 15 minutes to paint each figure. Each battalion is comprised of 24 figures and aside from the 1e battalion are based in close order. The 1e battalion is in skirmish order as an adjunct to the planned Hougoumont scenario. The units are based for Lasalle, but as the figure ratio is approximately 1:20, I can also use the unit for Republic to Empire.

Aside from 6 of the Voltiguers in the 1e battalion, one of the engineers and the Colonel de Régiment ( Victrix) and 1 officer (Elite) all the figures are from Perry. I decided to go with just the elites from the plastic boxes as I like the look of epaulettes. I read somewhere recently that the men in the légère battalions when getting their new uniforms, ripped the epaulettes off their old uniforms and attached them to their new ones. The regimental stand is from the Perry metal range.

I tried to be correct in my painting and aside from the drummers (should have green coatees), I believe I have been fairly accurate. Usual white base coat, with GW blue ink for the basic uniform, GW midnight Blue for the officer's uniforms and GW Fenris Grey for the overcoats. I used the AP black pigment polyurethane, applied very sparingly followed by Dullcote Matt spray.

The 4 battalions in line.

 Colonel Maigros and the regimental colours

 4e, 2e and 3e battalions

 Regimental square, if there is such a thing

Bauduin's brigade with the smaller 1er Régiment d'Infanterie Légère, also in regimental square. All Foundry figures here, previously flagged as the 25e. Represents 1852 men under colonel Amédée Louis de Cubières. If one looks carefully, Général de Brigade Bauduin (Front Rank) and can be seen taking refuge in the larger square. 

Just the 2/4e légère and the 1/2nd Nassau left........


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Progress of sorts

It has been a while since I posted, but I have been quite busy with my Hougoumont project. All the buildings and figures have been bought and are in the process of being painted. I thought I would post a few snaps of my progress.

Still playing with the OB, certainly on the French side, I will have the 6th Infantry Division (7900 men) under Prince Jerome, this is pretty well completed except for the 4e régiment de lègére, whose bases need to be terrained. I suspect, I will also use Jamin's brigade in the Foy's 9th Infantry Division (2700 men). I have these painted except the 2/4e lègére and I will have to substitute régiments étrangers (1e bat, la légion hanoverienne)  for the 3/4e. Getting a little tired of painting blue. No cavalry or artillery will be used for my first go. These will be all 24 figure units (4 base), although one of the french lègére battalions will be based in skirmish order.

The Allied forces are pretty well done, aside from the 1/2 Nassau. There will be 2 battalions of British guards (2000 men) and 1 battalion of Nassau (1000 men), these will be 34-36 figures in size. There will also be Hanoverian Light (Lueneberg) and some Kielmansegge's Jagers in skirmish order (400 men).

So 10,600 versus 3400, should be fun. Still planning to use Lasalle rules for the first run through, but also looking at the Republic to Empire rules for a second run through. With this much work, I will be doing I suspect, endless variations of the scenario with La Haie Sainte thrown in for future fun. I find the RtE rules a little tedious, but I really like the approach to skirmishers and BUA. I suspect they are the best rules to run an asymmetric battle.

Here we have the half painted Hougoumont, I decided to shorten the eastern wall. Still a bit of terraining to do, but minor stuff with the orchard and the ground within the compound.

Here are the 6th Division, minus 2 bases of the 4/2e. Their fannion is waiting to be picked up. The 1/2e are in skirmish order.

The 36 figure 1/2nd Nassau are next up.

 

Still have 8 infantry colonels to paint!

Here we have the missing figures from the 4/2e waiting for their Army Painter as well as the great barn.

Thanks for looking.


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Hovels

Second in my "plug" blogposts is my latest acquisition from Hovels in the UK. My latest project is a combined Hougoumont/La Haie Sainte scenario and for this I needed Hougoumont. I ordered it Nov 1 and received it by Airpost on November 8, 2010, which is quite good service. From the postage stamp, I could see it was sent the day after I ordered it. I had been emailing back and forth with Carol at Hovels about some details in respect to size and she was quite prompt and helpful in her responses. I do wish they had more details about size on their website, but Carol was quite helpful in providing the information. As you can see each piece comes packaged in their own little labelled bag. I have done some rooting here, but I can say that the pieces were well and safely packed. All pieces ordered were there. I had ordered extra to make up for the long wall running to the east which enclosed the orchard.

I game in 28mm, but the foot print of the 28mm Hovels version is 136x102cm (4.5x3.3ft), there is just no way I could do this on a 12x5' table except as a skirmish game, which I am not interested. I decided to go with the 15 mm version which is 54x36cm (1.8x1.2ft)

As you can see it all fits together nicely. The vertical scale is quite off, but really I think it will work nicely for my game. As you can see the model is quite detailed, there is hardly any flash, and is paintable from the box.

Time to get painting. I will use a white prime, followed by a Citadel Dwarf Flesh medium wash over the brick parts, and GW Fenris Grey medium wash over the non brick roofs, pick out the details around windows and doors using a light grey. The bases of the walls will be painted green to match the terrain. The whole complex will then get an application of the the black pigment (Darktone) AP. I am hoping it will not take too long. Colour scheme is as below (from Hovels site)

Rating: Recommend without reservation

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Architects of War

I buy a lot of wargaming "stuff", so I thought I would start a new feature on my blog related to service and quality. I will make this an ongoing effort, but will not make it retrospective, so any company that has screwed up in the past is forgiven. The label will be "plugs", bad or good. I will give one of 4 ratings: Recommend without reservation; Recommend; Recommend with reservation; Do not recommend. 


I should note that I am not interested in rating the price as I find it has no association with value. Value is a very personal thing and just can not be rated. I will say though that this company sells Perry plastics at quite a good discount. I will also discuss price if there is a big difference between different sellers.


Well I just received a package from Architects of War, a new company in Maryland that makes their own terrain items but also sell other wargaming supplies, including Perry Plastics. I heard about them from Miles  in the blogspot Lair of the Ubergeek. 


I ordered their latest terrain item, some tree bases. I placed the order in the morning of Oct 22, got a confirmation of shipping in the afternoon of the same day and received the order on Oct 25. Please note that the 22nd was a Friday. There was no charge for shipping, so I really can only be quite pleased with this.


I bought the 4 base with trees set, and as you can see it was nicely packaged. I always feel it is important for a new company to give some thought to personalising their packaging and no complaint here.

The contents included 4 unpainted bases and a bunch of trees. I was shocked to see that the Woodland Scenic trees were already assembled. I was very pleased with this, as I find glueing these trees together quite a challenge, so all I really have to do is paint the bases and tree trunks. Fantastique!

As you can see the bases are quite detailed and are quite solid. A little pipette is included to help apply the scenic cement, a nice touch. One great thing about their website is their "How Do Guides", here is a link to the instructions for the Woods Set. This is quite well written in an easily understood style in a well presented PDF. I would also refer you to their road making PDF, which looks quite interesting, but not yet attempted by myself.

Well I believe I have solved my tree terrain problem, one base will suffice for a clump of trees while multiple bases placed together will make very nice forests. Placed together, the 4 bases make a approximately 12"x 12" quadrangle. 


Rating: Recommend without reservation


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The Hanoverian Grubenhagen Leichtes Bataillon

This is the first unit that I have finished for my Hanoverian Allied Brigade for Lasalle. The brigade is modeled on the 1st Hanoverian Brigade under Major General the Count Kielmansegge, 3rd Division, First Corps of Wellington's army at Waterloo. I picked this unit do first as I had the figures on hand (or I thought I did) and I need the unit for my Hougomont project. 
I will use 3 manufacturers for this brigade, Perry have a line of Hanoverian figures. They are quite nice figures although they have an enormous mount of flash. I will use the Perrys for the Lueneberg and Grubenhagen light battalions and the Bremen field battalion. For the other 2 field battalions I will use Victrix figures, with their Hanoverian heads. For the Jagers, I have decided to be a little inaccurate and use some Calpe figures that I had painted up as Kielmansegge's Feldjägers for my Wallmoden project. I realise the jägers in the 1st Hanoverian Bde had rifle uniforms, but the Calpe are very nice figures. Anyway here is the OB, I will have to think a little more about their ratings, so have yet to assign them.

I used the Mont St Jean site as the reference for the uniforms, clearly so have the Perry brothers. Here is their plate for the Grubenhagen light battalion. Here also is a TMP link, which I believe to be quite an accurate accounting of the Hanoverian uniform in 1815, look at John Franklin's post.

So good so far, but as I was painting my last 6 figures, that these were actually for the Lueneberg light battalion. I wanted to mix field caps with shako's but when I was putting the final touches on the figures, I noticed that the capped figures had 3 rows of buttons rather than 1. I have shoved them in anyway until I get some mores figures, not a big deal as I was planning to paint the Lueneberg next anyway. For my Hougomont project, I need to break off the light companies from these 2 units, so I decided to use the Perry rifle figures for these 4 bases. These are much more dynamic figures, the specific Hanoverian figures are a little static.

Front View

Flag View, I know, no flag, but I like flags. No idea whether this is right or not, from Flag Dude.

View with Lueneberg figures (in caps)

 Command Figures, I really thought these were quite nice figures.

 Back View

Kielmansegge's Feldjãgers. Here is a Knõtel print, of what they looked like in in 1813-14.

So I used Calpe figures, as they seemed at the time a good fit. They are not bad, although the earlier reference I had, described a brown rather than a green cap (I like the brown a little better). Also of course the cuffs are wrong and what I did not notice at the time, is that they have muskets rather than rifles. Great figures though, really my favourite to paint.

So whats next, well I really have to do the hard graft of painting up at least 3 more french  battalions of legere. Here are 2, and also a little treat, some cuirrassiers. If you are going to do Hougomont, it is just as well to plan for La Haie Sainte as well!

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French Chefs de bataillon

When I started painting napoleonic figures about 4 years ago, there was little information on the internet, I do not remember seeing any blogs and very few manufacturers had decent web sites. Since then the information growth has been exponential.

Being a solo wargamer, I find having a blog is just great. It keeps me in touch with other wargamers, I see what others are doing and I get all kinds of great ideas on how to do things.

One thing I have tried to do on my site is put up some comparison shots of different manufacturers. Today are some French mounted infantry chefs d'batallion. Here we have five different manufacturers. Please try not to judge their quality by my painting job. These have been painted over a 4 year period with the Perry chef d'bataillon and the Foundry lègere colonel figure being the most recent. They are all nice figures and I have no problems recommending any of them.

I hoping to soon put up some photos of some buildings I have acquired, this is a really tricky area as the different manufacturer described sizes have absolutely nothing to do with their actual sizes.

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The 95th got their colours!

A few months ago, I discovered Maverick Flags, so I thought I would post a photo of my latest acquisition. Now, I am well aware that light regiments usually do not have colours. But what is a wargaming unit without a little flag. The great thing about Maverick is that Stuart knows that all units need colours, so he had one for the 95th. I had already purchased the colours for the South Essex, so I knew Stuart's flags are of great quality. It was with impatience that I waited for my flags to arrive from overseas. So here we go, the 95th in skirmisher order with their new pennant.

Here is a nice close up, you can see that it is a linen flag that is especially nice. I am not sure where Stuart got the design from, but it is very similar to the one in the TV production of Sharpes Eagle.

Front Rank, of course, does not provide a flag bearer with their rifles figures, so I had to "cut one up". This is one of their sergeants. I removed his rifle and filed a groove in his hand for the pole. It came out pretty well. It also illustrates the improvement in my painting style, the rest of the figures were painted about 2 years ago, and our pennant bearer was done yesterday. It is nice to know that painting miniatures can be learned. I know my method is not a traditional one, but I am really starting to quite like my figures.

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7th Jagers

The 7th German Jagers, presented in skirmish order. Front Rank as usual, again nice figures. Used GW Astronomicon Grey for the uniform and Knarloc Green for the facings. I felt my faces have been a little dark, so I diluted the GW Ogryn Flesh wash and then highlighted it with GW Elf Flesh. Then an application of the AP midtone.

Still can not get the white balance right, but I am working on it.

I am going to take a break from the Austrians now, I am half way through the Avant Garde Division, and focus my attention on the Hougomont Project. This will be my biggest undertaking to date, and I am quite excited about it. But, more to come.

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