As you'll have read in that I jumped in with both feet to provide about 1000 figures representing something like half our requirement for the actions around La Haye Sainte on 18th June 1815. I recalled the jargon of my Civil Service days when someone came up with a wonderful new project and needed a "quick win" to impress management. What could I have as my "quick win" to get this task on the road?
Around the famous sandpit and the "elm tree crossroads" the 1st Battalion of the 95th Rifles was deployed. We reckoned we needed about 160 figures at 1:3 figure : man ratio to give a good representation. Luckily Paul and Kevin had around 80 of these in their existing collections so I just needed to provide another 80 and I reasoned that 95th Rifles, being so popular, would be easy to find.
Alban Riflemen come in packs of either Firing or Moving |
You can also get a neat command pack of four figures. This officer is blowing a whistle, not dragging on a fag! |
I'll let you explore the Alban website from the link above but they offer a nice selection of British, French and Austrian figures at somewhat expensive prices to my mind, but it depends what you like. Why these are different is because they are designed by Richard Ansell of Minden and Fife and Drum Miniatures fame. That means they are 28mm, but slim and elegant, and not easily blended in with the more usual brands like Perry, Victrix or Front Rank. Hence I have one company only of them in my 1st Battalion.
A nice bonus I thought is that Alban offer a small sheet of decals of of "95" or "60" back pack labels and also very authentic looking water canteen unit markers. While I might do be able to paint the pack backs numbers I certainly can't paint in this detail on canteens, so they give a touch of class to what are already pretty classy figures. I hope you like my small sample presented here.
Close up the decal of the Board of Ordnance regulation issue canteen marking |
Below is a picture of some of the rest of my 95th. The company in front are all makes unknown to me, the one behind is mostly Perry metal and plastic. But I draw your attention to the officers at the nearest ends. The one on the right must, I feel sure, be Richard Sharpe in view of the big heavy cavalry sword, which featured in the novels and is of course a long way from the shorter curved sabre of Rifle officers. The officer at the back is a diminutive figure, also with a big sword and I believe he is also intended to be "Sharpe" as he came along with a Sergeant of the same small size bearing a "volley gun" made famous by Sgt Patrick Harper's character in the TV series. I had to mount these two on artificially high sections of base so they would blend, at a distance with their larger colleagues. Whether these little chaps, which remind me of Parkfield Miniatures, will actually make it onto my field of Waterloo in 2015 remains to be seen.
Here is a view of all three companies, about 60-70 figures, and I've since added more to bring them to 82 .
From the front - unknown makes, then a line of mostly Perry's and in the distance my company of Alban's. These photographs are taken on a prototype terrain tile I made to experiment with different ways of producing "trampled wheatfields" for that muddy day on Mont St Jean.
Assuming I finish them soon my next post on the Waterloo project will be about the 2nd Light Battalion King's German Legion.
If you do field Sharpe, and want to be "historical" (sic) surely he should be with Silly Billy's staff not the rifles?
ReplyDeleteBeautiful minis (love the details) and great pictures too...
ReplyDeleteRoss. that is a good point but actually I don't want to field Sharpe at all in my historical battle. I drew attention to that figure because it is anachronistic for a regular Rifles officer. I don't really like the pose either and I have three of them as that's how things sometimes come when you buy on Ebay! As I implied, these funny officers may be replaced before the day of our game.
ReplyDeletePhil, thanks for your appreciation.