28th Foot for Quatre Bras

Not many blog posts lately but I haven't been idle!
Kevin, James and I have been working on test games and rebasing and repainting the 2015 Waterloo armies so we can refight Quatre Bras later this year at 1:20 scale. I'm way behind blogging on that activity but this one is just a quickie.  Today I finished the 28th Foot - the North Gloucestershire Regiment, which I bagged on the orbat as they are the local regiment.  But of course being the cheapskate wargamer that I am they were not bought new, instead I have been reviewing the figures in my big (180 strong) Luneburg Battalion from La Haye Sainte at 1:3 scale and finding new uses for them. For the original painting effort please see 188-in-one-go.

Nearly 100 of them are being smartened up for use as the Luneburg and Grubenhagen Light Field battalions, including a batch of optional skirmisher bases. However I realised that the 28th were one of the few regiments still wearing the old stovepipe shako and most of my Luneburg originals are British Light infantry or Peninsular figures so the headgear is right even if other details are not quite.

So on to the pics, with a little more explanation along the way.

Due to the eclectic mix of figures in my Luneburg 188 it proved difficult to find
24 line figures all the same, so I've gone for those which look similar from wargame distance

Rank and File rules use attrition with base removal.  In order to leave
some semblance of carnage on the tabletop we are all trying to make enough
casualty figures to replace each lost base with a figure or other debris. Most of my casualties are converted Victrix plastic.

Each "wing" of the battalion uses figures from a different manufacturer,
 one at least I think is Foundry. Some have correct British line battalion black
leather backpacks and the other a kind of leather roll worn vertically.
Haythornthwaite's "Uniforms at Waterloo" says some companies in the 28th
still used French hide knapsacks captured at Alexandria, so I reckon I can get away with it!

The superb flags are GMB but given special treatment and flagstaff
tops and cords by Kevin East; given to me as a birthday present.
Many thanks Kevin, just the job to raise morale 

The only new figures are the command company, all from my spares box. 

The "colour guards" are Perry Hanoverian light infantry and the officers 

British Light Infantry, again Perry I think. The drummer is converted from

 a Perry Hanoverian bugler whose right arm I had to completely remodel and add 

musicians lace. A plastic Victrix drum is suspended by paper straps with staples cut 

down for drumsticks.

Problem with Blog Alerts

Over the years I have relied a lot on traffic linking from other wargaming blogs, where readers see that I have updated my blog while they are visiting another. Thank you to all those bloggers who have included "Not Just Old School Wargaming" in your favourites list. However, that alert system - where it shows a photo and timing, seems to have stuck on a posting I made about 4 or 5 months ago. I've looked at all the settings which seem to be right, and I tried deleting the offending post but it still shows! If you click on the Blog title you go to my current posting, but if you click on the thumbnail pic or the post title you go to the one I have deleted and then need to click on Home to get the latest.

What is worse is that I suspect a lot of people are totally ignorant that I have posted anything since September 2016 so may not visit me at all now!

So, unless anyone knows a magic cure they can tell me, the only thing I can think of is if those of you bloggers who display a photo and timing of my blog can delete me and then reload me it might kickstart again and show the latest. Those who just show the Blog title in their list there is no problem.

Thank you for your understanding

Chris G

Waterloo Project: A "broomin' good paint job - 150-strong French battalion

If this isn't enough to get the wargaming juices flowing for Waterloo 2015 I don't know what will!  As promised in the previous Waterloo posting  Kevin East has now finished his first custom-painted French battalion for our 1:3 scale Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte games.

I'll hand over to Kev to tell you more:

"Hot off the painting blocks is my first French battalion- all 150 of them! I include some photos of them at various stages on the broom stick sections that enables me to access all round the figures for painting purposes. I usually use an electric glue gun to stick the metal figures on the broom stick sections and use blutak for plastic ones. The metal figures are easy to prize off using a chisel post varnishing. Then super glue to the plastic bases and watered down wood glued sand for the ground. After painting the sand I use flock for grass. I usually titivate the bases with grass tufts, flowers and rocks to complete a realistic effect. I worked out it takes just under two hours of painting per figure. Hope you like the effect en masse.

The French battalion is all Perry metal figures. ....so it proved expensive! But the good thing about the range is Perry offer the same posed figure with or without greatcoat. This added to the fact that there are 6 slightly different poses to each pack so that means there are a total of 12 different fusilier and 12 different light/grenadier company figures that can be used to make up the battalion. This makes for a more 'random looking' set of figures when put together so adds to the realistic atmosphere. Of course one could always mix in a box or two of the plastic figures that perry do in French infantry march attack pose and then there is an infinite array of possibilities to make the look totally realistic. Perry really have thought of everything!

The flag is a third battalion fanion from Graeme Black of GMB designs. Here is the website French armies

They are great as they provide 2nd(white) 3rd (red), 4th (blue), 5th (green) and 6th (yellow) battalion fanions for line and also have them for the light battalions for the period where all you have to do is paint the regimental number in gold and the job is done! Perry also provide battalion as well as the regimental command packs which makes life easy for the figures. 

I am now on the 180 strong French light infantry battalion I am producing. That should take 3 months! ( although I already have 60 figures from my existing collection)."

Kevin sent me loads of photos so why should I deny you, gentle reader, the chance to enjoy them? The close-ups show his amazing artistic technique, these look more as if they've come out of an oil painting than being bits of sculpted metal covered with pigment

Here are two other views of the whole battalion. Each company is 24 figures strong and you can tell them by the different coloured shako pompoms and the Grenadier and Voltigeur companies are at the back in this attack column formation, representing approximately 450 men.

Some close-ups of Grenadiers and Voltigeurs to finish off

 

We hope to field about 6 to 8 French battalions like this at any one time in our various Waterloo scenarios.

I'm currently working on a 50-strong Nassau Light Company so hope to show you them in a couple of weeks.