Happy New Year!

Hoi,

A short post to tell you guys I am finally gearing up for war in earnest here. I have managed to sort out the British and Allied troops I already own and this resulted in a major scare because I am seriously lacking in marching British (and thus Portuguese)  troops. But for now I will start with the  3 units of Wallace's brigade standing in firing-line. As you can see from the photo below, I have converted some Revell Brits with HäT spare heads in order to create some diversity in the line.

One of the biggest pro's with doing this is that you can alter the pose by turning the heads and that creates a more natural looking situation.
Normally I would use Pattex powergel to stick the figures on, but instead I used Valejo plastic filler. This has the positive effect of filling the gaps left between head and collar and that's good for a better fit but also a better look.

It will take me quite some time to get these chaps painted there being an odd 80 or so, therefore I will let you know when there's something to show!

Cheers Sander

Salamanca Day 2015

Hoi,

While I would love to show some progress on the project itself today in honour of the Anniversary of the Battle of Salamanca I will show you something else. Today's update brings you some painted HäT test-shots of the British Light Dragoons from the Peninsular War era. These are very nice figures with two of them having pegs instead of right arms which you can choose yourself from several available ones brandishing a variety of utensils like pistols swords and a bugle.

For these I chose the uniform of the 14th LD's with slightly orange-ish facings. Why this regiment? Well I couldn't decide what regiment to paint and than Fate kicked in because while reading Wellington's Military despatches I stumbled along the Duke mentioning a skirmish between the 14th and Massena's advance guard in 1810 somewhere along the Lines of Torres Vedras. So it was decided that I should depict the 14th and here they are.

Enjoy!

83rd Regiment of Foot

Hoi,

This time I am not even going to apologise for the long absence of posts here on this blog. I knew from the start that this project was going to be one for the long run. Most of my hobby-stuff ends up on the other blog, so for regular updates you should look over here.

That said work has not altogether been reduced to nil over here. In a recent bulk shipment I acquired a lot of British Peninsular Command sets from HäT and have been able to put together the set up for one of my Salamanca regiments.

The 83rd of Foot was amongst the second line brigade advancing upon Thomieres division with Pakenham's Fighting 3rd Division, well actually it was Picton's division but he was sick at the time of the battle. In my calculations the regiment (actual strength on the day was 319) should amount to 70 odd troops so I put these together on the table to see how it looked and well it looks like this:

Now a few things are not totally historically accurate, the formation is a bit off for the regulations of the day. The officers and nco's I've put behind the line should actually be interspersed amongst the ranks in between each company. The musicians should be put behind the line but I found it visually more attractive to put them together with the pioneers behind the mounted officers. But to limit the frontage of the regiment I have chosen to put them behind. In this regiment the companies are all about 8 man strong, as figures of the regiments involved varied greatly, form the huge 2 battalion 5th Regiment of Foot, counting 1210 actives on the day, up to the 3 companies of the 60th Rifles amounting 254 troops. It would be nicest if I would be able to adhere to the figures I have counted out but I guess I will be settling for less...

Cheers Sander

Some chaps finished!

Hoi There,

Finally I have managed to finish the first section of the 60th Rifles for the diorama. These chaps all have blue-grey trousers, the next batch will have brown ones. I tried to paint some patches on them to give them a campaign-dress look.

To the left are all the finished chaps.

Right you can see a close-up including the sarge.










I hope to post some more news soon!

Cheers Sander

First WIP pictures!

As predicted progress on this project is rather slow. I wish it would be otherwise... Experience gained over the recent years has taught me that you'd best start new projects after finishing the ones on the workbench. Still some small odds and ends will clutter your desk and so it is with mine. Currently I am finishing a wargames unit of Napoleonic Highlanders from Art-Miniaturen  http://www.wargaming.de/assets/s2dmain.html?http://www.wargaming.de/index.html but I have also prepared the first figures to be painted for my Salamanca Project. These are some 50 troopers of the 60th Rifles. About 4 to 5 companies of this regiment were seconded to the 3rd Division to enhance it's skirmish line. The chaps will be paired up and put in front of the firing line together with some cacadores (when or rather if I get mini's for those) and the light companies of Wallace's brigade.
The first picture shows how I prepped the larger part of the 50 men: on thin wire without their bases as I will be pinning them to the modular landscape tiles eventually.

An attempt to a close up ;-)

The figures are of course Revells excellent set of 95th Rifles http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=318 I really dislike the last set of the same regiment done by Italeri http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=1061 due to the fact they are far too large but also because some of the poses which are downright silly and the dis-proportion of some of the rifles compared to the soldiers handling them. Gladly I have an adequate supply of Revell's chaps :-)

Cheers Sander