28mm Napoleonic Perry Miniatures - Royal Artillery Company

 

This has been an enjoyable little project.  These are the Perry's Peninsular War Royal Artillery guns.  There are two 6 Pounders and one 5.5inch howitzer to create this Company/Battery.

By the mid-Peninsular War there would more usually be 6 guns in a Royal Artillery battery or to use the more contemporary term - 'a Company'.  The nomenclature of the British military has always been confusing (even to those who serve!) as words have different meanings depending on Regiment/Arm of Service etc.

When the guns were equipped with their drivers and horses they were called 'Brigaded'.

A pair of guns was called a 'Division'!

I recommend the excellent book "Wellington's Guns" by Colonel Nick Lipscombe for the definitive story of the Royal Artillery in the Napoleonic Wars.  This gives all the background information before diving much more deeply into the composition of each Company at each battle.  

The book also goes into some detail about Wellington's particular difficulties/feud with the Board of Ordnance who were responsible for the Royal Artillery.  This resulted in much petty bitterness between Wellington and his Artillery officers who were rarely given credit for their bravery and actions in Wellington's post battle reports.

The 6 pounders were able to fire ball, cannister and shrapnel shells.  They did not fire common shell and this was left for the 5.5 inch howitzers to fire.

I will be using these guns in battles using the General d'Armee rules. Hence I only have 3 guns in this Company/Battery rather than the full historic 6 guns.  I have play tested the rules once and it gave a superb game, certainly feeling very Napoleonic, though the detail will take me a number of play throughs before I feel I have got the mechanics fully understood.  That's standard though for me though.

The models were a joy to paint. I really like the artillerymen who do look like they are on campaign.  I have painted them up in my preferred style of keeping them soldier-like but with the inevitable dust/dirt of campaigning in such a harsh climate. 

The Royal Artillery uniform is very distinctive with the yellow braiding and lace. This of course makes it really challenging for the painter!  Though it does pay off the effort of putting the detail work in.  The guns needed a little cleaning up to remove some flash between the spokes, but it was not excessive. I am delighted to have finally got them done.  

These are the first Napoleonic British artillery figures and guns I have painted since the mid-1980's when I obsessively painted Airfix and Esci figures (they are all in my loft but I have no doubt that the paint will all have flaked off by now!).

I'm currently painting a few random things as a little break from Napoleonics, though there will be more to follow soon.

Epic (15mm) Scale - Napoleonic - Prussian Fusilier Battalion 25th Infantry Regiment

 

I know it's total madness, but one that afflicts many of us. This being the covering of the same period of history, but in several different scales!

My recent posts were of my 28mm Peninsular troops but there is something appealing about the massed ranks of close order infantry that are the Warlord Games Epic scale troops.

I do have quite a number of the old Minifigs 15mm figures and they do have that wonderful classic look to them, but they would still require individually gluing very close together to achieve anything like as good as the look of the close order Epic figures and even then I don't think they would pull it off.

The other great bonus of these troops is their comparatively low purchase price and also the speed of painting that their pre-cast formation lends itself to.

I was able to base airbrush the entire Prussian Brigade box set with some care and paint top ups, in about 10 to 15 minutes.

I took about 3 extended evenings to paint these plus one more for basing.  As it's not the whole figure being painted, doing 80 of these is not too tedious a job.

The casting is very crisp and the detail nicely prominent.  This lent itself to painting very well, but also encouraged me to put more detail in than I intended!

I have a particular project in mind with these and that is the recreation of the Plancenoit battle.  This scale should mean I that I can get most of the battlefield on my 8 x 4 table (I hope).

For my first Prussian unit, I really fancied painting one with red cuffs and collars. There seemed to be a variety of red shades used, so there seemed to me to be a good chance of finding one in IV Corps who was there at Plancenoit.  I merrily applied base colours and continued my research.

To my surprise no units in IV Corps had red collars and cuffs that I could find! However I did find that the 25 Infantry Regiment of 5 Brigade in II Corps were heavily engaged at Plancenoit also.  I thought this was my answer so continued to paint whilst still researching.  Then I found that it appears that only the 3rd (Fusilier) Battalion of that Regiment wore the blue tunic, the remainder (the 1st and 2nd Battalions) appear in the sources that I found, to be wearing the long black coats and black trousers.

This left me with a hard choice - Do I now go back and change the red to another colour and change the regiment? Or do I cut down the flag staff, turn it into a musket and continue down the Fusilier route?

I chose the latter.  One thing I didn't do was replace the drum with a home made bugle.  That would have involved more carving skill (and time) than I possess. They will have to be happy with the drum.

Hopefully the converted flagpole, now a musket with bayonet, is not too obvious a conversion.  I cut down a 28mm sword to make the bayonet for it and re-shaped it.  

These were fun to paint. I think if I had stopped or been interrupted for long I would have lost interest in completing them, as I do find figures smaller than 28mm a lot less rewarding to paint.  However, I am pleased with these and will continue to do units every so often.

Now to get back to the Anglo-Saxon warriors who have been sat patiently on my desk whilst I did my 'Epic' try out!