28mm Dismounted Napoleonic French Dragoons and Mediterranean Cottage

I needed to take a bit of a break from the undisciplined (if entertaining) cacophony of Renaissance fashion to work instead on something a little more staid, a little more 'uniform' in order to kick back and unwind.

Here are a half-dozen dismounted Napoleonic French dragoons, accompanied by their trumpeter and officer. 

Napoleon posted several regiments of dragoons to Spain during the Peninsular War and one could say that the French dragoons were the earliest anti-guerilla units in history. (Being that the Spanish word 'guerilla' was popularly coined during the Napoleonic period, being the diminutive of 'war' or alternately 'little war'). For both sides the guerilla war in Spain was a very brutal affair, with no quarter asked or given.

These figures are from a couple of manufacturers - two are multi-part plastics from Perry Miniatures, while the rest are from Brigade Games, sculpted by Paul Hicks.

Leader based on a hex and Trumpeter (support) on a square to help spot them on the tabletop.

I think the two sculpting styles work quite well together. That being said, I have to admit I'm a bit of a traditionalist and prefer the longer coattails of the earlier dragoon uniform a bit better. Hey, it's all about cutting a dash while sweating to death under the blazing Iberian sun!

The rustic cottage is from Grandmanner's 'Spanish Napoleonic' range. I managed to pick up a few in this series before they were discontinued earlier this summer (thanks for the help on this Sidney!). This is my first stab at painting one of these models and I found it a blast to work on.

After cleaning, I first sprayed the building's parts with Krylon Camo Brown and then over-sprayed with Krylon Camo Khaki to provide the base. I then used 'Americana' craft paints to block in the colours, Army Painter 'Strong Tone' as a wash and then liberally drybrushed using increasingly lighter tones.

While these buildings were specifically designed to reflect 19th century Spanish architecture, I think that, with a bit of squinting, they will work fine in any Mediterranean setting, and I imagine they'll see good service in our upcoming Italian Wars games. I'll post pics of the other buildings as I work through them.

Thanks for stopping by folks - have a great week!
 

Sharp Practice 2 Game - 'Fondler's Rifles', Winter in Spain, 1809

The hardened core of 'The Friday Night Raconteurs' (meaning me and two others who evidently had nothing better to do on a Friday night) managed to get in a game of Sharp Practice 2. Feeling typically lazy, I took a scenario from 'The Complete Fondler' which depicts our hero Richard Fondler, armed with his trusty Baker Rifle and never-mashed-by-a-shako 90's mullet, bravely attempting to save his fellow Riflemen from a horde of French dragoons, who are hell-bent on converting Spain to Napoelon's version of the EU.

 

Jeremy and Peter looking far too happy. Hmm, what do they know that I don't?

As Jeremy had not yet played the rules, we decided to partner him with Peter who is a seasoned vet. Twirling my moustache and taking a swig of my (cheap) Bordeaux, I took on the role of the dastardly French commander. 

As the scenario is set in the aftermath of a British battalion being run down by French cavalry, I ruled that the Riflemen would come onto the table in sporadic groups, with Lieutenant Fondler having to regroup them in time for a defense against the oncoming dragoons. In turn, I had the French cavalry enter the same way, reasoning that they would be dispersed, having been busy sabering fleeing Redcoats. I also had their mounts move at a penalty to reflect their being blown from the previous charge and the subsequent pursuit.

The game went off rather well with the British getting very lucky on the early activations. This enabled them to concentrate most of their numbers on a rocky hilltop, forming a small ragged square to help fend off the cavalry. 

The Rifles legging it to a rocky outcrop.

The French commander, emboldened by his regiments success offboard, tried to charge the Riflemen as they dashed to the hill, but the dragoons' poor winded mounts were not up to the task and could not carry them to the enemy in time. The French, in turn, were seen off by accurate rifle fire from both the square and the Riflemen skirmishing on the rocky outcrop.

The Dragoons run out of gas in the face of the Rifles...

 Rebuffed, the French then tried to keep the Rifles in square by threatening them with a portion of their cavalry while the remainder dismounted to start peppering them with carbine fire. All the while more French reinforcements arrived...

The French crash out volleys at the Rifles on the hill. Note: My horse-holder Lothario finally gets some time on the table.

 Musketfire was fiercely exchanged and while the British took a good lashing they dished out worse than they received. The French began to waver and so the Dragoon commander, seeing disorder in the English ranks, decided to force the issue with a charge.  It was all for naught as the British held firm and decimated the French assault, wounding their brave (but foolhardy) commander.

Richard Fondler barking commands to his Riflemen.

This pretty much broke the French, who only managed a few more turns of firing before calling it a day to lick their wounds. 

Voila, c'est tout! It was a great little scrap with both sides experiencing highs and lows. Though the French seemed a little hapless from the start I thought this played to the spirit of the scenario, where the French force, emboldened from their recent victory, would recklessly attack in piecemeal - subsequently getting its nose bloodied by elite troops in a superior position.

Oh, and before I forget, here is my homemade version of the game's activation counters. I made these chits from 25mm bases / 3mm thick. I sanded the corners round, primed them white, painted them in bright red and blue, highlighted the edges, pasted on graphics I made on my Mac and then varnished them. For some reason my lizard brain enjoys the chunky, 'clicky' feel of the chits over the usual cards - go figure.

Richard Fondler will return.  Next chapter will see him and his Riflemen assisting some English engineers blow up a bridge over the Tagus. BUT, of course, the crafty French commander has his own plan up his chevroned sleeve...

Next up: Landsknecht Arquebusiers!

From PeterD: 28mm War of 1812 American Militia (48 points)

Peter debuts with these great dismounted dragoons for his War of 1812 project.

From Peter:

I signed up for Curt's 4th Painting Challenge, but was much later off the starting line than many others.  I plead an acute case of real life - 120 Stats papers, 30 Financial mathematics papers, swapping the furniture between two bedrooms in our house and the return of our daughter after a storm delayed flight home from University.  I swear that Curt sets the timing up to put me at a maximum disadvantage - really Curt I have both Final exams and Christmas to deal with.  [Douglas, you don't fool me for a minute. I know that even if the conditions were absolutely perfect you'd still be a drag-ass paint slug...- ed. :P ] 

Anyway, this year I've decided to keep my submissions to bite sized morsels rather than full meals.  First up are these 8 members of the Trojan Greens, a War of 1812 Militia unit from upstate New York. Figures are kit bashed from the Perry 28mm plastic dismounted French Dragoons.  Construction wise I quite like the Perry plastics, but I am rather ham-fisted in my approach.  

In this case, the major bashing involved trimming the boot detail off of the rank and filers to represent trousers.  I left the officer in boots and breaches as this seems to be a unit composed of uppity upstate mucky-mucks, and I figured that the officers would be trumped up Johnnies who would dress like gentry. Otherwise, I swapped in arms from the mounted figures for the trumpeter and officer.  I left them with the cavalry belts and cartage box, I'm sure a button counter will tell me that's not accurate but it works.  

I don't have a lot of info about the unit - they were rifled armed and from the Albany area.  They appear to have served along the St. Lawrence frontier and I believe that they were one of the volunteer units that existed pre-war - with the members providing their own uniforms and drilling on their own time.  I found a uniform plate here, and references here about an existing officer's coat.  The black belts on black facing and plastron always blurs details but I think that the yellow lace shows the difference well enough for my purposes.  I am not 100% happy with my lace work, but decided it was close enough and experience has told me that fussing about with yellow on black just makes things worse.  There is a similar black on black effect with the helmets and crests, but I find that a wash effect on the horse hair shows a difference in texture to get the effect reasonably.

Great job Peter! It's always nice to see something outside the main tropes of figure gaming. What system are you basing these for? Black Powder? 

These eight New Yorkers will give Peter a base of 40 points but I'm adding another 8 for the modifications he did. Welcome to the roster Peter!

Dismounted French Dragoons of the 18e Regiment

I was going to post some of my first 1914 Brits in greyscale but I really couldn't face any more monochrome this week so I'm going to run with these lads instead - all in their Napoleonic technicolour glory.

This batch of dismounted dragoons have been patiently sitting on my workbench, mostly done, for nearly a year now. They came as part of one of the Perry plastic boxed sets. I have quite a few of these in the parts bin and thought I should get some more fielded so to be better able to play Peninsular skirmish games. 

From JohnM: 28mm Napoleonic Prussian Cavalry, 6th Neumark Dragoons and 4th Kumark Landwehr (240 points)

John sends in this excellent entry featuring two regiments of Prussian cavalry, the 6th Neumark Dragoons and the 4th Kumark Landwehr Cavalry.

All of these 28mm castings are from the impressive Calpe range of models.

I commented to John saying that I think he has his Army Painter technique perfected as these look beautiful (he gives a great tutorial at his site). John responded, elaborating:

'For the horses I use airbrushed Vallejo Brown Ink on a white base. I liked how they came out. I did vary the saddle cloth from regulation, it should be dragoon blue, but when I saw the red pinstriping on the black, I just could not resist.'

The lance pennants are from GMB and the colours are 'FlagDude'. 

These 24 cavalry will give John 240 points for the Challenge. Wonderful stuff, John, well done!

From KentG: 28mm English Civil War Cavalry (480 points)

Kent sends in this impressive entry of four regiments of English Civil War cavalry, 48 figures in total (!).

I'm not positive, but by the looks of them I believe all of these are 28mm Wargames Foundry castings.

There is one regiment of Cuirassier, two of Horse and one of Dragoons.

Again, such great quality matched with remarkable speed. I'm very envious, Kent!

This group will give him a whopping 480 points. Wow, bravo, well done Kent!

From Curt: 28mm Napoleonic French Dragoons, 18e Regiment de Dragons (240 points)

I've been plugging away at this regiment of French Dragoons since the beginning of the Challenge.

These are 28mm Perry plastics which I very much enjoy working with and highly recommend. At first it may seem a little daunting putting them all together, but once you get the process and a rhythm they assemble pretty quickly.

Their flash pink facings aside, 18th Regiment of Dragoons were very much a meat-and-potatoes 'working' cavalry regiment. In the early Empire period they participated in many of the major engagements (Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland) and then from 1808 to 1813 they saw hard service in the Peninsular campaigns.  They missed the Grande Armee's destruction in Russia, but were recalled to Germany where they were burned-out during the 1813 and 1814 campaigns for France.

This is the first time I've tried doing eyes on an entire unit...

I love painting Napoleonic cavalry but I find its the trumpeters that often make me 'snap my crayons'. Nonetheless, as French cavalry go, Dragoon trumpeters are pretty plain as they usually did not go overboard on reverse facing colours, gold braid, etc. but the ubiquitous chequered lace is always a challenge. Later this year I plan to do-up a Hussar regiment and I'm girding my loins for painting its trumpeter as those buggers' uniforms are insane.

While I was in the midst of assembling this lot I knew I would be running out of gas on painting Dragoon Green once these were done. So I broke down and commissioned my third regiment from a painting service. I hope to have that unit ready soon, touch them up ('cause I can't help myself) and base them to match this lot. Then I'll have a full brigade of the blighters, 72-figures strong, which should look the business arrayed on the tabletop.

Again, here's that loon Ney, leading the 18e and 1er regiments to Glory and some sticky end...

This unit will give me 240 points for the Challenge. Yep, if I did another ten like this I'd really be making Kent sweat...

Next up will be an assortment of casualty/unit stands, Norman archers and Anglo-Saxons.

Test Models: 28mm Perry Dismounted Dragoons

I assembled and painted these to get an idea of how they would look done-up as skirmishing models for both 'big battalion' games and the odd 'Sharpe Practice' dust-up. I think you get 8 in a box and I have about four boxes so I should be good for making a decent sized unit (assuming I don't go mad gluing my fingers together).

I used the same basic paint scheme as my mounted dragoon regiment so as to be able to depict them in their hybrid role as ground troops. I think I'm going to go back over these to dirty them up a little. They look a little too crisp and clean for my tastes.

Does anybody know of any good horse models that are 'at rest' that I could use for making up a horse holder stand? I thought such a stand would serve well as a rally position and a place where the regimental colours would be situated while the rest of the unit is dispersed to the front.

AND I get to chip in with another 3 points to the Challenge. Woo! (Cripes, talk about 'nickel and diming' to stay near the lead, eh?)

From Curt: 28mm Perry 1er Regiment de Dragons

Some might remember that some of these boys were featured in a previous post last autumn back when they were a unit of 16 figures. Well, I've added another eight to bring them up to a stronger 24-man regiment in order to face-up to Greg's Austrian Dragoons.

The 1st Dragoons had a long and distinguished career that extended through the Revolutionary period, the Republic and the Empire - right up to Waterloo (where, oddly, they were converted to lancers). One of their more notable feats was during the early part of the 1805 campaign where at Wertingen they cut up the Austrian Kuer Albert Regiment Nr. 3, took 6 guns and forced a Hungarian grenadier battalion to surrender. A good day to be a French Dragoon apparently...

These are Perry plastics which are some of the best figures I've ever built and painted. Lack of weight aside I really can't recommend them enough.

Dragoon green is bit of a fiddly colour as its quite distinct from other greens, and either you have the right shade or it looks completely wrong. After trying to mix my own (epic fail) I finally threw in the towel and bought the Foundry set of Dragoon Green (70A-C).  Foundry's 'paint system' has each colour spread over three shades: a dark-tone, a mid-tone and a highlight. For the most part their paints work quite well, give good coverage and have a rich tone which I quite like. I find that they have a bit of a satin finish but this can be managed with a good matt spray.

There you have it, a regiment done and another 16 points tucked away for the Challenge. With these lads I've managed to slip by JohnM to take the lead - but for how long can I hold before someone catches up?