Napoleonic British Rifle Skirmishers

(Note: This post is from the first Painting Challenge, May 2011)
Well I dug deep and this is what I could manage to get done this weekend for the Napoleonic Painting Challenge finish line. The piece of terrain they are on is the Plowed Field from 'Architects of War'.

Here is a mix of 19 Foundry and Perry Riflemen that I've based up for skirmishing duty. I actually had 20 primed and ready to go but one forgot to decamp from the spray booth. He'll be written up for that...

Some of you may remember my moaning and whining about the ubiquitous 95th Rifles and so you'll be chuckling that this what I scraped up for my last entry. Below is my unit of formed-up Rifles which I've portrayed as doubling-out into line formation.

With this group of 19 places me at 124 points total. Nonetheless, after all that, John has still pipped me by 10 points! Congratulations John (you bugger)!

From JohnM: The Last Reserve for 'The Challenge' - The Old Guard

Well, here we have JohnM committing his last reserve for the Spring-Thaw Painting Challenge: and none better than the 1/1er Regiment de Grenadiers a Pied de la Guarde - Yes, The Old Grumblers, The Old Guard.

This excellent unit is composed of Victrix plastics, that has been white-primed, inked with Liquitex, drybrushed up and then given a brush-over with Army Painter Dark Tone. The mounted officer is a Perry metal casting from their Waterloo range.

Also included is General Ponsonby, ready to lead his Union Brigade to their destruction. This model is a combination of the Perry Halket figure mounted on a Front Rank horse. The combination works out very well I think. 

This group will give John a tidy 28 points which will give him a grand total of 134 points. A very respectable sum for three months of painting! Bravo John!

From Greg: 28mm Foundry Austrian 10th Hussars

As we approach the finish line for the Painting Challenge Greg submits the balance of his Austrian 10th Hussars. As they are shown here they are 20-models strong. Greg has been waiting for several months for the last package from Foundry to finish the unit, but alas it has not made its appearance so Greg is going ahead with the unit as is (the lonely trumpeter waits unbased on the sidelines...).

If you want to check out how he painted these lads check out this earlier post here where he worked out his colour scheme on two test models.

As those two horsemen have already been counted we'll add another 18 cavalry (36 points) to Greg's total. With this group done that puts him in the lead with less than three days to go in the Challenge! Bravo Greg - top notch work all around, my friend!

From Greg: 28mm Perry Napoleonic French Infantry

Greg had originally done these Perry plastics around a year ago as two separate units for Shako. This was his first foray with painting French (being a dyed-in-the-wool Austrophile). This past weekend he basically combined the two to form the equivalent of a 32 man unit for Grand Manner style games.

I could be wrong, but from a close look at the colours it looks like this is the 3er Regiment de Ligne who, except for Jena-Auerstadt, was present for most of the major campaigns.

In rebasing this unit Greg has begun to experiment in using long grasses and other foliage to ornament the unit. Looks very nice indeed.

From the Lead Archive: Old Glory 1:2400 Napoleonic Ships-of-the-Line

Since Sylvain is running an Age of Sail scenario this week (Battle of Grand Port) using his modified 'Trafalgar' rules I thought I'd reacquaint myself with the period by touching-up some model ships that I had in the 'Lead Archive'.

These are 1:2400 Old Glory models. They are kinda grotty up close, but at an arms length away I think they give a nice impression of the ships of that time.

I particularly like that they are one-piece castings, with the seabase, masts and ratlines modeled as part of the same sculpt. I purposefully over-exaggerated the colours and highlighted heavily to give the models more 'punch' when seen on the tabletop. The pennants are just thin strips of paper dipped in a white glue and water emulsion, wrapped around the mainmast top and painted.

The models paint up quite fast and I'd recommend them to anyone who wants to first dip in a toe with Age of Sail gaming before investing in more complex, expensive and demanding castings from manufacturers such as Langton or GHQ.