A Foray into Napoleonic Wargaming
Royal Horse Artillery
In a change of pace from painting various infantry battalions, next I tackled a troop of Royal Horse Artillery. The uniforms are largely similar to the foot artillery, distinguished by the fact foot gunners wore shakos, whilst the RHA gunners wore ‘Tarleton’ helmet and the tailless dolman in imitation of the light dragoons.
I used this image as a reference for painting. I find it is easier to pick one fairly representative image and stick to it, rather than worrying too much about counting buttons, even if other sources differ.The dark blue jackets made a nice change from painting red coats, and the variety of poses from the models means each stand naturally forms a little diorama.
There’s models from two ranges here, Campaign Game Miniatures and Xan. The crew mix pretty well, with the Xan gunners sporting a bread bag and water canteen that the CGM miniatures lack. The Xan cannon has slightly thinner wheels, but I think I prefer the gun carriage to those by CGM. All the guns were supposed to be 6 pounders, but there’s a clear size difference between the two ranges. Doesn’t bother me too much, I like the slightly non-uniform look.
I dry brushed some light sand paint over the wheels and bottoms of the guns as they looked too clean otherwise.
Will you be doing a Congreve rocket base?
Possibly. The rockets are a very characterful addition to a British army, so I expect I’ll add some at some point.
Gun carriages were often repaired when needed, so I wouldn’t worry about small differences. Same with the guns themselves; could be a captured gun of slightly different pattern or just a few production differences. I’ll tell you something, though, those things are a ballache and a half to move. 3pdrs are doable with one person, but an 18pdr gun took 8 or 9 of us just to shift a few centimetres! Great work, as always, @scribbs!
That’s exactly how I rationalised the difference in my mind. I’m not collecting a parade ground army, and these little things help give an impression of an army on campaign.