A Foray into Napoleonic Wargaming

Since the King’s German Legion (KGL) represented around 20% of Wellington’s fighting strength, it would be remiss not to include some in my collection. In particular, I wanted some of the KGL light cavalry. Light cavalry were responsible for all of the reconnaissance and outpost duties. The KGL hussars performed outstandingly during the Peninsula campaign, and compared so favourably to the British cavalry, that, when they served together, nearly all of these duties were imposed on the former.

The 1st hussars in particular were well known for their quality in terms of both their effectiveness when undertaking picket work, as well as being a reliable and formidable opponent on the field of battle.

According to English custom, the hussars had no colours. I found different information regarding trouser colours, with some sources stating they should be white, whilst others showing blue with red stripes. I went with the latter as being a bit more interesting to paint.

The models are all by AB Miniatures.

The Gordon Highlanders were originally raised in 1794 by the Duke of Gordon, and were known as the 100th Regiment of Foot. Many of the original recruits were drawn from the Gordon estates. The early recruitment campaign was assisted by the Duke’s wife, who was said to have offered a kiss as an incentive to join her husband’s Regiment.

Renumbered the 92nd regiment in 1798, the Gordon Highlanders saw extensive action during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars – from the Netherlands, Egypt, Denmark and the Peninsular War through to the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815.

There’s a painting called The Gordons and Greys to the Front by Stanley Barkley, which captures an event at Waterloo, where some soldiers from the Highlanders clung to the stirrups of the passing Scots Greys so that they could reach the French troops as the cavalry passed by the regiment to chase down the scattering French. I think this incident seems to encapsulate the fearsome fighting spirit of the Gordon’s very well.

The regiment’s cap badge and motto come from the crest of the Dukes of Gordon, being a stag head surrounded by ivy. The motto ‘Bydand’ is a Scots word meaning ‘Steadfast’

The models are a mix, with the flank companies and command group by Campaign Game Miniatures, and the centre company by Xan. The colours are from GMB Flags.

Finishing the Gordon’s means I’m also done with tartan for a while. Next up will be some more cavalry.

The 71st were sent to Portugal as part of Moore’s army in 1808. After the retreat at Corunna, the regiment took part in the Walcheren Campaign in 1809, before returning to the Peninsula in 1810. It fought at the battles of Fuentes de Onoro, Albuhera, Arroyo dos Molinos, Alamaraz, Vitoria, Sorauren, Nivelle and Nive.

The 71st also fought at Waterloo in 1815, and formed part of the army of occupation in Paris.

The majority of figures are by Xan, with the command group by AB Miniatures. The colours are from GMB Designs.

Nice to paint some Highlanders and not worry about tartan, although I should now try and finish the Gordon Highlanders.

Whilst waiting for a couple of Highlanders to arrive so I can finish my Gordon Highlanders, I turned my attention to another Highland regiment, this time the 71st Glasgow Highland Light Infantry. Despite being a Highland regiment, the light infantry worn the same uniform as the other light infantry regiments in the British army, so there’s no kilts or tartan to worry about. However, they did retain a chequered hand band around their shako, as seen in the images below.

I’m quite keen to include the hand band on my models, as it is a great visual cue to the identity of the figures. There’s a slight problem in that no one produces figures with that precise detail (at least that I’ve seen), bar a lone piper model made by AB Miniatures. I had two choices – either simply paint the band on, or go for a much more fiddly option, and add the band in using green stuff. Under the influence of covid related cabin fever, I decided that the second choice was the one to pursue.

I started to regret that choice quite quickly, until I had worked out the trick in how to best approach it. I don’t have a huge amount of experience at using green stuff, so this was partly an exercise in practicing something new. I’m fairly happy with the outcome, although the proof will be after the painting.

A New Year, sadly not that different from the last. My plans for my Napoleonics are to finish up a few British regiments, and then make a start on some French. After all, you can’t really have Napoleonics without them.

I’ve made a start on a battalion of Gordon Highlanders, wanting to get this year off to a good start, but have hit a minor hitch in that I’m a couple of models short. The second half of the battalion are therefore on pause for the moment.  Instead I’m going to paint up a battalion of light infantry, and then I’ll switch back to the Highlanders. After those, there’s just some KGL hussars left for my current lot of British, and then onto the French.

Most of November and December have been spent on other projects, but spurred on by reading a book on the Peninsula War, I felt an urge to paint at least a few Napoleonics before the year finished.

I grabbed a pair of mounted British officers, both Scots to accompany my highland regiments. I was a little lazy and didn’t bother checking any uniforms, so chances are they don’t subscribe to dress regulations.

The 50th (West Kent) Regiment of Foot had the nickname of the ‘dirty half-hundred’, due to the dye from their black coloured facing running and staining their hands and faces.

The first battalion fought in the Peninsula at Vimiera and Corunna, where they bore the brunt of the fighting, holding off the French with repeat bayonet charges, and suffering heavy casualties.

After the withdrawal at Corunna, the 50th were sent to the Netherlands as part of the ill-fated Walcheren expedition, before returning to the Peninsula by 1811. They fought in numbers of the campaign’s major battles, including Fuentes Onoro, Vitoria, the Pyrenees, Nivelle, Orthes and Toulouse.

The models are all by Xan, barring the command group, which are from AB Miniatures. The colours are from GMB Flags.

The 14^th Light Dragoons (Duchess of York’s Own) Regiment served in the Peninsula from 1809 to 1814, and were present at a number of major battles, with their battle honours for the period noting Duoro, Talavera, Fuentes D’Onor, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Orthes and Peninsula. After the defeat of the French at Vittoria, which caused Joseph Bonaparte to abandon his baggage and royal carriage, the 14^th participated in a little bit of light looting. Most of the valuables were recovered by the British General HQ, except for a silver chamber-pot, which was retained by the 14^th and became part of the valued silverware of the regiment. This is also responsible for the regiment getting the nickname of the Emperor’s Chambermaids.

After hostilities ended in 1814, the 14^th Light Dragoons were shipped to America, and did not return to Europe in time to participate at Waterloo. Only three British light cavalry regiments served throughout the Peninsula campaign and through to Waterloo (the 12^th, 13^th and 16^th Light Dragoons).

The models are all by AB Miniatures, and are wearing the Tarleton helmet, which was replaced in 1812 along with some other uniform changes. As with all Napoleonic uniform changes, there was a transition phase before the new uniform was adopted in its entirety, and apparently, there was a particular reluctance to ditch the Tarleton in favour of the new shako.

Couple of notes on the details. The dragoons are sporting grey coveralls rather than dress whites. There’s a bit of conflicting evidence over whether the coveralls should have an outside stripe in red or the facing colour, or indeed a single or double stripe. I plumped for a single red stripe rather than matching the facing colour of orange. The officer’s sash is wrong; I was struggling to find good information on the colours, so painted it as if it was an infantry officer’s sash. It should be white with red braids.

Having got some artillery and cavalry completed, I think I’ll be working through some more infantry next. Thanks to the Event, I’ve been fairly productive with painting this year, and I’m aiming to get at least 200 painted models fully completed in 2020. Another infantry battalion will almost reach that milestone, and hopefully can be turned around relatively fast now I’m pretty familiar with the models and the colour schemes.

I’m just putting the finishing touches on some British Light Dragoons. I experimented with some different paint colours for the horses, so wanted to make a note of the schemes for future reference.

I had a bit of a read around the different colours of horses used by British for their light cavalry, and couldn’t find a definite answer, beyond trumpeters riding grey horses (to help them stand out in the field so their officers could locate them in a scrum and thus get their orders signalled to the rest of the troop). I’ve previously read somewhere that the different squadrons within a cavalry regiment had distinctly coloured horses, but couldn’t track it down again, and I had an idea that this was more a Germanic thing than British. I expect that any sort of distinction of horse colour by squadron probably would shortly dissolve during a campaign, as getting a remount of any colour was undoubtedly more important than visual niceties.

With hindsight, I’d wash the manes and tails with black instead of umber to get a darker colour, but I’m pretty happy with the end results. There’s a few more bits to finish on the riders before the regiment is ready for basing, but I’ll be putting them up as a next post soon.

A pointless fact to finish – the modern British Army has more horses on strength than tanks.

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.

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.

The Black Watch is my third finished infantry battalion, which is enough to form my first infantry brigade.

Having got one brigade completed, I’ve been planning what next to add to my Peninsula British collection. There’s two packages in the post bringing the next wave of miniatures.

The first is enough infantry for a second brigade, including a few more highlanders so I can paint the Gordon Highlanders, another line battalion and a light battalion. The second batch is some cavalry, namely a battalion of both hussars and light dragoons.

The final element to a rounded force is some artillery, and there’s already some Royal Horse Artillery awaiting assembly on my painting desk.

When deciding to put together a collection of Peninsula British, I definitely wanted to include the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment, more commonly known as the Black Watch. The regiment was awarded ten battle honours during the six years that it serviced in the Peninsula, with either the first or second battalion present at the majority of the most significant battles against the French.

The title of ‘the Black Watch’ can be traced back to the foundation of the regiment. In the aftermath of the first Jacobite Rebellion in 1715, militia companies were raised from loyalist Highland clans for policing and peacekeeping duties. These companies were commonly known in Gaelic as ‘Am Freiceadan Dubh’, or ‘The Black Watch’, due to the dark coloured government-issue tartan, and their role to “watch” the highlands. In 1739 King George II requested that four such companies should be raised and formed into a single line regiment. The Black Watch became the regiment’s official name in 1881.

The Black Watch had a different system of coloured company plumes to other British line infantry regiments. Centre companies had all red plumes, the light company had red over green, whilst the grenadiers wore red over white. The drummers wore another different coloured plume, being red over yellow. There’s no drummer in my battalion, but I thought I’d paint the piper that way regardless of historical accuracy, as it looks quite distinct.

All the figures are from CGM, flags are from GMB Flags. When it came to adding the flags, I found them to be too long for the poles. First time I’ve hit that snag, but I got around it by snipping the corners to fit around the hands and pole tops, leaving the main part of the flag unaltered. Not ideal, but I think it works okay.

Rather than cracking on with more Highlanders, I decided to get the skirmishers for the two completed infantry battalions painted up. I also thought it was time to sort out a proper officer to keep the rabble in line.

The skirmishing flank company are by Xan, and the officer is AB. First time I’ve tried some of the Xan miniatures, and they’ve got a nice degree of detail in the sculpts without going too overboard for the size of the figures.

Had a bit of a nightmare when painting the last highlights on the horse, but I think I managed to rescue it and the end result doesn’t look too bad.

No excuse to put off more Highlanders now though, so next up will be a battalion of the Black Watch.

Four bases of skirmishing Highlander flank companies completed, two in the colours of the Black Watch, and two Gordon Highlanders.

Step-by-step images are below to compliment a previous post that sketched out my planned approach.

Whilst it might be possible to go further with more detail on the kilts, I think this is a sensible end point for models of this scale.

The tartan was most awkward on the kneeling figure, which makes me glad that the 40 odd Highlanders I have to still paint are all in a marching pose, with a nice broad flat surface for the pattern.

Painting the patterns on the hat and sock bands was actually more challenging than the kilts.

With another dozen line infantry finished, my second British foot regiment has been completed, this time sporting the colours of the 24th, the 2nd Warwickshire Regiment of Foot.

Figures are from Campaign Game Miniatures, flags from GMB.

Well, I say completed, but I want to add a pair of bases to represent skirmishing flank companies, which I also need to add to the first regiment. But first I want to have a crack at some Highlanders.

I’m going to start with Highlander skirmisher bases. I’ve got some AB miniatures for these that I am really looking forward to painting. The plan is to paint four as Black Watch, and four as Gordon Highlanders, which will let me have a play at both tartan patterns I intend to have.

A quick post prompted by seeing AB Miniatures getting featured as Indie of the month in a recent Weekender. They do a fantastic Napoleonic range, and are great quality models.

One thing to consider is that they rank up a little larger than other 18mm ranges. I’ve got some Highlanders from a few different ranges, and thought it would be interesting to share how they compare size wise. As ranges have a limited number of variants for each pose, mixing between them is a great way to add some extra variety into your units. However it can backfire if the size of the ranges are too different.

All the figures above are straight out of the packet. The first pair are AB, and compared to the others they are noticeably bigger. Nicely detailed and proportioned though, and I’m looking forward to painting these up.

The second pair are from Campaign Game Miniatures (CMG), whilst the third pair are by Xan. The CMG models are slightly bulkier and taller, but you can probably mix the Xan and CMG within a unit without the end result looking too out of place. Differences in things like the size of the bayonets and pack rolls might be a little jarring if you are very particular.

The outlier is from Essex. AB, CMG and Xan are sold as 18mm, whilst Essex is 15mm. I prefer the proportions of the other models, but the Essex minis do paint up quite well. (Essex also sell sample packs of their different ranges, which is great to get a flavour of what they are like).

Progress on regular line infantry has been good, with a dozen of the lads ready for basing. I’m aiming to get the other half of the regiment painted for the end of the month.

I’ve also been planning how to approach painting tartan for the highlanders, as I’ll be tackling them once I’ve finished the line regiment. I’m going to have two highland regiments, The Black Watch (42nd regiment) and the Gordon Highlanders (92nd regiment). Before attempting the kilts on the models, I painted a quick trial on paper (also to act as a memory aid). Basically I want to achieve a relatively good approximation of the tartan that isn’t too time consuming or fiddly that works at 15mm scale.

For the Black Watch I think I’m going to omit the lighter Prussian Blue squares, and retain them for the Gordon Highlanders.

A summary of my intended paint schemes:

• Both patterns start the same way, with a base of Dark Prussian Blue.
• Next a grid of German Camo Extra Dark Green. Two horizontal lines will be appropriate for the scale of the models.
• At the intersection of the dark green lines, paint a square (more likely a blob) of Flat Green.
• At this point the patterns diverge. For the Black Watch a thin line of Dark Prussian Blue is painted over the green grid.
• A square (blob) of Prussian Blue is added between the green grid for the Gordons.
• A thin line of Sun Yellow is painted over the green grid.

Hopefully it will look good on the models.

A short first post to summarise where my collection stands at present.

I spent a little time last year planning on what exactly I wanted to collect, being drawn the most towards collecting a Peninsula British force. There are a large number of different mini ranges for Napoleonics in 15mm. After a lot of looking at various blogs and websites, I decided to use models that are more 18mm rather than ‘true’ 15mm, as I liked the variety and quality of minis at that size.

My first models were some British line infantry from Campaign Game Miniatures, painted as the 61st South Gloucestershire regiment. The flag came from GMB flags.

I was pretty pleased how they turned out, especially as a learning process on painting models at this scale.

I then had a slight digression away from British infantry after grabbing some French Cuirassiers from ebay. The models were again CGM, and were mainly an experiment in how best to tackle the horses. Again, quite pleased with the end results.

After the cavalry I returned to British infantry, this time trying my hand at some skirmishing riflemen. Figures are CGM once more. The green jackets came out a little brighter than intended, but I was happy with the finished look.

That takes me up to where I am at present. I’m currently working on a second British line regiment (24^th Warwickshire Regiment of Foot), with two lots of Highlanders to follow. I struggle with batch painting huge numbers at one time, finding it a little dispiriting even if there are greater times efficiencies. I have settled on tackling about 12 figures at a time as a balance I’m happy with.  I’ve adopted a campaign look for the infantry with mixed colours for the trousers, with helps with mixing up the batch painting further.

I’m aiming to post at least monthly updates to document the slow building of my collection.