Neapolitan 2nd Line Regiment Regina

Continuing the painting of Neapolitan foot regiments serving the French in the Peninsular I have painted the second Neapolitan regiment. This regiment was raised on the 13th June 1806 as was the 1sr regiment Re. Eventually 12 line and 4 light infantry regiments wold be either raised or integrated from either the French or Italian army. Only five served in Spain and I do not have the information on exactly which did other than the 1st and 2nd Regiments that have been painted. As such I am painting up the 3rd through 5th. These three regiments were raised in 1809 so it is fair to assume they were raised to join the other two regiments that had been in Spain since 1808. Whilst I am planning on basing my army for the 1811 period I have an excellent order of battle for 1808 so will use this as a basis for building my army.

 

The drummers have their coats in full reverse of the facings and the yellow of the epaulets on all the troops clashes nicely with the green. These are quite a colourful bunch and I am looking forward to finishing off the other three regiments for a group shot.

 

You can see from this picture a little better how colourful they are. Neither regiment took too long to paint but somewhat longer than a French regiment (especially the lights). I have been working on the other three regiments at the same time so have picked up the speed a fair amount. If not for the hospital visit today, the VASL game tonight and the weekend at the Holiday centre I would have them painted, based and on here by Saturday at the latest. It did not help that between doing these and the last three I also painted up some lancers and started the work on the horses for the limbers of 4 guns. Such is the distractions of the wargamer!

 

Talking of which for those who are not into 6mm as soon as these guys are finished I will start on the pike phalanx allowing my Macedonian armies the option of two large blocks and more than the base minimum of 4 blocks. Once finished I will be able to field three small and two large blocks or six small blocks. Even after this though I will have another 60-100 pike figures to paint up at some point!

 

I also need to get cracking with the special sniper reminders, still waiting for one of the figures to arrive which should be any day but I have a firm idea of how the bases will look. I plan to cut the figures off their bases and pin them in place but need to get to the hobby store in town to pick up some ballsier wood that I can cut into floorboards. I could do with watching Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers for a look at French wallpaper ;-)

 

Talking of the mini series, just starting to watch the Pacific again and if that's not enough PTO Cath has had Tenko for her birthday and we started to watch that as well. Surprising the historical accuracy they achieved given the date of production. Maybe the producers of the BBC Robin Hood series should have hired the same guys.