Three Baccus British Heavy Cavalry Regiments

I managed to paint these three in a day and base them the following day. Seem to have some of my old speed back. These are for my son's Peninsular army. Whilst they were there they actually did not really get involved in much fighting and when they did it was hard for them to actually get anyone to stand against them as the French cavalry by this point were in a poor state through lack of suitable remounts etc.

Front left we have 1st Life Guards and alongside the 3rd Dragoon Guards and at the back Royal Horse Guards, or The Blues as they were known.

Typical set up, nine figures in a unperfect line to suggest the start of a charge. 60x30mm bases with the sand and masonry paint mix dry brushed to give more colours and static grass and tufts applied. I really spoil that boy ;-)

Rear views, I really like Baccus as you can paint or ignore detail dependent on your style and it does not take that much effort to put together a fairly reasonable looking unit.

I still have plenty of figures left of Joseph's to add to his force. More infantry, light dragoons but need to get some horse artillery at some point.

These were prepped for the Analogue Painting Challenge I dropped out of not last year but the previous one so were well over due. I have manged to prep a bunch so I may have a reasonable run and quite a mix of projects.

6mm Adler Napoleonic British Redcoats

The Boy gets three more battalions for his Peninsular Army. This brings him up to a tidy force of infantry though I still have another battalion of rifles to finish basing up to add yet more punch. This leaves him in great need of more cavalry and generals to lead them. These I will fit in between doing his SYW French as he really wants these doing. I have painted up three guns and crews for him as he requested these first.

Back to the British, these were actually Lee's but when he counted up all he had he found out he actually had more than the British army so these were spare. So Lee being the decent chap he is gave them to The Boy, along with the yet to be finished Rifles and a number of skirmish bases. More on these in a future post.

The first battalion is the 45th Foot 1st Nottinghamshire who like all the regiments I am painting up for The Boy fought in the Peninsular. As I am not working towards any one battle not all the regiments will necessarily have been in Spain at the same time but it's enough for me that they did actually serve there.

The 32nd Cornwall is up next, all I have done is add the flags and base them so the real work has been done by the guy who paints a lot of Lee's Napoleonic troops. Indeed he has done such a stellar job that Lee not only has an excellent collection but is getting close to being able to field large armies for most nations. Now we just have to sort out a few games with some of them!

Last up the 36th Herefordshire 1st Battalion also sporting a green regimental colour. The flags are printed on a really nice photo paper that really folds nicely without showing creases making my job of winding them a lot easier. They are also a slight bit bigger than Baccus flags but not so much that they stand out on the table. I still have a bunch left so will continue using them whilst I have the right colours as they really do look nice.

As you can see the painter has done a nice job front to back. All figures except a casualty are Adler and suit the big bases we favour protecting them from too much handling. The casualty is another gift from Lee and is from the Baccus British casualty pack. 

I have had all last week off and even though we have gone out a lot I have managed to get a a reasonable amount of work done including another Prussian SYW unit and a first for a long time most of one of my 32mm Arena Rex figures, I should have him finished before the week is out.

6mm Baccus British Napoleonic Infantry

I continue to work away at my sons Napoleonic British, another three battalions that brings him up to a staggering five battalions. However Lee gave him three battalions of painted Adler line and one more rifle battalion so once I have these painted up he will be close to a respectable starting force. This means I will need to get a few more cavalry units done as well as his command.

The Baccus British Infantry are very tidy castings and the detail is very clear. Both these factors really helps get them painted up quickly.

Here is the 1st Battalion of the 9th East Norfolk Regiment, yellow facings and regimental colour. I have started painting from the low regimental numbers but in future will have to try and mix it up a bit or he will just have regiments in a strict number sequence. I will have to do the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire regiments though.

The 10th North Lincolnshire's 1st Battalion is almost a carbon copy also with the yellow for facings and standard. I have the skirmish screen set up a little different and the flags being blown behind so at least they have a few points of difference.

Last up is you guessed it the 11th North Devonshire Regiments 1st Battalion with it's rather snazzy green colours and facings.

Not that I think The Boy will be buying any more 6mm at Triples as he has a good stock of figures for me to paint up but he will be buying into a new period and scale, more on that in a future post.

Waterloo British by Baccus

In less than two weeks some friends will be at Donnington Park for the Derby Wargames Show and will be putting on a rather large Waterloo game. Fortunately I finished these figures a few weeks ago but did not get round to posting the results. I am just finishing off a few more rifle stands and command so will have these with Steve by this weekend, a whole week to spare.

First up the 95th Rifles, as mentioned above I have another three companies to base up as under the rules these will be used with they can break down to six skirmish bases. I think the British Napoleonic's are some of the nicer sculpts from Baccus and the Rifles are right up there.

When I took the pic's we were not having the best weather so apologies for the rather drab results. These were quite easy to paint though basing them in just two ranks was more of a challenge as they have four poses for the riflemen and two command figures.

I also had three Highland Battalions to paint up, this is the first Battalion of the 79th Infantry Regiment, Cameron Highlanders. Painting kilts in 6mm was certainly a new challenge and I certainly went for an abstract look though it turned out OK in the end.

The next Battalion was the 42nd Infantry Regiment, Royal Highland - Black Watch again 1st Battalion. All three Battalions have one skirmish base.

The bonnets were also a bit of a challenge and I skipped the chequered tops of their socks as a step too far. I actually had been fearing painting them but ended up enjoying the process.

Last but no means least is the 1st Battalion of the 92nd Infantry Regiment, the Gordon Highlanders. I would recommend to anyone put off painting up Highlander Battalions to have a go, in 6mm you can go to town or step back a few levels and in both cases still put together striking units, and lets face it they are some of the most elite troops you can field in a British army.

Something I had forgotten about the rules these were painted for was that skirmishers can be deployed from the parent battalion so one of the last jobs I needed to do was paint up a bunch of skirmish bases for all the other battalions I had already painted. Ended up being a bit of a production line with 24 bases painted up. 

After checking with Matt (a constant help with this project) I painted them all up as generic British rather than specific to the battalions as that is how the rest of the group field their skirmishers.

So with this batch the project almost comes to an end. Just twelve rifle figures and nine command figures were needed to represent the whole of the reserve corp and they are on the desk with the basing texture drying ready for the last few stages before I take them over to Steve.

Just one last big 6mm commission for Lee to finish before I just concentrate on my own figures for a month or two.

British Artillery by Baccus

These have been painted since last month but I never quite got round to getting them on the blog. These are part of a commission for a mate for his Waterloo game at the Worlds. I still have a few Battalions to do but they are next up on the desk as soon as I have finished a few units I have awaiting the basing, so not much longer to wait.

As it is part of the reserve corp he does not need much in the way of artillery. In his games one gun is a battery so he has more than enough with four guns. The rest of the batteries had their gunners removed from the corp and used for the delivery of powder to the other guns that were in action.

He also has two batteries of rockets, though these were neither part of the reserve or used in the battle. They will still of course be useful for other games.

They also came with the limbers though one was missing the carriage for the rockets. Baccus supply two rocket stands and two limbers in a pack which I think is as many as you would need.

Plenty of character though their use on the battlefield can be more pain than gain. Would be interesting to see how other rules make use of them as we don't have rules for them for our games and I know Lee has a set.

The Start of my Son's Peninsular Adventure

I have finally started my son's Napoleonic army, he of course wanted the British and what better than it being painted up for the Peninsular given the wide mix of units and uniforms for all sides. Lee is also busy with the Spanish so this will give all of us something to play with. All figures are again Baccus.

First up the 1st Battalion of the 5th Northumberland Regiment with green facings and the keen eyed may notice that the flags are blowing in the opposite way to how I normally do them, this is so they will match up to my flags flying opposite to them.

The 1st Battalion of the 6th Warwickshire Regiment, wearing the annoying yellow facings. I have also gone for less static grass and tufts as I want it to look a little more arid than all the Waterloo bases.

Both battalions together, not a big start but I wanted to at least get them started as I am not sure how much time I will have for painting in the coming month or two and Steve and Lee's figures get first dibs. Not that I only painted up the infantry.

Lee gave him a few guns and crews so I painted up three howitzers and three standard guns, but no cavalry yet. I have also painted up Steve's guns but not finished the limbers (that's tomorrow-ish).

Not the biggest commitment but then again the troops were drip fed into Iberia so I'm just being historical.