A Lawless Man

The Irish Legion are slowly taking shape, so to hurry them on a bit I decided to press on and paint their commander, Colonel William Lawless.

Lawless was a professor of anatomy in Dublin and prominent Untited Irishmen. Forced to flee to France following the failure of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, he quickly came to the notice of Napoleon and gained a captaincy in the newly forming Irish Legion. He was a brave and capable officer and was appointed to command the regiment in 1813. After serving with credit at the Battle of Bautzen, poor Lawless lost a leg during the action at Lowenberg. The whole regiment was effectively destroyed just a few days later after it was trapped and cut to pieces by artillery fire. Lawless survived the wars but he died in Paris in 1824 at the comparatively young age of 52.

How it started.

My Lawless started out as a recast Hinton Hunt WN 15: Grand Duchy of Warsaw Fusilier Officer marching. I wanted to have a go at converting him because I really fancied a mounted colonel with a bicorne.

He needed a fair amount of leg surgery and whatnot to make him sit nicely on a horse, but he managed it in the end. I find these sorts of conversions a lot easier these days as I finally invested in a decent, variable-power soldering iron. I run this at about 30W, which heats the figure metal up quite quickly, ensuring rapid results and a good bond for the solder. Lawless got a new left leg, an epaulette on his right shoulder and a good straight scabbard for his sword using this method.

How it finished.

He towers a bit over his tiny wee DK soldiers, but I'm quite chuffed with him nonetheless.

Have a great weekend everyone

WM

Irish Update

The Irish Legion are going to be a fairly heavy-duty painting job, I fear, so to spur myself on I've completed most of the command group. I also have a mounted officer for them on the go but he's not quite ready for his photo shoot.

The Irish Legion seems to have had several flag designs over the course of its existence, but I think that this was the best one:

The officer and eagle bearer are Der Kriegspielers, with the officer being the DK version of a Hinton Hunt FN 74: Young Guard Officer, marching.

The drummer is a conversion of recast Hinton Hunt FN 6: (French Infantry of the Line, 1812-15) Drummer, charging. To convert him I soldered on a replacement DK 19 head and filed down his trouser bottoms to make it look like he's wearing gaters. I think he looks quite nifty.

Next up ought to be the rest of the Chasseurs. I thought I'd tackle them first as they're just a wee bit trickier than the carabiniers and voltigeurs.

Yours, as ever.

WM

Éirinn go Brách

I'm supposed to be catching up on my backlog of generals at the moment, but while I was aboout it I rediscovered the unopened Der Krieigspielers blister pack that I bought about nine years ago. The figures therein were 20mm Napoleoniques set #19: Young Guard Voltigeurs, engaging.

I remember being very excited about getting my mits on them, but was less than pleased when they arrived. As you can see below, Duke Siefried's idea of the YGV was to convert a Hinton Hunt FN 82: French Light Infantry Voltigeur, charging by sticking a YGV head onto it and then bending its legs in a really weird way.

I'd more or less decided they were a write off, but when I got them out to have another look at them I discovered that they're really rather maleable and all they needed was a firm thumb press to get them to stand up properly.

The obvious thing to do would've been to paint them as regular French light infantry, but I decided to go for something a bit more exotic. Presented below are my test carabinier, chasseur and voltigeur of the 1e Bataillon de La Légion Irlandaise, painted more or less as they're reputed to have appeared between about 1809 and 1812.

Why the Irish? There are lots of reasons, but I think the clincher was this picture of the Legion's 2nd Battalion by the late Richard Tennant, sent to me several years ago by Richard himself:

These exquisite soldiers live in the States these days with my good friend David C. I don't think I could ever match them, but I thought it'd be a fun way to round off the close-order infantry of my Phase 2 French Army.

More to come over the next few weeks.

WM

Edit [30/10/2023]

Following David's comment below, herewith are all the French Guard infantry according to the Der Kriegspielers/Custom Cast Napoleoniques catalogue of 1976:

This is a screenshot from the catalogue which was very kindly published by Chuck Gibke here: Custom Cast Catalog (1976) (vintagewargamingfigures.info)

The Dancing Soldier

I'm on a bit of enforced leave at the moment as we have covid in the household. We're all doing well, but the devil makes work for idle hands....

And, with a crudely added background....

WM

Dragoner-Regiment Nr. 2 (1. Westpreußisches Dragoner-Regiment)

The Soon Dragoons are ready to make their entrance, so without further ado, here they are:

And here they are again brigaded with the Garde du Corps. You can see why I thought they'd need a flag.

The figures are Hinton Hunt PN81: Dragoon, charging, x12. Nine of them are vintage castings (of which one, whose sword had broken off entirely, is now the trumpeter), and three (the officer, standard bearer and one of the troopers) are recasts.

I think I'm going to need at least one more Prussian heavy cavalry regiment to round off Phase 2. The question is: should they be line cuirassiers, or more dragoons? I think either would look rather dashing

I have a wee backlog of generals and whatnot to work through first, however, so I'll have plenty of time to think about it.

Regards

WM

Fizzy Drink Dragoon

The Soon Dragoons have turned into the Drag On Dragoons, I'm afraid. The good news, however, is that they are very nearly finished.

Herewith is their standard bearer, who gave me no end of trouble:

He was worth it though, I think, as I was able to sneak a little bit of pink into the regiment after all.

All being well, they should be ready fot their proper photo shoot at the weekend.

Best wishes,
WM

Soon Dragoons

Just a bit of an update.

I had a bit of time off this week, what with it being the King's Birthday and all, so some progress happened. Not as much as I'd hoped, but they're at least starting to look dragoonish.

In case anyone is wondering, that is indeed the famous Humbrol Prussian Dragoon Blue you can see there. I had to screw up my courage a bit because the last time I used it on some Airfix Landwehr in about 1978 they looked hideous. I think it looks quite good on the dragoons though. There was a clue in the name, clearly.

Have a great weekend

Yours
WM

Precious Prussians

For the last few weeks I've been preparing a regiment of Prussian dragoons.

Progress has been a bit slow, I'm sorry to say, but the conversions are finally complete and they all have their white undercoats on, ready for the kick off.

Part of the slowness was simply down to the rarity of these figures. About half of them needed sword repairs, and the three command conversions (the officer, standard bearer and trumpeter) were made from even harder-to-get recasts. The upshot was that there was little room for error, so I had to take my time.

I'm not entirely decided about whch regiment they are to be, so the initial plan is to paint their facings white (which is what I'd do in any case). If I like them like that, then they will be the 2nd (1st West Prussian) Dragoons. If I don't, then I'll probably paint their facings over in pink and turn them into the 6th Neumark Dragoons instead.

How quickly these get done will depend on whether I go travelling again next month. I feel great and my GP says I'm good to go, but my employers may take a different view. I'm hoping to find out in the next week or two.

Wish me luck

WM

Army Analysis

My apologies for the long intermission, but I've been away on holiday in the Deep South. Getting restarted on the painting table, however, has been a bit hit and miss. This will change, I'm hoping, as a result of a delightful visit from my friend Bill W, who came all the way from Oklahoma.

Bill wanted to see all the troops, of course, so I set them all out for him:

And this is what they'd have looked like if Bill had shown up in 1973:

And since you've twisted my arm, here's a slightly better colour shot:

This was very useful, as it happens, as it allowed me to see where I've got to and what the gaps are. Somehow or other I've managed to acquire 25 battalions of infantry, nine regiments of cavalry, eight batteries of artillery and about 32 command figures - or just shy of about 800 figures and models altogether.

The conclusions are: I'm going to need three more infantry battalions, three cavary regiments, four more batteries and a handful of colonels and generals to round off Phase Two; and that I really must paint the other half of the ping pong table.

Have a great weekend

WM

The Fifty Seconds

As promised, I present the 52nd, led here by Sir John Colborne, later to become the 1st Baron Seaton. He's Seaton on his horse now.

A couple of vintage Hinton Hunts, I'm pained to admit, were harmed in the making of this regiment. One of these was a BN 20: British Rifles Bugler, to whom I added some shoulder wings to turn him into a light infantryman

The second was Sir John Colborne's horse, which started out as an FNH 10: French General's horse, converted into a British Infantry Officer's horse.

And to finish up, here's what they look like with my other two Anglo-Hanoverian regiments. Some British artillery to go with them is looking a bit overdue.

The figures used for the 52nd were:

Hinton Hunt:

BN 93: British Light Infantry charging x 20

BN 90: British Light Infantry Officer charging x 1

BN 20: British Rifles Bugler, converted into a British Light Infantry Bugler, x1

FNH 10: French general officer's horse, converted into a British infantry officer's horse

Der Kriegspielers Napoleonique:

#154: British Light Infantry Command Group regimental colour bearers x 2, with a few modifications

Alberken:

BN 35: British light infantry officer, converted into a British Light Infantry colonel x 1

For those who haven't spotted it yet, Colborne is my new avatar. He was a Wellington Man, after all.

Happy New Year everyone!

WM