The Scots of Howard's Brigade - 92nd and 71st Foot

The new additions for the project are from British 1st Division. They are the two Scottish battalions of Howard's Brigade. The third battalion of this brigade is English, the 50th Foot (West Kent), is on the painting table.

All figures are Front Rank Figurines.

First up is the 71st (Highland) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry). This is one of the highland regiments that lost its kilts in 1809. The regiment's main uniform distinction was a stretched and stiffened highland bonnet - presumably it was stretched over a peaked 'shako-like' former. This former is described as being a little shorter than a shako and seems to be a little less angular at the top. 

Shortening all of the miniature's shakos looked like a lot of hard work. It would involve the removal (and then replacement) of plumes and cockades and endless filing down. I took the liberty to distinguish my 'headgear formers' from a standard shako by the simple expedient of rounding the top edge with a file.

The stretched bonnet is blue and retains the chequered headband. To emphasise the headband I made it slightly deeper (helped by not having shortened the shako) than it should be. This allowed me to paint the pattern much more clearly than I could otherwise. In this case I think that a little artistic licence has gone a long way to making this unit stand out at a distance.

Apart from the bonnet, this unit is painted as a standard light infantry unit. It comprises 24 figures (Front Rank Figurines) on six stands. This gives me the unit in close order but being a light infantry unit it can, historically speaking, become a skirmish formation. I could separate the stands of the unit to represent this but to my mind it doesn't look quite right, so I have decided on a compromise. 

I have painted a further 12 figures and based them on two pence pieces. 

For photo purposes this picture does not show the unit fully dispersed; it does give an impression of what my light infantry units will look like when deployed on the table in skirmish formation; there is a skirmish line of individual figures and a colour party. 

There are only 20 figures (not 24) but as I don't intend using rules that count heads this should not be a problem.

Next up, 92nd Regiment of Foot (otherwise known as the Gordon Highlanders). 

I have chosen to simplify the tartan by omitting the thin yellow stripe that passes through the centre of the green sections. I did this after finding it almost impossible to see.

 A close up of the colour party. Standards are by Flags for the Lads.

One thing I have found out about this regiment is that not all musicians are the same. Although the drummer is in reversed colours, the piper isn't. Of course I discovered this after I had already painted the piper in reversed colours, thinking him to be a 'musician', silly me. I repainted his jacket.

You might also notice that I cheated on the hose (socks). I have only painted the red stripe going diagonally one way. I noticed this had been done on the figures pictured on the Front Rank website. As you can only see a few 'inches' of sock, this is a very clever and effective little cheat. These figures took quite some time to paint, so every little cheat helps, IMHO.

As I said, next up will be the 50th Regiment of Foot (West Kent) to finish this brigade. After that I'm going to do a couple of cavalry regiments and then a brigade of Portuguese infantry to speed things up a bit.