New additions for the Peninsular

Although painting my own stuff has slowed a little, I'm making serious inroads into this project now. The French and Anglo-Portuguese armies each have eighteen battalions of infantry, four cavalry regiments, six guns with three limbers, and seven command groups painted. That's about two thirds of everything done and, what is more, my lead pile is (except for one unit of British cavalry) fully loaded and ready for the final push.

And, I'm getting pretty close to the point where I can actually press each army to a finish individually. The French are currently eight infantry battalions, four cavalry regiments, two guns and a handful of command stands shy of completion. The British have a few figures more to do.

The latest painted batch comprises two units of British infantry and two units of horse artillery, one French and one British.

Here are the two battalions of British infantry.

One (Coldstream Guards) appeared in the previous blog entry as the subject of my painting with enamels post and consequently I'm going to omit close up photographs of that unit as they already exist.

All figures are by Front Rank. Flags are by Flags for the Lads. Round bases are by War Bases. All figures were painted by yours truly using enamels.

My second unit of British guards is the 3rd Foot Guards.

Note that I managed to get the flag position right this time around.😊

They complete the eight units for the mighty British First Division.

My 1st Division (at over 7,500 men) will comprise eight units: Two battalions of guards (Coldstream and 3rd); two KGL battalions (1st & 2nd KGL), two battalions of Highlanders (79th & 92nd), a battalion of Highland Light Infantry (71st) and a battalion of British line (24th).

It was the biggest division in the British Peninsular army by some margin and had some of the most easily identifiable troops (all of the guards and highlanders).

Two guns and a limber for my French artillery park.

Horse artillery always has a certain panache and these French gunners are a particularly fine example.

At my 'divisional scale', where 1 battalion is fielded for each 1000 men present, artillery batteries will only be fielded as single guns, so two guns of horse artillery will be enough.

Should I have more limbers? Time will tell.

I've fudged the uniform for my French horse artillery train drivers as my sources differ greatly as to what it was. Some sources show fringed epaulettes others just a red shoulder strap; some show red lapels and collars whilst others show black sometimes piped red; some show a shako without a red upper band, others with. It was an unresolved  nightmare researching these guys.

As a consequence and with a gallic shrug, I've simply painted what I thought looked best / right.

British horse artillery.

The tarleton helmets make these fellows stand out.

Again my information on the drivers was incomplete and I only had a picture showing what they looked like from the front (in Funcken). Annoyingly, their uniform (as with French drivers) is very different to that of the gunners.

The lace on the back of the gunner's jackets had to be done free hand. I think I would have preferred it if this detail had been part of the casting, it would have made painting a pleasure rather than a chore.

So, there they are. The latest four units.

Next up: I'm going to do four units of French infantry starting with two battalions of Vistula Legion Poles (4th Regt.); and four light battalions for my Light Division, starting with two battalions of British Light Infantry (52nd & 43rd).

After those eight units are done, I'm going to make a push to complete the French part of the project. That will feel good!