1813-15 battles in 20mm and for AoE and V&F - (part 23) Chevaux-Légers lanciers of the line

 

The Line lancer´s brigades were a structural part of each French Corps and were used at Waterloo in the famous counter attacks against the British heavies, the Union and the Household Brigades, which were completely shattered in a few minutes. Here the lances proved much superior in combat against the sword. 

From front to rear you have the 2nd regiment (representing Gobrecht Brigade), 4th regiment (Wathiez), and 6th regiment (Colbert).  

In order to make these three brigades I never thought about the ones available in the market, Hat and Waterloo1815, as I have too much stuff in the stash which I could convert. Initially, I thought about Polish lancers from Esci with heads from the Italeri Carabineers. But then, after looking carefully at the Italeri Carabineers I found them a good base for the final result without any need for the Esci Lancers, making the job easier.  

What you need to do is:

- to shave the top part of the boots;

- shave the front part of the cuirass (still not done here in the right side figure);

- cut the swords, twist with heat the arms in order to receive the lance;

- shave the shabraque cloth and only leave the sheepskin to be shown.

Don´t forget to leave two figures with the epaulettes for the elite company. 

Only the horses of the officers came from the Esci lancers as you need the pointy rear shabraque. 

The flags were not used by these regiments and left at the depot but they always look great in Napoleonic units. 

The 2nd lancers had cornets with the blue dolman which was kept from previous campaigns. The figure to the right is firing his mousqueton and keeps his lance in a small leather bucket on the right stirrup and by a leather sling over the shoulder. 

Another good reason for using the Italeri carabineers as the basis for the Line Lancers is the almost invisible cuirass, particularly at the back. 

The 4th lancers had cornets with the later green uniforms.

The 6th lancers had the famous officers with red trousers and an even more spetacular Czapka on his cornets. 

Next: Maybe the British heavy cavalry at Waterloo

1813-15 battles in 20mm and for AoE and V&F - (part 22) Chasseurs à Cheval and Lancers of the French Guard

 

This another useful group to have for Napoleonic wargaming. The uniform didn´t change for years and all of them can be used up to the Waterloo campaign. You just have to be careful with the Polish lancers which started to carry the lance at the end of 1809 and the Dutch lancers in 1810. Even so you can use all the three units along the Russian campaign, the 1813 campaigns and the 100 days campaign, without change in uniform. The Polish Guard lancers were just a squadron at Waterloo but making 5 squadrons allows for the other campaigns. 

The Chasseurs à Cheval are Revell from  a nice and rich box that includes 17 mounted figures plus a dismouted one. 

The only conversion of the group was the making of a standard bearer from the figure with the sword at the front.

The Polish and Dutch Guard lancers are Esci from their 1985 box but even so a very nice box with very detailed figures as usual with Esci. 

The problem with these Esci figures was some memory problems of the designer who forgot to place reigns on the horses and saved on the lenght of the lance. Here you can see plastic (you can also use wire) pieces for the reigns and an alongated lance of 4cm when the original is only 3 cm. The trick is to cut 0,5cm from the original, glue the shaft to the hand and then to glue a 1,5cm piece of plastic to the back of the hand, making 4cm lances. It´s always better to try to sit the rear of the lance on the horse for sturdiness. 

The flag bearer is a conversion from the figure with a sword. 

The trumpeteer of the Dutch lancers is Zvezda while the other is Esci. The Zvezda box is a far superior product but with the two tricks of the reigns and alongated lances you can always improve the Esci figures. Regarding Esci, don´t forget to glue all horse´s legs to the base as they tend to be unbalanced. 

Finally I painted General Michel of the Foot Chasseurs guard division, a Waterloo 1815 figure that I got half painted from TC. There is still a debate around who said the famous sentence "La garde meurt mais ne se rend pas" between Cambronne and Michel. The known truth is that Michel was killed leading the charge of the 3e Chasseurs and his body is most probably in the big mass grave at Mont-Saint-Jean. 

Next: a return to Vietnam

1813-15 battles in 20mm and for AoE and V&F - (part 21) Bauduin´s Brigade and the French Guard Horse Artillery

 

These two were not that much close at Waterloo. The 2ème Légère fought around Hougoumont mostly (part of the 6ème Division of Jerôme Bonaparte) while the several batteries Guard Horse went along the Guard Infantry in its final attack late in the afternoon. 

The artillery is made of Esci and Zvezda guns (some with Airfix barrels); Zvezda caisson and Italeri artillerymen. The driver of the caisson was later exchanged by the Zvezda one as no colpack equipped driver was used in this unit, even if it would look damn good!

In fact these figures are good enough up to the 1812 Russian campaign as after this campaign the uniform changed and left the Hussar type only keeping the colpack. The Hat uniformed officer with colpack came from the voltigeur box and enters here as a "transitional" figure. Maybe in the future I´ll make this unit again using Esci artillery bodies with Hat colpacks for a proper 1813-15 unit. 

The 2ème Légère was the biggest French regiment at Waterloo with four battalions. Like this I broke the unit into two battalions, the first (with Eagle) made of Airfix and Hat figures and the other ( 3rd battalion, red fanion) with Italeri and Hat figures. The only addition was made on the Airfix figures which got bigger pompons made of Milliput.

Next: Vietnam or more French Guard cavalry

1813-15 battles in 20mm and for AoE and V&F - (part 20) The Royal Horse Artillery

The British RHA and the HA of the KGL (same uniform and guns) were present with 11 batteries at Waterloo. They had a big impact on the battle, like the action of Mercer´s guns in front of the Brunswick squares, and also look nice on the table due to the flashy uniforms. 

Around half of these guns were already beautifully painted by TC and only the guns were repainted in a lighter color. The other half on this picture and all others thoughout the post are freshly built and painted. 

All 6 and 9 pdrs have Airfix crews with most of the guns coming from other sets like Esci and Revell. The great Airfix set has the most complete artillery set ever produced, at least until the arrival of the Zvezda French and Russian sets. Included you have figures that, when placed correctly, made my normal artillery stands (5cmX4cm) too small. So I cut the bases with an extra square of 1,5cm in order for a spongeman or a handspike man to fit while doing their task.  

Three RHA battery commanders were added. 

The Hat Congreve rockets offers four small tripods and four wheeled boxes for transport. While searching for this weapon the one firing the rockets from ladders looked the coolest of them all. In order to produce these ones you need:

- ladders (these ones were taken from a cheap Chinese fire truck);

- wheels, rockets and the central shaft from the original box;

- large tripods made from plastic tubing;

- small plastic boxes to the side of the wheels. 

The four stands here are Ok for Leipzig, which was the largest gathering of the system during the Napoleonic wars land battles, while at Waterloo only one rocket section was used. 

Even if quite cool, this ladder was not used at Waterloo, being used mostly during sieges like Copenhagen and Boulogne. At Waterloo this system was fired from the small tripod and even from a bank of dirt but the ladder system looks more imposing. 

This one from Mark Adkin´s Companion is another possibility but there is no frontal image of the thing which made me not to make it.

The howitzer battery of Major Bull is also represented here. I used a surplus Bavarian carriage as you need a double-trail carriage for the elevation of the howitzer.

All the guns and rocket systems were pulled by the same limbers. Airfix makes this old but still nice system. Some of the Airfix drivers were kept aside and replaced by Revell ones (sporting the new late coats) as they will be used for French guard horse artillery. The limber to the right has a figure converted from the vent man foot figure that is now giving orders to everybody even if having a severe back pain!

Next: more French

1813-15 battles in 20mm and for AoE and V&F - (part 19) The Belgians arrive

 

In fact they arrived, but while the Belgian Line Infantry fought valiantly and suffered large quantity of casualties at Waterloo (the 7th got around 250 casualties), Trip´s heavy cavalry wandered in the edge of the battlefield even if it had clear orders to attack. Together with Cumberland´s Hussars, Trip´s heavies didn´t perform as expected and entered into the page of shame of the battle. 

Trip´s 1st Carabineers started its life as Peninsular British dragoons lovely converted by TC from Esci Scots Greys. The bicorne was made in some kind of paste and cleverly attached to the heads of the Esci figures. 

The 2nd Carabineers were painted straight from the box of Italeri French Carabineers. Only some file was used to erase the detail of the front cuirass, as these ones didn´t use it. Fortunately the Italeri Carabineers don´t have large cuirasses and thus they look ok just with a paint job. 

The valiant 7th Belgian Line Infantry stands here for the entire Bylandt Brigade. The figures are mostly Hat Belgians that started their life as Portuguese infantry painted by TC. The jackets were already dark blue and just had to be slightly toned down and the cuffs, collars, backpacks, weapons and belts were already in the right colors. Only the trousers and some minor details were repainted together with a new flag. 

Here are the three brands that contributed to this unit: a flag bearer from Hat; drummer and officer from Italeri and a NCO from Airfix.  

Next: British RHA at Waterloo

Able Archer/ RFR rules - Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022 in 20mm (part 16) - Ukrainian SU-27

At the beggining of the war in 2022, the UAF had around 32 serviceable of these potent if relatively old fighters. At least 20 have been lost and, as no one has these fighters in Europe, receiving new aircraft or parts is impossible. Even so they are still at use, with some having been modified to fire western weapons like GBU-39 bombs, HARM missiles and JDAM gliding bombs. 

This 1/72nd scale model came from Aliexpress, without any brand being mentioned and its a companion to a SU-25 shown here some time ago. 

The model comes cleverly painted and is made of blocks that fit very well. A bit of super glue makes all parts bond easily. In fact its the digital camouflage that made me leave my Italeri model inside the box and turn to this much better and quicker to build option. 

The only added part was a plastic pilot. 

And the only paint added was the complicated UAF emblem. The stand was also painted and textured as it came in black plastic. 

Next: the Belgians at Waterloo

1813-15 battles in 20mm and for AoE and V&F - (part 18) 3rd batch of French Line infantry

 

Two more brigades of Line Infantry for the French, Pégot and Aulard for a total of eight up to now. Some of Airfix figures were already painted by TC, while other Airfix and Hat were painted by me. The only extra piece in each figure is the pom-pom on the shako which was enlarged on the Airfix figures with small blobs of Milliput. 

I prefer to paint the greatcoats in one color - blue grey - as it looks to have been the most common. Like this I think the units get enough diversity, but not exaggerated.

The two officers and one drummer are Italeri and two of the eagle guard were nicely converted by TC from the artillery set with the help of Hat guidons. . 

Next: Trip´s heavy cavalry

1813-15 battles in 20mm and for AoE and V&F - (part 17) Imperial Guard artillery reserve (Napoleon´s "Beautiful Daughters")

 

These three batteries of the reserve Imperial Guard were big 12 pdr guns of terrifying power last time used at Waterloo but already with a deadly record at Wagram and Borodino, just as examples. In fact this group is intended for Waterloo but is a mixed bag: 

- the artillerymen are using the white gaiters, which were no longer used since 1813, just because they look nice;

-  General Drouot is here still a Major and this is how he was uniformed at Wagram;

-  the limber drivers are still using the uniform of 1812.

Drouot is the Airfix French officer with a Hat bicorne increased slightly in height with gel superglue. 

The limber is Zvezda and comes from one of the best boxes in the market, the French Foot Artillery, a box filled with marvellous miniature figures, 3 guns, a limber and one ammunition wagon. 

One of the artilleryman is in fact a Grenadier (Esci conversion) as the Imperial artillery had plenty of help from the Grenadiers and Chasseurs during many battles as these last ones didn´t like to stay iddle. 

The guns and crew are Esci with one of the 12 pdr barrels coming from the Zvezda set. 

Next: more French infantry

1813-15 battles in 20mm and for AoE and V&F - (part 16) 1st Infantry Regiment of Nassau

 

If you want to avoid trouble making converted Nassau infantry like this you can go to two boxes of Hat: one is the older Lutzow Freikorps & Nassau grenadiers, which gives nice Nassau figures with colpacks, and the more recent and larger set of 100 figures of exclusive Nassau figures.

I have none of them as I my Waterloo was entirely 28mm. Besides I have excess Italeri new French which can give very reasonable Nassauers. 

Some changes need to be done to produce voltigeurs and grenadiers. The voltigeurs were made from Hat figures with cut down shako plumes and coat tails as you can see to the left; the grenadiers are new Italeri with Airfix heads over 50 years old but nice for these ones. Besides using Hat or Italeri figures you are somewhat right as the uniform is mostly French influenced as the typical waist coat shown in many period images was discarded in the last adopted jacket. In both these boxes the buttons need to be carved out as all Nassauers only used them at the middle. 

The centre of the flag was handpainted on top of a Dutch print with two lions. 

Another interesting feature of the Nassau infantry was their waterproof covered white shako and (at least in Haythornthwaite Uniforms of Waterloo) also white covered cartridge boxes. MSJ1815 only places the 2nd regiment with shakos on the grenadiers but I like these with colpacks as this is a typical Nassau thing. 

The Hat voltigeurs had several coats of wood glue on the shako plates and cut out cords. 

The Italeri/Airfix grenadiers only have these two poses due to the sabre and epaulettes but the end result is reasonable. 

Next: Napoleon´s "Beautiful Daughters"