1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 38) More French Légère and line artillery

 

The 13e Légère/Schmitz Brigade was my last unit to finish D´Erlon corps. Also added are more line artillery with just four other artillery stands missing to complete the whole French army for the Waterloo battle. In a worse shape are the line infantry, with 4/5 brigades missing (counting here Tromelin brigade with only 2 stands), and the "worse" comes from the fact that I only have figures for one or two of these brigades. I hope in my next trip, next week, to find more "bread and butter" French infantry of the likes of Airfix or Italeri. 

Schmitz Brigade is made again of Hat 1805 light infantry with a few Hat coats. Some changes are mandatory and the left side plume was cut out and a small part of it was inserted at the the middle front. The 1808-12 cords are still there as cutting/erasing them would make a mess out of the shakoes, at least with my nowadays patience. Again, I like to think that, without acces to the new 1812 shako, these guys asked their wives or mothers to send them the older shakoes and that they arrived by La Poste express to the front lines :).

The cornet and officer are 3d Kozak miniatures.  

The artillery guns are Hat with the old but beautiful French Airfix crew. 

Next. more French, let´s see what

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 37) The French "Chaos brigade"

 

With this title I´m sure I´ve captured your attention. This group is meant to be Marechal de Camp Jean-Luis- Brue brigade represented here by 95e regiment de ligne one of the units of D´Erlon Corps. 

From this picture you can understand the "Chaos" term. This group was made from bits and leftovers of all possible origins: You can see many marching Airfix figures from the artillery set, some ex-Westphalians, all with new pom-poms made of Milliput; Esci figures with backpacks added, new Italeri, coated Hat and some figures with Zvezda heads. 

After painting the group is more or less homogeneous. 

I like the idea of old items of equipment and clothing being used at the 100 days campaign. Now read this story carefully as I will only say this once: In my last visit to France I found in a Bric-a-Brac shop  (antique shop) in Paris, on a place I was asked not to disclose, a letter dated 1st of May 1815, from Jean Menteur, a Grenadier of the 95e de ligne, to his wife Marie de la Tricheur with the following text: "Chère Marie, je besoin de mon plumet de grenadier...", well. as most of you read and write in English and have no idea what French is,  I´ll translate: " Dear Mary, I need my grenadier plume, as my shako has no pom-pom, please send it ASAP by post. Don´t forget the cords of the shako! From you husband who loves you. Jean". And here you have it, a living proof that the French used old items of equipment already phased out around 1812, still 3 years later! 

This story is one more total BS but serves to illustrate my aproach in the finishing the French for Waterloo and also a bit of despair!

The Grenadier on the rear right is a 1808-12 Hat figure. What I already did to some of them is to cut the tail of the coat so it looks like the bardin coat. Then at the front a different paint job makes the rest. 

Next: more 1815 French

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 36) The two last brigades of British finished (Adam and Pack)

 

Inititally I was thinking I had enough Scottish units with kilts due to the Bussaco units made and also that the 52nd LIR was already made. In fact when placing everything on the table for a video on Wellington´s army at Waterloo I realised my 52nd LIR had white trousers and there were not enough kilts in the shelves. So these two units were made quickly, the Scottish from Esci and Italeri figures and the 52nd from Hat figures. All command stands are Hat with the Scottish stand with heads from Esci.  

See the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbCZA4Gto4Q&t=943s

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 35) The British finished and some more French to keep them busy

 

Don´t know why but the 5th British Cavalry Brigade was not part of my original OB in the chart I´ve made for my 28mm Waterloo allies. In fact that is a big mistake as the brigade was heavily involved in the fighting at Waterloo, with Colquhoun Grant, Its commander, having five horses shot under him and 

a total of 31% casualties. Well, the mistake is corrected and another brigade of French infantry was also added. 

The 5th Cavalry Brigade is represented by the the 7th Hussars which is made of Esci figures and horses with plastic reigns. 

Only the horse of Lt-Col.Kerrison is Airfix due to the need of a pointy shabraque. 

Sir Colquhoun Grant uniform was based on AI information. I think we are dealing with the same guy that was a kind of spy during the Peninsula period (and also of Sharpe fame). The period portraits of the man show him in the typical scarlet coat but AI gave me the uniform of the 15th Hussars. Is it correct? The figure is Italeri fom the French HQ set.  

This French brigade is Jamin´s represented here by the 4eme Légère. The figures are converted 1806 French Light infantry by Hat from the exchange made with TC. The surgery consisted in cutting the side plume on the shako, drilling a hole at the front and inserting half of the plume there changing the plume to a company pompom. These figures are particularly nice for 1815 French light infantry as they are on the small size (as French lights should be) and they have the short back tails, Bardin style. I think these units were in fact the first ones to have short tails in the French Napoleonic infantry. I was lazy in carving out most of the sabres and thus this unit is mostly composed of corporals :) Regarding the front, a simple paint job solves the issue. There are also a few Kozak 3d prints, namely the oficer next to the drummer and the cornet in the voltigeur stand and some coated Hat figures. 

Next: a video on the allies at Waterloo

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 34) The British high command at Waterloo

 

This post concludes the Anglo-Allied army led by Wellington in the 100 days campaign. When I was making it in 28mm it was the smallest of the three but in 20mm is much more easily done as the variety of troops - British, Scottish, KGL, Dutch, Belgians, Nassauers and Brunswickers - allows for lots of conversions that in the smaller size work reasonably. The commander stands of the first corps and of the Dutch divisions were made previously.  

For this post was used the metal Wellington´s command by Waterloo1815, given to me by TC, and Italeri, Airfix, Waterloo1815 and Hat figures. 

Wellington´s command stand has (L to R), de Lancey, Uxbridge, the man himself and Picton. The figure of Ponsonby was placed in a individual stand as brigade commander and the Scottish officer in the box was not used. 

The tree is meant to be the famous Waterloo Helm, a good place at the Waterloo battlefield for observation were Wellingtons spent some of  time on the 18th of June. The tree was destroyed by tourists after the battle and some parts were taken to England from were at least one chair was made and sits nowadays at the Windsor castle: 

Even so I prefer the tree. 

Lt- Gen Lord Hill, commander of the II Corps, was made from the Italeri figure of Wellington with added plume according to the MSJ website. The ADC is Lord Hill younger brother, Clement. 

Now for the infantry divisional commanders (L to R): Cooke (1st Guards Division); Clinton (2nd Division); Alten (3rd  Division); Colville (4th Division);  Picton (again, this time as Co of the 5th Division) and Lambert ( 6th Division, in replacement of Lt Gen Cole who was fighting another far more interesting battle as he  was at his honeymoon). The Airfix officers got Hat bicornes, Cooke has no plume according to a famous portrait and the others had its plume burned for it to look closer to a General´s. I made no distinction between the Lieutenant and Major General as the differences in uniforms are extra gold in the former, something that at this scale I could not see properly - another advantage of 20mm :). 

The Cavalry Brigade commanders: Lord Somerset (Household Brigade); Ponsonby (Union Brigade); Dornberg (3rd Brigade);  Vandeleur (4th Brigade),  Vivian (6th Brigade) and  Arentchild (7th Brigade).  

In order to be sure nothing is left behind I generally make these charts were I tick with color what was already made. The red color was maybe at one fourth of the total when making all this in 28mm. Then yellow/green had to be used as the built went along in 20mm. 

Next: So much for this chart, only now I noticed the 5th Cavalry Brigade was not made and this one has to be next.