1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 51) Brause´s infantry Brigade and the 2nd Cavalry brigade

 

The task continues with the building of the Prussian army for Waterloo. This post is about the conclusion of the II army of Von Pirch with the 7th Infantry Brigade of General Von Brause. The majority of the brigade arrived late to the battle, namely two of its infantry regiments and they are not here for that reason. In this post there are also the Hussars of the 2nd cavalry brigade and two Corps command stands. 

The figures are a mix of Hat and Airfix for the Landwehr; Hat guns and Zvezda Russian figures for the artillery; Hat for the Landwehr cavalry; Italeri for the Hussars and a mix of Hat and Zvezda for the Corps command stands. 

The Elbe Landwehr infantry are Airfix figures with the usual plastic broom bayonet to go along with the Hat Landwehr.

The arms of the Hat Dragoons had to be placed in a different position so they can use a lance and become the Elbe Landwehr cavalry. These two squadrons were supporting directly Brause´s brigade. 

Unfortunately these figures are some of Hat´s first with very small shakoes and not the most beautiful design. I think on these days Hat wanted just to complement what others were doing, namely the Prussian Revell infantry, and this before they became the biggest producers of 1/72nd scale figures ever. 

Horse artillery to the left and line artillery to the right. The figures are the beautiful Zvezda Russians with the shakoes and cords heavily trimmed. The guns are the much older Hat guns. 

The two small regiments of Hussars (3rd and 5th) of the 2nd cavalry brigade are all Italeri French with a bit of Greenstuff on the shako for it to look like the Prussian one. 

These two stands represent Von Pirch and Von Dannewitz Corps stands. The standing generals are Hat Opolchenie officers, with a ADC each converted from the Hat British command set and two horse holders from the Zvezda artillery. 

Next: more Prussians or the 1942 Dieppe pier

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 49) The 5th Westphalian Landwehr Regiment and some artillery

 

This Landwehr regiment concludes Tippelskirch brigade whose main line regiments were shown last week.

The figures are all Hat with a few old Airfix mixed in.The Airfix figures blend quite well and only the bayonet was added. 

Most of the Prussian Regiments didn´t carry flags and the 5th West.Ldr. most probably didn´t. Even so what is a Napoleonic unit without a flag? 

The artillery came from several sources: the limbers are Hat French Wurst system with some Evergreen parts for the triangular seats; the drivers got some Greenstuff in the shako for them to look Prussians; the gun is Russian Hat (the Prussian are the same) and the artillerymen are Zvezda Guard artillery with trimmed Kiwers.

Next: Kraft's brigade

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 48) Tippelskirch brigade

This brigade was made from 28mm hard plastic Hat miniatures turned into "20s", or kind of it. With the big Italeri figures in the middle, like the officer and drummer they play their part. The brigade included these  IR 2 and IR 25, this one from the famous FreiKorps.

The trick was to cut some 5mm from the legs, another 5mm from the musket and glue the bayonet back as these are hard plastic minis very easy to glue. The "en masse" look help to desguise the origin and the difference to an Italeri French unit is not that big.  Another thing that helps is the fact that these 28mm figures are far from the more widely seen and much bulkier Perry or Warlord being much slimmer and elegant. 

Another aspect that convinced me at having a go at this "downscaling" thing was that I built most of the French around Airfix French (big heads on these) and Italeri figures which in fact are branded 1/72 but are 24mm in height. So if ever they face in battle I hope these new Hat will face Italeri French (if they don´t it will be strange but what is done is done). 

I´ve seen worse... but don´t remember where. 

The IR25 was changed in order to have litewkas as uniform. The officer came from Hat Opolchenie box and goes pretty well with the bunch. 

The change can be made with Greenstuff but for this particular longer coats I found Superfine Milliput  better. 

Also added are these three batteries of Prussian artillery (two horse and one foot). 

The artillerymen are Hat Bavarian with their rolled blankets around the torso with new Esci and Italeri heads as the Hat Prussian artillerymen are some of their first dating from 1997 and a bit on the small side and too tall. But a funny thing that probably happened with these first boxes by Hat was that they tried to complement the existing ones from other brands and the Revell Prussian infantry must have had some influence on its design. 

Also from Hat came these old Prussian dragoons from 1996, again with small heads to go along with the Revell infantry. This is the 5th Dragoons regiment representing the 1st Cavalry Brigade. 

Next: more artillery and the 5th Westphalian Landwehr

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 47) Steinmetz brigade

 

The Prussians for Waterloo are an old love of mine. I´ve always enjoyed the simplicity of their uniforms and their performance in battle, even with Landwehr units making a good part of its force. My first atempt was decades ago while painting Airfix Landwehr and Esci Russians as Prussians. Then Revell brought real line infantry and a lot of boxes were amassed for the future, always afraid of Armaggeddon. Then cheap 28mm plastics from Warlord and Perry came up and many of 20s were given away to friends or the Revell ones became Russians, this time in opposite direction. Recently in my large exchange with TC I got many Prussian boxes that were increased in numbers thanks to Vinted. 

This first group is Steinmetz Brigade made of the IR12 (black reserve short coats) and the IR24 (grey coats). All figures but three are Revell. The flags are made up as most of Prussian units only got flags after Waterloo. 

The Prussian regular figures of almost all brands can give nice reserve infantry with short coats as the Prussian infantryman carried a lot of stuff on its back - bedroll, bread bag, ammo pouch and sabre - hiding the details of the back of the coat, something that maybe Revell thought about that and that may be a nice detail. So really no need for the Hat reserve infantry. 

Only the drummers, officers and flagbearers have the normal dark blue coat. In this stand the drummer is a converted Zvezda artillery Russian, the flagbearer is a Pavlov Italeri figure with new head and the officer is a Hat  artillery Bavarian also with new head. The first two got the bedroll in GreenStuff. 

These Italeri French Hussars became the 11th Prussian Hussar Regiment with GreenStuff added on top of the shako. 

Next: DaveM and Jeffers, two of my most dedicated followers will have round 3 of my failed atempt to convince them of the beauties of downscaling. 

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 46) Stubborn as a mule...

 

I´m not still done in trying to convincing you that the 28mm Hat Prussians can give reasonable 20mm figures. The work on shortening the 28mm Prussians continue but now I just saw how huge the muskets still are are they were also shortened. The way is to take around 5mm from the middle and re-glue the bayonet a bit down. Here the Hat figures are next not to the giant Italeri but with much more "1/72" Airfix line French and Hat Middle Guard. 

What I find nice in the Hat 28mm figures is that they have by far the slender bodies and smaller faces of all 28mm figures I had both in plastic and metal even if it was only Victrix, Perry, Irregular and Warlord. Its true that I received these guys by mistake but I on keep on thinking they can give nice 20 mm with these changes. The faces are the same size in all four figures even if the backpacks are bigger (as expected) in the 28mm figures. Of course if the correct 1/72 minis have been sent no (un)convincing propaganda like this would have been used :)

Half of the 60 figures of these 28mm Hat will go to the Freikorps dressed with litewkas. And this detail is important on applying Milliput on these figures as the backpack and particularly the sabre are detached from the body, something that will help as Milliput will be used to extend the bottom of the jacket. I thought about making the Freikorps from the Revell or Waterloo1815 figures but modelling the litewka on the waist of these figures would be complicated as it would tend to cover the sabre. 

Next: Steinmetz brigade now for real. 

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 45) Napoleon´s army at Waterloo

Next: more Prussians

 

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 44) Prussians have a go with a first and strange option

 

In the last few months I manage to get everything necessary to build Blücher´s army at brigade level. First I got plenty of unpainted boxes from the exchange made with TC, then I found a few more  boxes here and there and finally Vinted helped finding the last few boxes. In total some 30 boxes were gathered, Hat, Airfix, Italeri and Revell. 

Funilly enough I was quick finding all artillery and cavalry, exactly the opposite of what I was able to do in the previous 28mm Prussian army were Perry and Warlord cheap and available plastics filled quicky the ranks of the line infantry and the Landwehr. 

Even so there is a need of 306 figures for the Line infantry for this project (six figures in three ranks per stand) and only 280 were on the stash as I used plenty of the Revell Prussians for 1812 Russians. So a quick order from Aliexpress was meant to solve the issue: in their site there is a shop that sells sprues of 1/72nd Hat Miniatures that I´m used to order from. But sometimes I get the wrong thing as I believe the level of organization of that shop is the same of the friend´s football groups before Whatssapp. And this time it happened again: I got 28mm marching Prussians instead of 1/72nd scale, probably the only ones they have, but, also probably, they can´t distinguish the two sizes. On the positive side I was getting seven sprues instead of the six that were ordered. 

A few years ago I painted some of these marching 28mm Hat figures but with Perry plastic heads and the result was quite nice with these cheaper and slender figures standing pretty well next to the Perry and Warlord. The issue with these figures in terms of 28mm is the small heads (hence the usage of the much bigger Perry´s) which, on the other side are not much bigger then 1/72nd scale heads. So, by burning the feet of these figures you get what you can see on the pictures, figures that go along with some the large (oversized...) 1/72nd scale figures by Italeri and even Hat. Judge it by yourself and comment, please, as I need some (positive) comments in order to overcome this heresy.

Here they are with burned boots next to the Russian Opolchenie Hat officer (left) and the Prussian Line officer by Italeri. Obviously the 28mm are larger bulkier figures but even so, due to their small faces, the difference is not that much comparing to 1/72nd figures sculpted on the fatty and big side.

These conversions will go mostly to the IR25 FreiKorps as they were mostly young (and well fed) people. 

What say you? 

Next: Steinmetz brigade

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 42) The last French infantry brigades (Bony, Thevenet and Tromelin)

This a farewell to the beautiful Bardin uniforms as this post completes the last few three brigades for the French army at Waterloo. The brigade to the left is Bony´s and is made exclusively of Italeri figures; the small one in the middle is Tromelin brigade, the smallest in the entire army and is made of Italeri and two conversions from Hat; the last one to the rear is again Hat conversions with a few Airfix, Italeri and Esci figures. 

The Esci and Hat figures got new sabres taken from surplus grenadiers for the elite companies. The front Bardin details were simply painted. 

The Hat figures with the old long tails of the 100 figures box had their tails cut down to look like the bardin uniform. 

So around half of these figures got some sort of conversion for them to look Ok for the final battles of the Napoleonic wars. The lack of figures dressed in overcoats is due to the fact that I have no more, with this project having eaten 150 of them. Like this they look a bit too pristine but at least there are  a few brigades looking sharp on the shelves. 

Next: Napoleon´s generals

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 41) The last French artillery models

 

In the last few weeks I managed to find the last few artillery models for my French and that was made in old style model shops, my favourite way of getting our stuff. There were still six horse artillery of the line models and two line models to be made so the full French artillery at Waterloo can be complete at brigade level rules. 

The gun models came from Italeri/Esci and Zvezda while all artillerymen figures are the old Airfix with two Hat figures mixed in. The limber is Italeri. 

While all horse artillerymen had their backpacks taken out the line artillerymen had them placed in as you can see with the figure struggling to carry a shell. The colour of the French artillery was made mixing two parts of ochre and one of black as in real life the French artillery green was obtained. Like that you can´t get it wrong. 

The painting of one more line horse limber changed a bit the looks of the figures as the Guard and Line horse artillerymen was different.

Next: the last few Infantry brigades and a stand with the Man itself. 

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 40) The French Tissot, which were always on time, and Bellair brigades

These two brigades were based on the Emhar French infantry. These figures were made for the Peninsula campaign but are better for other places as they look too neat for the harsh conditions of the Peninsula warfare. But with a cut (or two) on the tail of the coat and the front red lines of the plastron lapels painted Bardin style you can have some reasonable late French infantry. Emhar is also good for this as the detail is very fine and not carved too deep in Esci style.  As usual there are a few figures with overcoats from Hat, a few from Kozak 3d and Esci, one from Odemars and one from Airfix. Not counting the Airfix and Odemars, all others go very well as a group as they have shakoes of the same size. 

Last week I got these Emhar figures from Paul´s Dublin Model Shop, an amazing small place in this beautiful city, a bit far from the center but worth a visit (or renting a room nearby, I wish). Here I also got a few more Hat boxes (French 1805 and the Wurst wagons) and a number of bags with figures (Waterloo1815 Sioux indians; Airfix Cowboys and the 7th cavalry and Italeri AWI French). The Sioux for example came in a big bag with 100 horses ( from Nexus which is much better ) and 100 horsemen for 20 euros, that means some 9 boxes total for a bit more than 2 euros each! My lack of Sioux horsemen for Little Big Horn is solved.  Paul bought a large batch of 1/72 from a closing shop, so large that he didn´t have space for everything. His solution was taking all figures from the sprues and selling them at discount inside small plastic bags. And there are still dozens of them pinned and hanging from the shelves.  

I also visited two other shops, the also very good Mark´s models and Banba Toymaster and got my hands on a few more Italeri French and artillery sets and some paints, solving definitly my issue with the lack of French to finish this Waterloo project. In total I managed to pack some 20 new boxes everything divided in small bags into the younger kid´s backpack (which went empty for a good reason), Ryanair oblige, together with a few Osprey Campaigns from Hodges Figgis, a hell of a book store. 

Here you can see the cut off  tails of the Emhar figures. 

One of the Emhar figures came with a broken rifle but he quickly learned how to play the drum. The flagbearer is Odemars. 

The Emhar figures have broad shoulders in Airfix style which is helpful if you want to turn them into elite companies by painting epaulettes. The only things you need to add are the sabres which came from old Esci grenadiers. 

Next: the last French artillery

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 39) The French Soye brigade

 

General Jean-Louis Soye´s brigade was sucked into the fighting at Hougoumont and spent a good part of the Waterloo battle around woods and trying to breech the wall of the farm. It was  a large brigade with 3500 men and is represented here by the 1e de Ligne with a total of 9 stands. 

The figures are the usual mix of Airfix (the majority of the figures); Hat in overcoats; Hat with 1808 tails cut to look like the Bardin uniform; Esci (some with new backpacks) and Italeri for the drummer and eagle bearer. 

Next: it depends on what I will be able to get in the next few days as my to-do French infantry and artillery is closing to zero. If I can´t get new French figures I will start the 1815 Prussians. Eventually If I get something that sparks my imagination, something totally different will be made. 

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