British Re-inforcements

Off the painting table today (well yesterday now) come five bases of infantry and two of cavalry. Whilst 2 bases represent a 'brigade' in TOTSK, I've chosen to paint each base or pair of bases as representatives of one regiment. 

One thing I've noticed that makes all the difference when painting these fiddly figures is to paint the hat lace. It needs a steady hand (I have shaky hands so I push my wrists into something like the edge of the desk) and paint of just the right consistency to flow on easily without going on too easily. It doesn't need to go all round the hat properly, and it doesn't even need to be in the right spot. Just the hint of a triangular shape will create a decent impression for the typical tabletop view. Another thing I could do is get some silver paint for the swords, musket barrels and bayonets rather than the natural steel colour I'm using.

So now the total musters:

2nd Foot Guards (Coldstream)*

11th Foot (later the Norfolk Regiment)

12th Foot (later the Suffolk Regt)

23rd Foot (Royal Welch Fusileers), 1 base only

33rd Foot (later the Duke of Wellington's (West Riding) Regt), 1 base only

42nd Foot (The Black Watch), 1 base only

Combined grenadiers, 1 base only (2 battalions in TOTSK)

Royal Horse Guards (The Blues)

2nd (Royal North British) Dragoons (The Scots Greys), 1 base only**

15th (Light) Dragoons (later the 15th, King's, Hussars), 1 base only

3 General/staff group bases

So a total of 10 foot and 4 cavalry bases (5 and 2 brigades respectively).

I plan to do four more bases of British cavalry next. I fact they should be done tomorrow. Then it's a toss up between Hanoverians or more French.

Update

A quick check showed that I had enough British infantry and cavalry done for Minden. Slightly too many in fact. So those two brigades of cavalry in red coats waiting to be finished would have to be Hanoverians. No wait a minute, they wore white coats. OK, French then. There were ten squadrons of Gendarmerie who wore red. That’ll do for one brigade in red then. There might be more, but I already have a bunch of red coated French cavalry. More checking needed.

So, wishing to crack on and do something, rather than spend more time checking what I should do, I painted up two bases of horse grenadiers as Regiment Raugrave who were also at Rossbach (but didn’t feature in any of my games as such). Job done, and glued to their bases with a coating of chinchilla dust for texture. Tomorrow should see the basing finished. Despite wearing bearskins I don’t think they were particularly good, just ordinary line cavalry not in tricornes.

I’ve got 30 squadrons worth of cavalry (six bases/three brigades) stuck on lolly sticks ready for undercoating. These will be the Hanoverian cavalry. Not sure if I’ll get these finished in the next couple of weeks though as I have a long work trip coming up. Time being sociable with the Margravina is important at the moment (the lady being particularly attached to your correspondent, much to his evident pleasure) so time available for marshalling one’s forces is at a premium. Affairs of state must be balanced with affairs of the heart.

* I couldn't make my mind up which of the three Foot Guards regiments to do, so I took the average and did the 2nd.

** I decided on a whim to convert an already painted base from the Horse Grenadiers to the Scots Greys and dabbed white paint on the horses at the last minute.

Blogger is having one of its glitchy spells again, buggering up the positions of the pictures.

Top down view of 33rd, and 12th Foot

The Royal Horse Guards. Bases to be completed

33rd, 12th, 23rd and Combined Grenadiers

11th Foot