Napoleonic Madness

Well I can't believe it's been nearly a month since my last post. So just to confirm that I am still alive and though progress has slowed I'm still painting and gaming. On the painting table I have had a unit of French Chasseur a Cheval undercoated for at least a couple of months. I just couldn't face painting them. So much so I have been painting some very old medieval figures that I have had lying in a box for about 25 years.

Now one of the things that have always put me off Napoleonics is the over fancy uniforms, especially the French horse. They look great when painted well. So with madness creeping up on me I took the plunge, picked out a unit, the 1st Chasseurs and began painting. It has been slow hard work, normally it would only take me a couple of days to paint a WSS unit of the same size. These took over a week and that didn't include the basing. So here they are, not the greatest figures I've painted, but good enough for me. The figures are from Eureka.

1st Chasseurs

In column

Rear view

After painting these I realised that I hadn't posted an update on my Westphalians, namely the finished artillery battery. These are from Warrior Miniatures. As with the Austrian battery I have not stuck the gun to the base for ease when adding a limber.

Westphalian artillery

Westphalian artillery

While trying not to paint the Chasseurs I decided to use a piece of spare hardboard and made a field. I picked up the idea from one of the Wargames magazines (can't remember which). Using pieces of balsa to mark out the edge of the field I then covered the whole base with sand before sealing in with Floor varnish. Then on the raised edges of the field I simply added clump foliage for a hedgerow. Turned out pretty good.

Homemade field

Unit added for scale