Sharp Practise - tidying up

   Painting Napoleonics has been a labour of both love and hate over the last couple of years but I am now at the point where I have two forces ready for a game*. I still have models left to paint** and I have no doubt that at some point in the, probably near, future I will put on my rose tinted spectacles and add another unit or two to my painting queue, but this is a good point to do a round up and work out a game plan.

*Plus models that aren't needed

**Looking at you Highlanders

   The first models in this post are a mounted British officer (planning on making him a captain) and a line sergeant, both from the South Essex, while the models themselves are from Front Rank. As this point in the project started to get close and I dared to plan my forces, I quickly realised that I was short a sgt and big officer for my British and obviously a captain wouldn't be caught dead walking on his own feet.

   Next up is a French 6 pounder cannon from Warlord games, with an extra crewman and officer from Front Rank. This was one of the first models I picked up for the project as it was a freebie thrown in when I bought my first box of French plastics from Warlord Games at Salute a couple of years ago. I suspect the cannon is a bit too green and needs toning down.

   I always like Skirmish type units, so with French Voltigeurs being so cheap in the rules I figured the only thing better than a single unit was two, plus that justified the Voltigeur officer I had already painted up. The bugler was because the model was too cool not to add.

   Like with my British, I came to the realisation that I was a tad light in commanders, be they sgts or actual officers. The sgt is a grenadier as I had nothing above a private for my two units and the officer is a regular line Lieutenant as my only officer classes were a captain and a Voltigeur Lt.

The full painted French force;
5x Line with capt, lt, drummer and 2 sgts
2x Grenadiers with sgt
2x Voltigeur with bugler and lt
Cannon with lt
Engineers and wagon

While my British are a bit lighter on numbers but are now at the point where they have;
4x Light infantry in line with capt, lt and 2x sgt
95th rifles with lt and sgt

   Now I just need to organise a game, get my highlanders painted and . . . I'm not crossing this project off just yet. I am also, painfully, aware that there are going to be uniform mistakes in these forces somewhere, it turns out that between not every model I bought being obvious on the exact uniform it represents (French Line from Warlord Games - are you pre-1812 or post-1812 etc) and my research not always giving me entirely satisfactory answers on the regiment itself's uniform means I have had to go with my instinct on occasions but with the aim of getting models on the table that are easy to work out from a glance what they actually are, I am pretty pleased with the result.

Thanks for reading