From KenR - 28mm Garibaldi Red Shirts Battalion 5 (120 pts)

 

As I limp towards the end of the Challenge I've managed to scrape together another unit for my Garibaldi Project by finishing off a fifth Battalion of Red Shirts. A few quick snaps before I packed my bags for a week away with work and a few spare minutes in a hotel to get the post together.

No surprises for anyone who has followed this project, a 24 figure unit of 28mm Gringo 40s at 5 points a piece to give me 120 points so I can just get over 1,000 points, well short of my 1500 target. I've done this unit with linen trousers and used some Coat d'Arms paint I've had lying around for years to get a different effect to the other units. I've also done blue kepis with red piping which was used by some early units in Garibaldis Armies.

Back on the battlefield of Mentana the Papal Forces were some distance ahead of their French allies. General Kanzler commanding the army sent 3 companies of Papal Zouaves on a flanking march around the town of Mentana whilst the remaining Zouaves, the Carabineri Esteri and Legion d'Antibes formed up and after some brisk fighting the drove off the initial front line of the Garibaldi.

The Papal Artillery set up on the Monte Guarneri and with the French still not on the field the Papal Forces pushed on towards the main Garibaldi Infantry who were deployed in and around the walls of Mentana.

A ferocious battle began with both sides charging and counter charging each other and with the main Papal line engaged, Garibaldi tried to use his greater numbers to envelop the Papal forces.

With the French arriving and beginning to deploy the battle was in the balance.

So there we go, I hope to get one final post in before the end of the Challenge, it will just be a couple of figures on a Command Base but it will enable me to finish the story of the Battle and lay out the plans for the remainder of the Project.

Woohoo! I get to minion one of Ken's posts! I've been really enjoying watching this project progress. It's not a conflict I know a great deal about, so your history accompanying the posts has been very interesting.

Tamsin