From RichardM - 6mm Napoleonics, Last of the Swiss, Spanish Marines and Militia (146 points)

Starting with the last of the Swiss that I planned to paint for the Challenge, this is the 3rd Swiss Regiment that joins the 2nd and 4th Regiments painted a few weeks ago.  I have two battalions of the 1st Regiment that also joined these other three regiments and fought in Russia but that is for another time.  I was reluctant to paint these as I felt that the black facings would kill the colours - but actually I quite like them.

As with all the other figures in this post and throughout the challenge, these are the wonderful Adler Miniatures Napoleonics in a notional 6mm size.

Then I have the lost unit from the 5th Regiment of the Confederation.  Keen readers will (may???) recall from my post on 13 February that I felt I had purchased the wrong figures for the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Confederation Regiment - and so I only painted the 1st Battalion from Anhalt at the time.  I did further research and the conclusion I came to was that the figures I had were correct - but from before they were sent to the Peninsular.  So I stole a French Line unit from the stash instead and now present the long awaited 2nd Battalion of the 5th Regiment from Lippe.  I do like the colour that they carried.

Next we are onto more Spanish - but different units than painted previously.

Firstly, I have three battalions of Spanish Marine infantry.  The Spanish had 12 battalions of Marine Infantry and they are certainly in the OOB for Talavera.  I decided to give all three battalions the Coronela colour as I was particularly taken by the burgundy colour.  Besides it is a good way of identifying them as different to other Spanish infantry on the tabletop.

Lastly for the week I have three battalions of Spanish Militia in the 1802 brown uniform issued to (some) Provincial Militia units.  There was also the 1802 Blue uniform and a white one issued in 1805.  However, there are records from mid-1808 of 22 Provincial Militia regiments and all but five were still wearing the brown uniform.  

Points

3rd Swiss Regiment - three battalions of 36 @ 0.5 points plus 2 mounted = 56 points

Lippe Battalion from 5th Regiment - one battalion of 36 @ 0.5 points per figure = 18 points

Spanish Marine Infantry - three battalions of 24 @ 0.5 points per figure - 36 points

Spanish Militia Infantry - three battalions of 24 @ 0.5 points per figure - 36 points

Total = 146 points

From Millsy:

I feel a bit like one of Pavlov's dogs with a conditioned response. Whenever I see "6mm" in a draft post my brain immediately responds "Good stuff, Richard has got his stuff ready for me". This may be something I am forever unable to unlearn, rendering that particular set of neurons good for nothing else. If that's the price I have to pay, so be it.

Cracking brushwork as ever mate. For some reason a lot of people don't like brown coats or bicornes. I love em both. 146 more points added to your already significant tally. For a while I thought I could keep up but you're pulling away now. Nice one.

Cheers,

Millsy

From RichardM: Spanish Guards, Cavalry and assorted regional troops (188 points)

All Spanish this week - and as with all of my posts these continue to be 6mm Adler Miniatures.  Flags are either home made (copied from images on internet and manipulated) or from Tiny Tin Troops in this case.

I'll start with two regiments (four battalions) from the Spanish Guard.  These are the Guardias de Infanteria Españolas (Spanish Guard Infantry) with their purple Coronela colour and the Guardias de Infanteria Valonas (Walloon Guards) with their Sencilla colour with a blue field.  

The Spanish Guard were initially under French command in 1808 but pretty quickly returned to the 'good' side of the conflict.  Various battalions (of which there were four in the regiment) fought at battles including Ocana, Medellin, Albuera and Badajoz.  The Walloon Guard included action at Bailen, Somosierra, Medelin, Ocana and Albuera.  

There is little to no difference in the uniform between the two regiments - especially at this scale.  However, for the keen eyed among you, there are a a few Grenadiers with their decorated flames on the bearskins in the command company bases.   

 

Spanish Guards to the left and Walloon Guards to the right

These are followed by three regiments of Spanish Heavy Cavalry - the 2nd de la Reine, 3rd del Principe and the 4th del Infante.  They have similar uniforms with sky blue, red and white facings respectively and saddlecloth trim varying depending on button colour.

Next are four battalions of Spanish Infantry in various uniforms.  From left to right in the first photo there are the Los Voluntarios Distinguidos de Cadiz, Regimento de Luarca, Voluntario de la Milicia Urbana de Zamora and the Regiment Muerte (Death).  The flags for these battalions are random ones I had on the sheet from Tiny Tin Troops (and one of them is upside down!!).  

Los Voluntarios Distinguidos de Cadiz

Regimento de Luarca

Voluntario de la Milicia Urbana de Zamora

Regiment Muerte

Finally this week I have two battalions of Spanish Light Infantry with their tarleton helmets and green jackets.  

If you're interested in the huge variety of regional Spanish Uniforms then the book I have used is amazing for inspiration.  At this scale I can get away with slight variations on the figures used to provide a close match to the uniforms worn, e.g. the top hatted figures are Austrians and the Light Infantry in their tarletons are early French Revolutionary

Points

Four battalion of Spanish and Walloon Guards each of 24 figures at 0.5 points per figure = 48 points

Three regiments of Spanish Cavalry each of 24 figures at 1 point per figure = 72 points

Four various battalions of Spanish Infantry each of 24 figures at 0.5 points per figure = 48 points

Two battalions of Spanish Light Infantry each of 20 figures at 0.5 points per figure = 20 points  

Total: 188 points

From Millsy:

Gasp! Surely it's not more 6mm Napoleonics from your Richard? You never cease to amaze me!

Cheap shots and sarcasm aside these are typically beautiful and painted as well as I could ever something equivalent at 15mm. Volunteers in top hats are something of a rarity and definitely worth calling out especially when decked out in snazzy red and yellow crimson and gold as Richie Benaud would likely say.

Top work as ever mate. 188 more points for your tally, once again composed of a LOT of wee men.

Cheers,
Millsy

From RichardM: 6mm Peninsular Napoleonic British Cavalry, Spanish Infantry and Provincial Grenadiers and the 'Canaries' (224 points)

A bit of a mixture this week - Spanish infantry, British Cavalry and a unit that I have wanted to do for nearly 20 years.

We'll start this week's work with the Spanish Provincial Grenadiers.   

These took some work to gather information on.  I had seen an entry for Provincial Grenadier Regiments / Battalions in a few of the early OOBs.   While all Spanish Infantry Regiments had Grenadier companies (which on occasion seem to have been detached and converged), these were something different.  There were some references in books and online, although they were quite brief and did not provide much uniform information.  Specifically I was looking to see what colours they would have had for their facings and hence their 'flame' bearskin bags.  I had read a brief reference to red facings - but still believed that would have been for just one province.  Then I read elsewhere that as they had been detached from the Provincial Infantry Regiments, their uniforms were simpler and all had red facings.  Searching also took me to this blog where I found all the satisfaction I needed.   So I was off... and four battalions emerged after a day's work. 

I know zooming small figures is not a good idea - but I spent over an hour on these flames and I wanted a record of it.  Unfortunately it is still quite hot here in Sydney so I needed to thin the white quite a bit to keep it mobile enough - hence it is quite faint.

Then a rinse and repeat from an earlier post - four more battalions of later Spanish Line Infantry with the dark blue British supplied uniform.

Next up are some British Cavalry with their uniforms for the Peninsular.  While I will share British line infantry between my Peninsular and 100 Day campaigns with a mixture of stovepipe and Belgic shakos in both, the cavalry did look noticeably different with bicornes and Tarleton helmets - so I decided to do both early and late uniforms.  Here are the 'heavies' - 3rd Royal Dragoons and the 1st and 4th Dragoons with their bicornes. 

They are followed by the 14th and 16th Light Dragoons with their tarleton helmets.

And finally a unit that I have wanted to do for close to 20 years since I saw it in 28mm and was struck by how different it looked.  I later read about it in Guy Dempsey's excellent book Napoleon's Mercenaries.  I will be honest though - it's place in this week's painting was pure greediness.  I looked at how many points I was going to get and thought it would be nice to get over 200 in at least one week of the challenge - so I looked in the boxes for a single battalion and this popped up pretty quickly.

They were called the "Canaries" in reference to their yellow coat colour and with that colour on a French cut uniform they could only be the Bataillon du Prince de Neufchatel.  They were absolutely in the Peninsular but are unlikely to appear on any of the OOBs for actual battles that I will fight.  They spent most of their time in the North of Spain in combat against guerrillas.  However, they were present at Wagram in 1809 (where it is believed they played a small part), in Russia at the Battle of Krasnoi and also in action on the last day of the Battle of Leipzig.  So hopefully they will get into action on my table in an historical refight at some stage. 

Points

Four btns of Provincial Grenadiers each of 24 figures @ 0.5 pts per fig = 48 pts

Four btns of Spanish Line Infantry each of 24 figures @ 0.5 pts per fig = 48 pts

Two regts of British Heavy Dragoons each of 20 figure @ 1 pt per fig - 40 pts

Three regts of British Light Dragoons each of 20 figure @ 1 pt per fig - 60 pts

Bataillon du Prince de Neufchatel of 36 figures @ 0.5 pt per fig - 18 pts

Total = 214 points

From Millsy:

Thanks for taking the time to detail the background for the provincial grenadiers Richard, it was absolutely fascinating and I promptly followed that link and kept reading. I'm unsurprised about where you found the info, that blog is a treasure trove of cool stuff.

I'm still processing the fact you bothered to paint ALL the grenadier bearskin bags. 96 of them! I'm not sure whether to congratulate you or organisation some sort of intervention. Either way it's worth another 10 points for the effort.

Another massive pile of wee men done and your tally boosted by another 224 points. Great work mate.

Cheers,

Millsy

From RichardM- Peninsular War 6mm Spanish and Dutch (135 points)

This weeks offerings are a bit meagre compared to prior weeks - a late start to the week's painting is simply to blame.

First up I have two regiments of Spanish cavalry.  They are the 3rd Almansa Dragoons with the blue facings and the 5th Villaviciosa Dragoons with the green facings.  I wanted to start with the Dragoons considering their yellow coats - the Spanish heavy cavalry are boring blue again.

Then there are 4 battalions of Spanish infantry in late war uniforms supplied by Britain.  They were supplied in both a light/sky blue and a dark blue colour.  Each had red facings apparently, although I have seen some (modern) illustrations with black facings also.  I intend to do four in total in light blue and I think six in total in the darker blue.  They do not represent any particular battalions - just too hard considering how the units and uniforms came and went on the Spanish side during the war.

Then I have continued with the Confederation of the Rhine troops that Napoleon used in the Peninsular.  This time it is the two Dutch battalions - one from the 2nd Regiment and one from the 4th Regiment.

With a lot of white uniforms to come - both Spanish but later and more significantly Westphalians and Austrians, I need to find a suitable wash or some other method to get some depth into the white uniforms.  

Points

Spanish infantry- 4 battalions of 24 figures @ 0.5 points per figure = 48 points

Spanish Cavalry - 2 regiments of 24 mounted figures @ 1 point per figure - 48 points

Dutch Regiment - 2 battalions of 36 figures @ 0.5 points = 36 points

Total = 132 points

From DaveD. Great to see more focus on this project . It’s always good to see people’s projects build up through the challenge period .Naps in small scale really allow that creation of armies and yours is looking mighty fine . I’m giving it 135 .