Saturday 29 January 2011

The 1/28e Légère: "Souham's Landsknechts"

Finally, a completely finished unit!  This one was only seven years in the making.  
The 1/28e Légère advances towards the foe.
We had another Black Powder game on the 23rd, which saw the 1/28e Légère make its debut as a full six-company battalion.  

The weeks prior to the game were a mad rush that saw me having to deal with a number of short-notice projects at work, a nasty flu-like viral infection, and almost all the housework as my wife has been working major overtime almost every night as accounting deadlines need to be met.  

On top of that, I was putting in marathon painting sessions that almost had me breaking the paintbrushes in frustration at slower-than-expected progress and stupid, medication-induced mistakes. 

But I managed to get a lot done despite everything.  I made major inroads on a light cavalry regiment, another artillery piece is well on the way to completion, and I was able to finish and completely base a six pdr. gun and of course the 1/28e Légère.
The voltigeur company rallies against circling Cossacks.  The fellow shooting wearing the colpack was a conversion, and the headgear was made of epoxy putty.  Of course, just after I did this Front Rank released proper light infantry voltigeurs wearing colpacks!  Ah well, at least it's unique.
The battalion in line.  
The 1/28e in column, proceeded by voltigeurs and supported by a 6 pdr. gun as Général Bouillon-Cantinat looks on.

I learned a number of lessons after painting these.  First, a black undercoat really speeds things up.  Secondly, paint the crossbelts first, and block in the colours around them carefully to save time and unnecessary painting.

Next time I'm going to tone down the contrasts a bit, and use a less varied palette for each battalion.  

When I started out painting the 1/28e I decided that it would be multicoloured as a result of campaigning and supply shortages- not to mention flagrant disregard for regulations by its proud and eccentric colonel, Col. H-P Debroullier.   All well and good, but using fewer colours will not only mean faster painting, it will also be less of a kaleidoscope to the eye.  For my next unit of infantry I want to work more on varying tones rather than varying colour.

Thus for good reason, the 1/28e will be given the nickname of "Souham's Landsknechts" by the other, more soberly dressed regiments in the 8e Division!

8 comments:

Paulalba said...

Well done Robert,
And I thought I had it tough trying to fit in painting while clearing the loft in preparation for making it a modelling room.
Your French turned out really nice , look forward to seeing the light cavalry.
Cheers
Paul

David Dormvik said...

Seven years in the making but hopefully you will enjoy this wonderful unit many more years then that!
/David

Doc Smith said...

Really great work Robert - a fantastic -looking unit.

Cheers,
Doc

Ray Rousell said...

Blimey 7 years, when's the next unit due on the table????

Robert said...

Hopefully a lot less than that, Ray! In fact I've a couple more units well on their way now.

For much of that time I had been dabbling away on the 28th a bit here and there, but there was no rush nor incentive to get it finished as there were no real gaming prospects at all.

It is only in the last year or so that I have found myself actively gaming again- and even then Napoleonics were put on the back-burner while my 20mm WW2 Soviets got all my attention.

In the last few months Napoleonics have at last taken off at the club, so that it made sense to get them all finished.

Rafael Pardo said...

A very colourful unit at least!
Best regards
Rafa

Iannick said...

Great looking unit Robert, well done!!

Paul´s Bods said...

Lovely...you´ve got some cracking stuff to look at here.
Cheers
paul