More Prussians

The last few days has seen me painting the final Prussian Line battalion consisting of Ros Figures and revamping four Minifigs S range Landwehr battalions.

First off we have the Ros line infantry, painted as 1813 -15 regular infantry, representing a West Prussian unit:

Next, I have four Prussian Landwehr battalions. Two are from the Elbe Province with light blue facings and the other two are Westphalian, with green facings:

I bought these on eBay many months (maybe years) ago and they have been sitting in a drawer waiting their turn.  The original artist had done a very good job, but they were scratched and some of the paint had yellowed.  So, I rebased them and touched them up.  Four very useful additions to the Prussian army.

Prussian Guard Grenadiers - Warrior Miniatures

I really am beginning to feel that I am closing in on the end of this napoleonic Prussian project. Having just completed another infantry unit I now have just two Jaeger Battalions and another line battalion on the work bench to complete. They are well on the road to completion too.

The latest addition is a battalion of Guard Grenadiers. These figures are by Warrior Miniatures and depict the guards in full dress, although I have given them grey trousers, rather than full dress white.
As with all Warrior figures they do not look very convincing in their bare metal state, but once the paint goes on they come alive and I really like them.

Prussian Reserve Infantry

To make a bit of a change from painting infantry in blue and grey I decided to have a go at depicting some of the many reserve battalions.  In the period 1813 - 1815 the Prussian army suffered from severe equipment shortages at a time when the army was expanding rapidly through the creation of reserve and militia units.  The result was a variety of uniforms in many forms and colours. As new equipment came in units swapped uniforms creating a mixed bag that was not sorted out before the end of the napoleonic wars. 

One form of dress is a plain grey jacket with matching grey trousers and minimal unit facing colours. My figures reflect two such units, although I have applied a little artistic license. First off, colours were banned from reserve units in 1813 and probably most units were not even issued any; however, there are cases were unofficial colours were reportedly carried by units. In my case the mothers and wives have produced unofficial colours for these two units, in a form commonly attributed to militia regiments.

Additionally, I think the officers should be dressed in blue standard Prussian uniforms - I have dressed my officers to match the men. All that said, I think they look OK, reperesenting the 12th and 18th Regiments:

Prussian Landwehr

Continuing the process of refurbishing and reorganising my Ros Prussian forces, I thought I should try to reflect the Reserve and Landwehr units. The Reserve is quite easy as the Ros line infantry can be painted to represent Reserves; however there is no suitable casting in the Ros range for the Landwehr. I decided to take a look at Warrior Miniatures as a possible alternative and as a test I have painted a single unit.

This unit is painted to represent one of the Silesian Landwehr battalions, with their distinctive yellow facings.  I realise that the flag may not be correct and there is some debate as to which units actually carried colours, which were banned from Reserve and Landwehr units from 1813. That said, there is some evidence that some units defied this directive.

Anyway, here is my Silesian Landwehr unit with colour, looking very smart indeed!

I may paint some more, in facing colours to represent each of the Prussian provinces.

Ros French Imperial Guard Grenadiers

My main effort for the last couple of weeks has been the refurbishment of my Ros Prussian army, however, as I paint with gloss paints there are periods when I am waiting for paint to dry, so I have a number of  'background' projects. 

Over the last week or so I have been dabbing paint on a unit of French Guard grenadiers and have given them a Ros command group. They are now finished. I rather like them as they look very determined:

Regarding the Prussians, I have six units on the work bench; three reserve battalions, two rifle battalions and a Warrior landwehr battlaion. I think that once they are all completed it will be time for a Spring Parade!

Yet more Ros Prussians

Another three battalions take to the field.  That's 11 completed so far. I will produce a picture when I finish the last units with the whole army deployed on the table:

French Staff Officers

Three French Staff officers survey the field.

The group includes Marshal Ney, a General of Division and an ADC.  They are all 25mm Minifigs and were a delight to paint: