Meanwhile Back in Spain

A status report on my Peninsula project shows 

• one battalion of 24 French line infantry painted and based and just need the bases painted and flocked; 
• a small unit of rifle men (5th btn 60th foot) less than half way painted; and
• lots of ambitious ideas for the future.

Actually not a bad start for the month given the distractions of planning the SSYO trip to Banff, being on the SSYO trip to Banff and then recovering from the SSYO trip to Banff!


I've been thinking about what and when I should be gaming.  Game-wise my druthers would be 1810-11 as this period sees a see-saw back and forth between French and British armies over the same terrain.  Add in sieges and subsidiary ops and there is a huge range of options for tabletop teaser type games.  Also, there's still he opportunity to model some of the foreigners in Napoleon's armies.  


However, figure-wise the intelligent move would be to look at 1813 with the short tailed and closed lapelled French jackets as this allows me to use the Perry plastics range (and metals too if the pocket book allows) straight up.  I would never doom anyone to play Joseph Bonaparte but  Marshall Soult put up excellent opposition after Vitoria.  !813-4 would still offer some teaser type games focusing on river crossings and mountains.  However, by this time the bloom was definitely fading on the Grande Armee and the flow of campaign was far more one way out of Spain and into France. 


So having discarded the intelligent option, can I still use the Perry plastics for 1810-11?  Here's some ideas.

1. French Infantry box - can be used as legere regiments in short light infantry jackets (painting in waistcosts), Poles, Hessians and the Young Garde.  Victrix boxes of course supply the "regular" regiments du ligne.
2.  French Hussars box - looks like it has all the head combinations to model any regiment from 1793 onwards with no modifications.
3. Cuirassier box - I beleive there were uniform changes in 1812 but these are largley hidden by the cuirass and horse furniture.  Therefore these can be painted straight up.
4. Dragoon box - the biggest problem as these have the short jacket with closed lapels while for pre-1813 I need the long tailed jacket with open lapels and wistcoats.  I'll need to see them in the flesh but the best option is likely to trim off the lapels and paint them in the short tailed surtout which was often worn on campiagn.  The other option is to paint the waistcosts in and ignore the lenght of the tails.