Scots Guards finished

It has been a week since I last posted. Whoops! I meant to get more done, faster. But, it just didnt happen that way!

Anyway, here is what you really want! The 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards (Scots Guards) in their completed glory! Together with the Coldstreamers, they made up the 2nd (British) Guards Brigade, under Major General Byng. At Waterloo they were tasked with defending the Hougoumont farm, which is a very long story that I can't be bothered going into here!

I got these guys done over the past 3 days, painting about 8 per day. Not the most industrious, but not bad.

Here is their officer, looking far better than he did last time I posted! Yikes, these photos are dark. I do need to look into my photographing.

So, in keeping with my random Napoleonic anecdotes that seem to be proliferating this blog; on the note of Curiassers. Now, after the battle at Quatre Bras the 92nd Highlanders, after a long hard day of suffering through repeated cavalry and infantry attacks finally got a respite. They also got some steaks to eat. So, the story goes that French prisoners were being marshalled past Highlanders cooking steaks on the curiass of fallen French cavalrymen! Apparently they worked very well, despite the musket holes. The prisoners thought the Highlanders cannibals, further adding to their fearsome reputation!

Well, with the Guards done, I actually don't have another unit ready to paint next, so there will have to be some assembling done, but there are still a few more normal sized infantry units to finish......

CP

3rd Regiment of Foot Guards (Scots Guards)

Well, progress has been somewhat slow of late; but I have managed to do some serious assembling over the past few days!

Here is what is going to be my 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards (Scots Guards).

The regiment is made mostly of Perry plastics, but the front rank are the Victrix plastics. I have tried to give them the appearance that they are in square formation- or at least the resemblance of one. So the front rank are kneeling- the couple of chaps on the wings are taking cheeky pot-shots (possibly poor discipline...). There are plenty of Brown Bess muskets ready to fire behind, along with the officer dictating where the cavalry are coming from.

"Hey, guys, look! Look at that! Thats a horse that is! Shoot it!"

On that note, In my reading I came upon a pretty cool anecdote. The French heavy cavalry were known as Curiassers; due to the fact that they wore a metal Curiass (breastplate). Now, for those history buffs out there they know that Knights and armour fell out of favour and were superceded by the advent of Gunpowder (in the broadest terms). But, these Curiass equipped horsemen stayed! Now at Waterloo, these breastplates showed their worth, because what happened is yes, a musket ball DOES penetrate armour, but not if the ball is not shoved fully into the barrel of the gun. What happened at Waterloo (and I assume elsewhere) is that due to the need for such rapid fire, the British and German soldiers would only ram the ball halfway down, greatly reducing the muzzle velocity, meaning that the breastplate was highly effective!

Pity that the artillery still wreaked havoc amongst the cavalry and caused significant casualties.....

CP