Do you have a flag?

So, in spite of the chill in temperature, I managed to get the start of some painting done, and got some flags attached.

Here are the Regimental and King's colours for the 73rd Regiment.

And here are the colours for the Kings German Legion Regiment.

My flags come from GMB Designs, which I ordered from here. I paid about $5 per flag, plus another $5 for total postage. Overall, I am pretty happy with them! They require a bit of cutting to make them fit properly onto the banner poles; but it is really no extra drama. So I ordered enough flags to cover my whole army (the Guards, the 5th British Brigade and the Hanoverians), but I will do another order, I really think I will use them for my next force (probably frenchies...) as well as when I add more regiments to the army to make sure I can use it as a standard Infantry core, as well as Guards.

So, in short, I highly recommend GMB. They are on the expensive side, but... I am alright paying the little bit extra for quality, especially when flags are such a notable part of the unit!

In case you didn't know the importance of the flag, here is comedian Eddie Izzard explaining why the flags were so important!

CP

Finally...

It seems like it has been ages since I have finished anything for my British army, one whole week in fact! My productivity circled the drain this week and I am not entirely sure why. I had a few days teaching (3) so that probably cuts down my painting time combined with hockey, but I just haven't felt like it lately; and really did have to force myself to finish this unit off!

Here is my first Highland regiment, in it's full scottish glory!

Click the picture for a larger view as always.

Now, I said that they were going to represent the 71st Highland Regiment, but I have instead changed them to being the 73rd (Perthshire) Regiment. This regiment was where the Duke got his first start (the Duke himself being an Irishman...) before Wellington headed into the 33rd (known as Wellington's Own). The regiment was prevented from wearing the kilt in 1809, the reason being (or one of?) that having no kilts would encourage more Englishmen to join the regiment. I kept the piper in a kilt, because he is cool, and the officer has the very classy tartan trousers! Those tartan pants really didn't last long on campaign, so hence only the officer has them!

As for the history,

The 2nd Battalion of the 73rd arrived at the battle of Quatre Bras 1815 at a crucial moment in the fight, in which they lost 53 men killed and wounded. Two days later at Waterloo whilst serving with Major General Halkett’s Brigade of Lieutenant General Sir Charles Alten’s 3rd Division, the Battalion was charged no less than 11 times by French Cavalry as it stood solidly in square and was then fired upon by French artillery.

This is the guy that everyone wanted to see I think, here is the piper in a very very simplified tartan kilt! I might look at it again when I work out a better way of painting tartan when I tackle the 42nd Black Watch...

Painting them was alright, I just find that the Victrix don't inspire me as much as the Perry figures, so definitly my next regiment will be made from Perry. I think my second Guards regiment will be on the painting table next. I had better get to assembling, hopefully will have something to show off in a day or two!


CP

Victrix v Perry

Well, any blog about Napoleonic wargaming was always going to have to include a comparison between miniature companies, so I suppose this was a long time coming!

I managed to get some painting done today, not alot, just a few single miniatures. I then did a lot of assembling! Here is the comparison photo, on the left is a Perry skirmisher from the 29th company, and on the right is the freshly painted Highlander from the 71st Regiment of foot. Note that the Highlander has no kilt; because the 71st-75th lost their kilts in 1809; prior to the Peninsular campaign. They replaced them with tartan pants (classy!) which I will hopefully replicate on a couple of the soldiers (definitly the officer!). The story goes that the tartan pants didn't last long on campaign, hence the grey pants for this skirmisher! His headband should also be white/red checked, but I gave it a go, and it really didn't work. So, thats why you get the red! The highlander is wearing the traditional scottish bonnet, which may also not be historic but... meh, it looks cool! The head is from the Victrix Highlander Centre Company box, the bodies are from the Victrix Centre Company box. I copied the idea (shamelessly) from Dave Taylor, check it out if you want to see where my ideas came from!

Well, onto the comparison. I mentioned earlier how I thought the Victrix miniatures were a bit blocky. I thought my opinion might change when they were finished, but I am not convinced just yet! There is more detail on the Victrix models, but the execution is lacking- excess flash, flaky plastic.

It;s like... the Perry have less, but what they do, they do so much better. The poses and the faces are just so much more natural than the Victrix. Could you mix the two? I don't think I will. The Victrix will admirably do my Highland Regiments (there will be 3 of these!) and I will use some of the Victrix command units in combination with Perry. Victrix takes a lot of time to assemble too; especially given the excess flash....

Right, too many words, not enough pictures. Here are the fruits of my afternoon's assembling while I was painting the solo Highlander! I have these, in addition to the rest of the Highlanders to go along with the skirmisher!

The different heads come from the Victrix Centre Company box (plus one Perry head), because the ones that came with the artillery box are absolutely ridiculous! According to Victrix artillery crew spend all their time squirreling acorns into their cheeks, or at least thats how they were modelled!

In the background is another little extra for the army, not a unit per-se, but will be useful for game play!

Well done for reading that all, I suppose a good distraction from work? I promise more photos, less words next time.

CP