Modeling and gaming in the Peninsular theatre during the Napoleonic wars.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
New Spanish Unit: Estremadura Regiment
My newest addition to my Spanish Napoleonic army is the Extremadura regiment. I wanted something with a little different color in the army and the deep red/crimson facings appealed to me. There's no spectacular war history with this regiment, just a good contrast to the otherwise dull white uniform. My picture taking isn't the best despite having a very expensive DSLR camera; however the black lining should be evident to the naked eye. I was unable to locate any references for the exact coat of arms on the flag for this regiment, so whose to say what is correct or incorrect? I didn't do the tiki striping of blue on the trousers as I don't know how it would contrast with the red facings. Takes nothing away in my opinion. Just as I was unable to locate any flag information specifically for this regiment, I was also unable to locate the proper design for the flamme of the grenadier's cap. I borrowed the design from another regiment. The designs tended to be similar just with some minor uniqueness according to each regiment. The figures are 15mm Battle Honors Spanish figures. The two officers and flag bearers are AB, as the bag of figures I got a deal on from eBay didn't have any command.
Nicely done!
ReplyDeleteThis is, once again, a very nice work! I'm sure this regiment will resist the french invaders!
ReplyDeleteBest,
Phil.
Phil,
DeleteWell hopefully at least they'll look good dying or running away. :-)
Excellent work! How do you find the challenge of painting white uniforms? I have some Spanish myself (old glory 15mm) to paint up.
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DeleteWhat I first did was to prime them black, as I always do. After that, I did the white for the coats and trousers. When I applied the white, I tried to allow for the black lining to stay around the straps and webbing. I did have to go back and do some touch ups on that, but wasn't long.
DeleteThe facings were easy to apply due to the fact they do not have piping like the French units tend to have. All in all, took about two days of off and on painting to do everything. I'm tempted now to try my hand at Austrians. I used to dread doing this, but not anymore.
I have only just 'discovered' your great blog, thanks to a link on Phil's. It's great stuff. You paint really well--as others have said, those white-coated units are tricky devils. I use black undercoating too (actually Payne's Grey).
ReplyDeleteI particularly liked reading your battle reports and reviews of rules that are on this first page of your blog (I have not delved any deeper yet!).
Rules are a 'horses for courses' proposition aren't they? We'd concur with your assessment of Blackpowder (good fun for a group game with limited time, but not really 'the ticket' for the sort of games that we like). We have not used Grande Armee, but from my reading of the mechanisms, which your review expands on further, it seems too stylised for our tastes. We are now pretty well entrenched with Shako ANF (our own version which uses original Shako as the basis with the 'good bits' from Shako II and our own rules and edits added in). For us Shako has the playability/realism balance right, the scale is good and it has some really good mechanics. I'd be interested to hear your assessment of Shako II. Topic of a future post perhaps?!
Thanks again, James
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DeleteHello James. Thanks for the compliments. Our group has quietly decided to put Black Powder away after more games of strange actions where blunders occur too frequently or orders are simply failed. I don't particularly mind command and control issues being focused on in rules, however I do not want it to the point of where it kills tactics and if I may say so, playability. We also keep finding ourselves flipping through the rules way too often as opposed to Shako II.
ReplyDeleteOur group has played Shako II for the last year or so off and on and my last two battle reports were fought using those such rules. In fact in several hours, I have another battle coming up using Shako II. I hoped to get a battle report up for this historical battle and if so, sure, I'd be pleased to write a review of Shako II to go along with it.
For me personally, Grande Armee is the grand tactical master piece. Weather is covered, time is saved by not fiddling around with numerous stands of troops, cavalry do not become steam rollers and command and control is important, but if it is failed, your troops still tend to do something, just perhaps not what you wanted. For me, it captures the real feel of being a commander without the risk of receiving a stray musket ball whizzing by your head. :-)
Ok James, it is up. Enjoy!
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