AB Dragoons Update

Last year I made a post about an eBay auction I had won for a large group of unpainted French dragoons. It was a good deal even though I had four units of AB dragoons already. This represents my second brigade for Lasalle.

For many years my collection lacked enough dragoons to properly represent some of the large number of units commonly available in Peninsular War battles. I recently had the opportunity to field all eight of the units in my last Lasalle after action report. The division did quite well and looked impressive.

In this group there are two units with yellow facings. 3/4 of my original four units were red and so these additional two make three yellow and three red facings.

Here are the two units with pink facings. The pink is neat in that it is not as commonly seen in the French army. One of my future projects will be to paint some of the nice dismounted models available.

I believe they came out well and considering the huge discount of the auction, it makes this brigade more special for me. Painting and forming them into units instead of a diorama was probably the better choice.

Suggestions?

Recently I won an eBay auction for 57 AB French dragoons. Seeing how I've already constructed the units I need for the games I play, there wasn't a lot of purpose in me even considering this auction. I made a solid bid for about 2/3rds of the full price and managed to get it for even less. A real bargain if not a firm need for it.

Although no fan of "Digby Smith" or his biased writing style, his book focusing on cavalry engagements of the Napoleonic wars is an interesting read. I had an idea of doing a diorama scene perhaps against some enemy infantry forming up in a square. Since these dragoons are waving their swords as if charging, it seemed appropriate enough.

So I'm interested if anyone has any thoughts on what to exactly do with them? There are quite a few guidons to get rid of, but a firm 50 or so would be impressive in some sort of scene. Most of what I find (historically) isn't dragoons but of cuirassier or lancers doing some menacing of infantry. Perhaps against Spanish in a broken mob of a square? Open to any and all suggestions.

While I was away...

I received an email from a friend wondering where I had gone since my blog was so quite. As it turned out, I was busy with many things and got plenty accomplished for the upcoming year. After months of almost nonstop painting, I have about burned myself out for a while. The great thing that resulted from this work is that I have almost next to nothing I need to paint anymore and can just do what I want instead of what I need to play historical scenarios.

I needed a couple of replacement Portuguese units because I traded away some Essex Portuguese units that did not match my collection in either size or exact pattern of the uniform (they had the stove pipe instead of the Berretina that I preferred).

This now brings me up to seven units. Figures are AB. I may add more units so as to give me an excuse to play Vittoria.

Here are several wagons I've completed over the last several months.

The first two wagons clearly visible here are from Hallmark figures, with the limber crews from Old Glory. The hay wagon I found fun to paint and it painted up well. The second is carrying barrels which might contain liquors, water, gun powder or a variety of things depending on a scenario. I left it brown to reflect it was a requisitioned vehicle. I have some spare AB British limber teams that may also get to share this wagon.

The first wagon is also a Hallmark wagon with Old Glory limber crews. Having a lumber wagon to go with the two pontoon wagons just seemed like the natural thing to do. The pontoon wagons painted up well and it is unfortunate they are so long and will take up quite a bit of table space. Surely unique, as I didn't even know pontoon sets existed until I ran across the unopened packs from the 80's. Even being true 15mm scale, they fit right in.

Here are three British units I painted over the summer. There unit names escape me at the moment, but the figures are from Eureka.

I prefer the Belgic over the Stovepipe. Minor details really.

I believe they came out quite well. Poses are a little static, but I do prefer the march attack pose over the advancing pose.

Here are two more British units I painted during the month of November.

These two units I remember, this is the Herefordshire 36th Foot.

And this is the Sussex 35th Foot. This unit did not fight in the Peninsular Theater, but it did serve in Egypt, Italy and later at Waterloo. I love the orange facings, an uncommon facing color in the British army.

And last we come to the French I got to. Since I had some extra skirmishing voltiguers in overcoats from the first unit in overcoats I have, I decided to do another.

The infantry is just a generic unit, not so worried about making them anything in particular because you just can't tell! The sapper on the command stand I think adds to the visual appearance of the unit. In the background behind the infantry is Marmont and an ADC with maps and some confused Colonel scratching his head. I will use this is my refight on the Salamanca game as it fits in so well.

In the background, a couple of units of AB French dragoons are being lead by Murat and General Lasalle. Got both of these figures in a bag of Old Glory command figures and decided to paint them up because they are used in some scenarios and it's best to have accurate figures.