RP No 162 WWI French Dragoons

Can't believe I've actually painted something!!!! Due to me changing not only my job but my career, you may (or may not) have noticed a distinct lack of newly painted figures on my blog, come to think of it, my whole blogger presence has been a crap, both posting and commenting!! Oh how I long for the old days....... Ah Fran???

Anyway on with today's post, with a little help from Von Postie himself (ok a lot of help), we, yes we, finally got our last order finished for Battleaxe Painting Service. Postie has officially retired, so Battleaxe is now done and dusted!!

Matt's last unit is a 27 figure French Dragoon unit, from WWI, the figures are a mix of Battle Honours and Great War Miniatures....... And we're a complete bitch to paint up!!!!

RP No 154 25mm WWI British Infantry & I won a prize!

My last entry into the Analogue Painting Challenge finally pulled me up the chart above my seemed to be favoured 19th place. With the 210 points Curt gave me for these figures, I've zoomed all the way up to 11th place!!! Which is believe it or not a damn lot higher than I thought I'd get. I know the challenge isn't finished yet, but I'm now hoping for a top 10 place, which will be tough going, but its what its all about after all!!!

The figures are more WWI British from both Musketeer and Battlehonours ranges. They were painted up for  Matt who's got some rather nice French lined up for me to paint next???

Battlehonours figures

42 figures in all....

And while we're on the subject of WWI,  I've got to say a big thank you to Phyllion. Over on his blog Diary of a Gaming Magpie, I won a prize!!

Unusual for me I know?????

The prize in question was this marvellous book shown on the left, The Forgotten Front 1914-18 The East African Campaign by Ross Anderson.
I've only had a quick flick through at the moment but, Phyllion recently did a great review of the book, so pop over to his blog here and have a read!!

Cheers Phil!!!

25mm WWI Bavarian Uhlans - from Battleaxe

Another regiment for Matt from Battleaxe, Postie painted the last unit of Uhlans, so it was my turn this time. These are 25mm Battle Honours figures, they definitely not as good a figure as the last unit, they have a lot less detail on them. These are painted a slightly different colour than the last unit as well,just to differentiate them both as they both have red piping. They represent the 4th Bavarian Uhlans, hence their blue and white pennon. I've got more British Infantry to paint up for Matt, these will be entered into Curt's Challenge, once I clean the buggers up, that is!!!!

Battleaxe - 25mm WWI British Infantry

A joint effort from me and Postie, I painted them and Postie cleaned, undercoated and based them! I'm not sure of their make, anyone know??
These are an ongoing painting project for Battleaxe, for a nice chap called Matt. He's given us a few more to paint up and sounds like he'll be buying some French too!!
These are the third lot of photos I've taken of these Brits, the first lot I accidentally deleted from my camera and I couldn't use the rest because they were rubbish, I'm afraid these are the best pics from a bad bunch.
The figures were a joy to paint, lots of detail and lots of raised edges for highlighting. Although I kept the highlights pretty subtle as they should be rather drab looking uniforms.
To all me fellow Analouge Painting Challenge comrades, you'll be happy to know, I've been slaving away gluing figures to horses and sticks ready for the 15th, its getting on my nerves now though, I've got approx 200 15mm figures in front of me and I can't paint them.............yet!
And lastly a bit of good news, my Secret Santa pressie arrived in the post the other day? Wonder what's in the box!!!!

RP No 145 NYW French Firmacon Dragoons

Here we go again, and there was me thinking I'd finished my NYW project! Damn you Mr E!!!

So here's my first unit of French that I've painted, two squadrons of French Dragoons for the regt Firmacon. And a colourful bunch they are too, this is the uniform the regt wore in 1685 and possibly up until 1692, when it was noted they changed their uniform to green faced green, that sounded a tad boring to me so even though the French army is based on units that fought at either the battles of Steenkirke in 1692 and Landen/Neerwinden in 1693. I thought it would look better in the earlier uniform.
These were made up of some of the unpainted lead that were part of the deal, when I bought the painted French. You'll note that only the 1st squadron has a drummer and the 2nd squadron has a leader in a floppy hat and the 2nd squadron standard bearer is actually a  normal dragoon with the carbine cut away and a flagpole replacing it,  ok I run out of figures, but that'll be sorted tomorrow at SELWG!
The flags are not by me this time, they're from the quite excellent Maverick Models, if you haven't already, check them out. I'll be using a few of their French Cavalry flags for the period, as its quite difficult finding any info on them.

 1st Squadron

2nd Squadron

Two squadrons of dismounted Dragoons

RP No 144 NYW - Jacobite Militia

Possibly and I do mean possibly my last unit ever for the NYW in Ireland. I've pondering the idea of an Irish Militia unit for quite some time now, and with the hopefully soon to be released Irish Campaign book for Beneath the Lily Banners (come on Barry, I'm waiting!!) coming out soon, they should be of use. This unit unusually for my troops has no name, it represents either a very hastily raised body of men or a very poorly equipped Jacobite Irish unit. 

As you can see the unit is entirely made up of hand weapons with no firearms at all. I was going to make them an all pike unit but as I had a few figures left from my Irish Rapparees, I thought I'd add them to the unit just to spice it up a little. For games they will be classed as an all pike unit. 

I'm not too sure if the Jacobite players will like to have this unit in their army, I can see it being used as support, you don't really want to push these chaps out in front! Mind you they may do a lot of damage to a Cavalry unit if they're daft enough to charge them, of course that's if they stand their ground and except the charge!!!

I did make a bit of a boo boo though, I should have made the flag more generic, then I could have used it for both sides. Its supposed to represent a Holy Banner taken from a church, I think its a little more Catholic looking than Protestant, so it'll probably stay a Jacobite unit!! 

Not sure if there's a glitch on blogger at the moment but my hit count has gone mental since my last post. BigLee's die roll challenge has had 2500+ hits since the 16th???? And in the last three days I've had over 5000 hits altogether?? Not that I'm complaining of course. Has anyone else seen a strange increase??
Ray

RP No143 NYW - Killiecrankie, Lord Kenmure's Foot

Lord Kenmure's regiment were raised by Alexander Gordon 5th Viscount of Kenmure on 19th April 1689. It was commanded in the field by Lieutenant Colonel John Fergusson of Craigdarroch. Most of its officer and men were Westland Whigs, but it seems that many Ulster Protestants refugees who fled to Scotland during the Londonderry campaigns filled the ranks as well.It contained approximately 600 men in 10 companies.
Its suggested as they were raised quickly they may have not been uniform's, so the men would have worn their hodden Grey coats, so I've chosen to paint the unit in hodden grey and with bonnets, but as you can see I've added a splash of colour painting the Officer with a bright red coat.
At Killiecrankie the regt were completely mauled, so in 1691 along with Glencairn's, Grant's and Menzies of Weem's Highland Independent company, were drafted into a new regiment, Col John Hill's, who would later garrison Fort William.
There is no info of flags carried for the unit, so I've given then a generic blue on white saltire and the Gordon flag I made for my Scots Flodden army for Alexander Gordon 3rd Earl of Huntley, here.