The 1/28e Légère: "Souham's Landsknechts"

Finally, a completely finished unit!  This one was only seven years in the making.  

The 1/28e Légère advances towards the foe.

We had another Black Powder game on the 23rd, which saw the 1/28e Légère make its debut as a full six-company battalion.  

The weeks prior to the game were a mad rush that saw me having to deal with a number of short-notice projects at work, a nasty flu-like viral infection, and almost all the housework as my wife has been working major overtime almost every night as accounting deadlines need to be met.  

On top of that, I was putting in marathon painting sessions that almost had me breaking the paintbrushes in frustration at slower-than-expected progress and stupid, medication-induced mistakes. 

But I managed to get a lot done despite everything.  I made major inroads on a light cavalry regiment, another artillery piece is well on the way to completion, and I was able to finish and completely base a six pdr. gun and of course the 1/28e Légère.

The voltigeur company rallies against circling Cossacks.  The fellow shooting wearing the colpack was a conversion, and the headgear was made of epoxy putty.  Of course, just after I did this Front Rank released proper light infantry voltigeurs wearing colpacks!  Ah well, at least it's unique.

The battalion in line.  

The 1/28e in column, proceeded by voltigeurs and supported by a 6 pdr. gun as Général Bouillon-Cantinat looks on.

I learned a number of lessons after painting these.  First, a black undercoat really speeds things up.  Secondly, paint the crossbelts first, and block in the colours around them carefully to save time and unnecessary painting.

Next time I'm going to tone down the contrasts a bit, and use a less varied palette for each battalion.  

When I started out painting the 1/28e I decided that it would be multicoloured as a result of campaigning and supply shortages- not to mention flagrant disregard for regulations by its proud and eccentric colonel, Col. H-P Debroullier.   All well and good, but using fewer colours will not only mean faster painting, it will also be less of a kaleidoscope to the eye.  For my next unit of infantry I want to work more on varying tones rather than varying colour.

Thus for good reason, the 1/28e will be given the nickname of "Souham's Landsknechts" by the other, more soberly dressed regiments in the 8e Division!

La Bricole recommissioned!

As some of you may already know, there has been a change of stewardship over at  La Bricole.  
 

La Bricole is a forum devoted to wargaming the Napoleonic wars, and has a small- but dedicated and very friendly- membership.

Over the past few months Iannick Martin, the forum's founder, has been finding himself with more and more demands on his hobby time.  By late December having to deal with a new job and various other commitments led him to the conclusion that he would not be able to keep on running the forum given the little time he had available, and that he would probably be forced to shut it down in the near future.  

On learning this, I offered to take over the management of the site myself, rather than to see it fade into oblivion.  

Iannick readily agreed, and as the old site was a real pain to use in many ways, we decided that this would also be a good opportunity to move the whole forum over to a more user-friendly format.  

So here it is!  You can find the new forum over at:

 http://bricole.46.forumer.com/

The emphasis at La Bricole has been on discussing Napoleonics very much from a wargaming perspective and with a love of eye candy in mind, but of course any contribution or question about the Napoleonic Wars would be welcome. We are a very laid-back bunch, with (so far!) none of the rancour that some Napoleonic discussion has seemed to generate.

Thanks to Iannick for his hard work with the forum over the years! It is much appreciated.

*****

So for anyone who enjoys talking about wargaming in the Napoleonic period, please feel welcome to come over and visit the new site.  We would be glad to have you participate, or even just to lurk there from time to time.  But of course the old saying still applies; what we get out of a discussion very much depends on what we put into it!

Hope to see you there.