Friday 27 May 2016

3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards

3/1st Foot Guards was commanded by Lt Col Stuart and was in Maitland's Brigade in the 1st Division under Cooke.  It also detached its flank companies to Hougoumont.  The Battalion is shown here in the white cotton drill trousers worn by all Foot Guards at Waterloo.  The figures are the usual mix of Revell, Esci and Hinton Hunt with many conversions.

An Art Miniaturen figure rests on his musket


The officer is am Emhar conversion.


An Esci Austrian conversion

A conversion from the Esci Zulu War British 

An Imex ACW conversion.


The mounted officers are RSM and Newline.  The officer in front is Imex.




Hinton Hunt mounted staff officer with message.


Two Strelets officers




The whole square.  The drummers are Italieri.






I thought I would show all four of the squares I have finished so far. 21 to go!









Thursday 26 May 2016

1st Battalion 27th Inniskilling Regiment of Foot


1/27th were part of Lambert's 10th Brigade in the 6th Division. At about 6:30 PM, the French captured La Haye Sainte.  They then brought up several cannon and subjected the Allies to fire at extremely close range. The  698-strong battalion was deployed in square at the point where the Ohain road crossed the Brussels highway. By the time the French withdrew, the Inniskillings had lost 105 killed and 373 wounded, a total of 478 casualties, the highest of any British unit at Waterloo.  The unit was described as "lying dead in a square".

The pictures show an earlier point in the day.  The figures are again a mix of Revell, Esci, Hinton Hunt and conversions.


Two officers in the foreground - one Der Kriegspieler, the other 20:20, a short lived firm.



The officer is an Imex conversion.


The Colour Party are Hat

The drummers are Esci in the rear rank and New Line in the front.









Monday 23 May 2016

1st Battalion Grenadier Guards


1/1st Foot Guards was in Maitland's 1st Brigade of Cooke's 1st Division.  The battalion detached its flank companies to Hougoumont at the beginning of the day but the remainder stood in square against the French Reserve Cavalry attacks.

The Foot Guards at Waterloo wore summer campaign order - shakos and white cotton drill trousers.

The 1st Foot Guards are shown here in square - the figures are mostly Revell and Esci with quite a few conversions in the front kneeling rank.  The third rank consist mostly of Hinton Hunt which are nicely compatible.  

Colour Party, with drums and pioneers in front.  The drummers are mostly Revell with a couple of Hinton Hunt.  The Ensign carrying the Regimental Colour is a 7YW conversion.


Revell officer


Waterloo 1815 and Hat mounted officers.


Four ranks


Revell close up, with some Call To Arms.






Rear view


Strelets officer



The full square



Corner shot



There are 350 figures in the square.





Sunday 15 May 2016

28th (North Gloucestershire) Regiment of Foot

have been working out how best to put my infantry in position without attaching them to the main scenery boards too soon.  I have designed the following system which I hope will work.  First, I have taken some tin foil of triple thickness to create a malleable but strong surface.  I have temporarily attached it to a piece of card.  When the time comes it can be slid off and placed on the scenery board like a transfer. The foil has been coated in coloured wood glue and grass attached.

The troops can then be put in position.  The first unit to go through this process are The Glosters.  Lady Butler's picture of The Glosters at Quatre Bras shows the regiment in Belgic shakos, but in fact the 28th still wore the old stovepipe shako with the Sphinx back badge.  

1/28th were in Kempt's 8th Brigade under command of Sir Charles Belson KCB.



Building an army in 20mm raises the age old question: what is 20mm?  I have decided that there is actually no answer - it all depends on whether you measure from the top of the head, the top of the headdress, or the top of the plume (not to mention bottom or top of the base).  Because my diorama is set to be quite large, I have chosen to segregate my figures according to size.  So these Glosters tend to be the larger sort of 20mm and many might say they stray towards 25mm.  They consist of the short lived Falcata and NapoleoN, some S Range, a few Les Higgins, Call to Arms and Italieri.  One or two Strelets officers are in the mix.

There are about 350 in four ranks.  Hope you like them.

An aerial view.  This makes the square more square than it actually is - in fact it was more rectangular.


The light company.


The drummers - mostly Falcata with a few S Range conversions


Strelets officer.




Corner shot.