Outflanked

 The diorama continues to grow with the four new sections north of Plancenoit now being populated with troops.  Battalions from the 18th, 15th, and 14th regiments are present

Prussian Line Infantry advance in column north of the hedge system at the top end of the village.  The lead left companies have broken into the hedge and are skirmishing southwards.  This will only make sense once the adjacent boards are laid down.

Close up - these are all AD's wonderful figures.

Skirmishers

Again, all AD's figures: a mix of AM, Hat and Strelets.

It's hard attaching the figures in the corn - I removed all their bases.  Luckily, AD's painting style allows for minimum damage.

2nd Silesian Hussars by MM and LF.

18th Reserve regiment by AD and DS.

8th Hussars by AD

Another view of the 8th Hussars by AD.

Commissioning Figures

A project of this kind requires a wide variety of action figures, often not found in the slightly stilted poses usually required in Napoleonic scenes, primarily because of the drill movements necessary to bring lethal force to bear. But these stilted poses don't work in urban environments.

Conversions are one way to overcome this, and I love adapting plastic figures to suit my needs.  Metal figures are harder, but perfectly possible.  I like it when supporters of the project point out a figure converted from another source.

Another major challenge is casualties. Too many of the obvious figures (say, the Airfix dead Frenchman) would create repetitions that the human eye quickly picks up.  So variety is needed.

The arrival of the age of computer scanning and 3D printing allows a new range of opportunities.  Here's how the project is taking advantage of this:

JW is a talented sculptor and is home casting his designs for the project.  Here are some French Guard, French Line and Prussians.  The results are amazing:

AD and I had this idea that it would be great to downsize favourite figures from 1/32 to 1/72.  These Airfix figures were never available in 1/72 but with the assistance of one UK firm, they have achieved amazing results.  Sadly, copyright prevents these being commercially available, but they will be an excellent addition to the project:

JG was introduced to the project by Waterloo Uncovered.  He has volunteered to take on horse casualties.  Here is a generic pose, the trick will be to add appropriate horse furniture:

Speira are a fantastic firm.  Their customer relations are excellent.  When I asked them to design a battalion of Lutzow Freikorps they did it with speed, imagination and attention to detail:

 

Green Belt

 I've been working on four new sections of my Plancenoit diorama to the north of the village in open farm land.  The area is based on this section of the Siborne diorama, picture courtesy of the National Army Museum:

The sections before being covered

Now covered and next door to the adjacent row

Quite a lot of work still needed to align colours ands maintain coherence

This begins to give a sense of scale

Several thousand Prussians are ready to go onto this part of the battlefield.  The left hand side is too bright and will be toned down.

Lots of work to do!

Plancenoit Invasion

It's been ages since I last posted, partly because of a busy summer of work, but also because thre is just so much to do incorporating so many figures into the diorama. A big part of this sudden surge has been the arrival of AD's wonderful figures. When I last posted, I had managed to get three Line battalions, two Landwehr and one Reserve battalion onto the diorama from the Prussian side. 

 Now, the number of Landwehr battalions will rise to ten, about 5,000 figures in all. These Landwehr have been undertaken by a number of people - GH, MS, AD, the WU collective, LWC and JH, as well as my own. Several thousand Line Prussians are also ready to join them. One battery of guns is already on the diorama and another is ready to join. This battery is by MM and was featured some months ago. To see it now on the diorama is a real pleasure - it really is a work of art in its own right. 

 In among all these infantry, there will also be several Prussian cavalry regiments, masteredminded by LF, which are nearly ready to go. I have four new sections under construction which will create space to the north of Plancenoit for all these extra troops.

The cavalry have some way to go to reach readiness but LF's painting is phenomenal