Sharp Practice Peninsular British

The 28mm British Peninsular force for Sharp Practice continues to make progress with some more infantry finished.

Two more groups of Line Infantry with a couple of Ensigns (no flag yet!) and a mounted officer:

The second group of 95th Rifles with an officer and sergeant:

All there is left to do now is the Light Dragoons and an additional foot officer plus a drummer and another (probably unnecessary) sergeant.

Unlike everything else I paint I'm not sure how I will get a game with these (other than entering a competition) as no one has a suitable French Napoleonic force to oppose them apart from me!

Sharp Practice Peninsular British

The final figures off the painting bench are a group of 28mm British Line plus a Serjeant for my Sharp Practice Napoleonic Peninsular army:

Two more groups of Line, one of Rifles and some Light Dragoons to finish for this army.

Napoleonic Austrian Grenadiers

After finishing the Grenzer's for my Sharp Practice Austrian force I ordered a couple of groups of Grenadiers from Front Rank.

In command an officer and a sergeant:

The rank and file from the front:

and the rear:

I've now painted these Austrian Grenadiers in 28mm, 15mm and 6mm! Rather worryingly I have also started thinking about the possibility of playing Blucher in 28mm with each SP group representing a Blucher unit. It wouldn't be that big an extension on what I already have for the French and Austrians especially if I only used four figures to a cavalry brigade.

As I enjoy painting them maybe I will just gradually add the odd group now and then and see how it goes.

British for Sharp Practice

Partly as an extra option if I decide to play more Sharp Practice competitions and partly with the vague idea of collecting some Americans in the future to do the War of 1812 I bought a small British Peninsular force mainly from Perry Miniatures with a few extras from the ever dependable Front Rank.

So far I have enough figures to do five Line infantry groups, two Rifle groups, a single group of Light Dragoons and a Royal Horse Artillery 6pdr gun.

The first to be completed was a group of Riflemen:

I bought metal figures for these as I didn't like the four plastic ones that came with the plastic infantry. Nice figures with a lot of character.

Next up an officer and a serjeant for the Rifles:

Not being a particular fan of the 'Sharpe' books or TV series they are emphatically not Sharpe and Harper!

I decided to paint the Line infantry as the 3rd Foot (Royal East Kent Regiment), 'The Buffs'. The first group are mainly Perry metal figures with a Front Rank sergeant:

The second group are all from the Perry plastic box set with a Front Rank officer:

The final group is the RHA 6pdr gun and crew:

Again mostly Perry with two Front Rank figures to makeup the numbers.

The force is making progress and hopefully will get finished in the next few months.

Sharp Practice Austrian Grenzers

I wanted a few British Napoleonic officers and sergeants from Front Rank and thought I might as well order a few Grenzers for my Austrians at the same time!

The service from Front Rank is really amazing so two days after I placed the order I received the figures and quickly had them undercoated. I've now got back into the habit of painting 28mm figures so they didn't take long to paint at all:

They are painted as the 'Warasdiner-St.George' regiment as I thought the brown coats would make a change from the white of the line infantry. They are probably better value than the very expensive Jaegers in SP so next time I do a Front Rank order I might add another group. Some Grenadiers would also be nice...…..

28mm French Napoleonics for Sharp Practice

This army was painted up for the recent 'Britcon' Sharp Practice competition.
I'd probably have done British or Spanish rather than French but the only entries available when I signed up was French so that was pretty much decided for me.
For the competition you had to draw up a background for your force and, having enjoyed the 'Brigadier Gerard' tales by Arthur Conan Doyle he seemed an ideal base to set the army up.
Here is the man himself, a splendid figure from Front Rank resplendent in the uniform of the 10th Hussars and commander of the force:

The figure really fits in well with the character as described in the books, every inch the proud Hussar!

Next up is a unit of Perry Miniatures plastic French Dragoons, great value as you get both mounted and dismounted figures ideal for Sharp Practice. I painted them as the 15th Regiment as the pink facings contrast well with the green jackets of the Dragoons:

As I had not played many games of SP at the time I thought I'd go for a full range of units so I added a Horse Artillery gun, again from Perry Miniatures:

The rest of the units were made up from a box of the Perry plastic French Infantry and a few extra packs from their metal range to add variety and extra numbers. One group was done as Grenadiers:

Four more groups were painted as Fusiliers: 

Two groups of  Voltigeurs completed the infantry part of the force:

Finally a physic (and his faithful dog!) was added, another Front Rank figure:

Considering that I had to paint the army fairly quickly to play in the competition I think they came out nicely and made a pleasant change from painting 15mm Napoleonic figures.

The competition was great fun with five different scenarios all with different objectives. Brigadier Gerard achieved his objective in four of the five games (in one his rash behaviour didn't pay off!) and it was interesting to see how players from other clubs approached SP. One of my friends is painting up a British force at the moment so hopefully they will get another run out in November.

1809 Austrians for Sharp Practice

Having painted up some French Napoleonic 28mm figures for the Sharp Practice competition at Britcon I thought it would be nice to have some opposition for them.

In the far distant past I had bought a unit pack of 28mm Austrian infantry for the start of a project to do a 28mm Napoleonic army which faded away without a single figure being painted. I couldn't even remember who the manufacturer was but did manage to find them in a dusty bag in the loft.

On examination there were 40 German line infantry, 4 foot officers, 2 drummers, 2 standard bearers and a mounted general which nicely equated to 5 groups of infantry for SP plus the officers etc. The figures were still in pretty good condition so they were cleaned up, undercoated and painted with red facings as IR#1 'Kaiser Franz'.

The first thing I added to the force were a couple of the wonderful Flags of War Austrian flags for the standard bearers, not really essential for SP but fantastic to add a bit of colour.

 

I then ordered some Tyrolean Jaegers, some Hussars and an artillery piece and crew from Front Rank as I thought they would mix well to make up the rest of the force.

Two units of Jaegers were then completed, armed with rifles in SP they made a change from the usual musket armed skirmishers:

.
The artillery followed next:

Finally the unit of Hussars was completed, for me the 4th 'Hessen Homburg' regiment was the only choice for the paint scheme as they are so colourful!

A close-up of the dashing officer:

The force nicely represents a detachment of an Advanced Guard Corps I think and I'm pleased both with the way they came out and that some figures I bought many years ago will finally get used!