# Waterloo 2015 - 27e Régiment de Ligne



## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

...and so it begins. 



Or has begun. We're setting up this huge Waterloo game for VIVAT2015 (November 14th, drop by for lots and lots of historical wargaming stuffs!) and I contribute to a small capacity. Above you see the humble beginnings of the 27th line regiment (1st and 2nd batallion) as deployed at the battle of Waterloo in 1815 (6th corps, 19th division, 2nd brigade). This is one of the smaller units, all in all it'll be 36 figures. The miniatures used is a mix of plastic Perrys and Warlord Games late Napoleonic infantry there'll be a demo game on the upcoming weekend at Vienna Army Museum. Not that these guys will be finished by then. My personal deadline is November 14th. These are just the troops (including grenadiers and voltigeurs), the flagbearer, musician and officers will be added later. All in all I need 36 models done. I do a few troopers more, just in case someone's out on the day due to sickness. 

Hope you like them so far.  C&C welcome!


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## Tawa (Jan 10, 2010)

Do Waterloo at 1:1 and I'll be impressed....... :laugh:


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

It almost seems like people these days are kinda hard to impress.  

Isn't there a guy who actually did that with 1/72th scale figures?


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## Tawa (Jan 10, 2010)

Yup, there was an article on it a while back. The guy is all kinds of crazy! :laugh:


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Quite. So yeah, we're just going with a 1 Mini = 30 men ratio (roughly). It still will be quite a sight to behold. 

Here's a 'teaser' from a wargames show earlier today at which the guys set up a quick-ish Waterloo-ish game:










....and of course everybody has to check out the 1970 film Waterloo. Most probably the best film about the battle which has and will ever be done.



edit: By the way, I reactivated my Twitter account. If you want to follow me just look up Battle Brush Studios on Twitter.


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## Brother Emund (Apr 17, 2009)

Tawa said:


> Do Waterloo at 1:1 and I'll be impressed....... :laugh:


I will definitely be impressed... wait.. I do Waterloo at 1:1 :laugh:

Brother Emund, wall at Hougoumont Farm, Waterloo 2015


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## Brother Emund (Apr 17, 2009)

French Infantry 1:1 at waterloo 2015

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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Very, very nice. Thanks for sharing!


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## Brother Emund (Apr 17, 2009)

Sigur said:


> Very, very nice. Thanks for sharing!


You are welcome. Your figures look very good by-the-way. I used to do 15mm Napoleonics many years ago. Unfortunately I have sold them all on... hopefully to a good home.


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## Old Man78 (Nov 3, 2011)

I love your work, especially the grey great coats, superb, will you be painting up 'old boney' himself? Will you be painting up any Old Guard. I am a Napoleon fanboy, just check my avatar, I should never be allowed to have real power!


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

@Brother Emund: Thanks! What a shame. I hope you still got some other historical minis left in your collection?

@oldman87: Oh well, I guess there are much worse people to be a fanboy of around. Actually, I've got a Napoleon figure. Got it from Warlord Games recently when I ordered that book on the Polish during the Napoleonic Wars back in summer. Not sure if I'll get to paint him though. Do you know that little diorama set the Perrys made with Napoleon in it? That looks really nice. Oh, come to think of it, I've got the 6mm My Little Ogre set by Baccus of course for my own wee Napoleonics (which I dearly hope will see a few licks of paint some time soon!). But as for this Waterloo project - nope, I'm not scheduled to paint Napoleon himself. Would have been really great, but I didn't want to ask if I could paint him up because I'm sure someone else already had offered to do that most prestigious centre piece of the game. All I'll do in 28mm is my 27th line regiment. Well, there's this other project in the pipeline for which I may have to do a bunch of Bavarians as well (Tyrolean rebellion. Andreas Hofer and all of that).  In 6mm though I'll do it all! At some point in time. Got a lot of that stuff lying alround, all bare metal.


@Gitsplitta: ...and first and foremost they look awesome!  

Okay, it's been a while since the last update. Mainly because I didn't do much show-worthy to be honest (played C&C Ancients again on Friday). However, this past Saturday the Waterloo Boys set up a demo table for The Big Game (a scaled down teaser at least) at Vienna Army Museum for their special Waterloo event. They got a spot right in the middle of the big festival hall, which is pretty darned cool. Of course it's all leading up to VIVAT III in mid-November:










With a firm hand and a big map, Nikfu orders how to set up the table:









Here's a closer look at the map:









See the VI Corps under Lobau, right to the North of where the Imperial Guard is held in reserve? This is where my dudes are going to sit (along with many others). My dudes are just half of 2nd Batallion who themselves are just half of 19th Division who of course are just a third of VI Corps. But they still count!

Right on queue, the Imperial Guard Grenadiers showed up:









Quite a few reenactors were present on the day as well. No formations as such, but a bunch of various specimen. I even spotted a lone Austrian grenadier (not pictured) outside the museum as well.










All the buildings you see here are by Hovels. Really, really nice 25mm resin buildings. I've also seen their 15mm stuff. Very nice as well. 










Considering they're resin buildings they aren't very expensive either.










Here's another look at the village of which I forgot the name of, along with a few more reenactors depicting Brits:









British Rocket troop en miniature:










As time progressed the table filled with minis:



















After a while this chap got out the old bagpipes for a sound-check:









It sounded rather nice and certainly added mood to the whole scene, but bloody hell this thing was loud.


So that was that. I could only stay for the setup as I had to leave for further adventures (originally I had planned to visit a miniatures gaming get-together at a nearby [1.5hours drive] castle, but that [the event, not the castle] was relocated farther to the south, which would have meant a 3 hours drive back and forth each, so I passed on that). So what was I actually up to in the mean time? What I usually do when I get quiet for a while, I painted a bunch of Polish Lancers:



















These of course aren't for myself, but for a customer. 25mm Minifigs from the early 1980s, being Vistula Legion, former 1st Uhlans, at the time these figures depict them 7th Lancer regiment in post-1812 field dress. As with the Guard Lancerrs, 32 figures per unit. These are just the troopers in the picture, officers, NCOs, colour sergeant and trumpeter are still in the works. The guys pictured are pretty much finished. I'll pick up the horses on Wednesday. Hope you like the pictures.


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Update!

Alright, what happened over the past few days? I did some more work on the old school Poles. The cavalrymen are done now, next up are the horses. I picked the main part of them up this week, some are still being worked on (the customer reworks the models one by one with great level of detail and making them look much, much nicer than the original sculpts. Really impressive how much work he puts into them. Tomorrow I'll pick up the rest.). Furthermore I'll be at a minis flea market hosted by the 'local' wargaming club. Very much looking forward to that, not the least because I'll meet some friends there. Anyway, the Vistula Uhlans are half done now. Very eager to see how they look once the horses are all done as well and with the unit all based and ranked up. It's a very different thing to what we're used to nowadays, but it's got a unique charm to it as well I think.

So after this short break I returned to do a little work on my part of the huge Waterloo project - the French 27th line regiment. They look like this now:










This time I used a slightly zoomed shot for a change because you already know how many minis these will be approximately. Things are getting more colourful now and I started some detailwork. These blue mushroom shaped heads two of the fellas are wearing is the kind of cap that was worn in camp. Much more comfortable than wearing a shako all the time. The guys may wear them in battle because they lost their shakos or they just dissolved due to campaigning. Maybe it's not easily visible in the picture, but there's a little 27 (the regiment's number) on the front part.

If you look over the pictures from the army museum event I posted last week you can see the grenadiers with the big bearskins and in the next picture you see their officer inspecting our waterloo table. In the second picture he's wearing the officer version of this camp cap.

By he epaulettes (the shoulder things with the fuzzy bits in the end) you can already tell which models will be part of the Grenadiers company (the biggest, burliest and seasoned guys in the regiment with the completely red epaulettes), which models will be part of the Voltigeurs company (red epaulettes with yellow rim and green tassles). Voltigeurs were exclusively shorter guys who were able to run faster then the bigger ones as well as the better marksmen of the battalion. They got special training in skirmishing in loose formation, traversing obstacles and scouting. From 1808 on they got better payment (like the Grenadiers). Both these elite companies wore short sabres in addition to their bayonets for close combat (only until 1812 by decrete, but many of the men kept their sabres beyond that date).










Here you can see the general layout of a French battalion back then (1808 to 1815 IIRC). Basically there were 6 companies: 1 grenadier company (heavy infantry), 1 Voltigeurs company (light infantry) and 4 companies of Fusiliers (line infantry; the regular grunts). On the day of the battle of Waterloo the two Battalions of the 27th line infantry regiment comprised 821 men (including officers). The ratio of model in this unit to man is roughly 1:23 (1 model represents ca. 23 guys in real life). One of the reasons why such a weird ratio was chosen is that 36 figures can depict this Battalion structure really well: 6 figures per company, a nice line look to it. I think that this is one of the reasons why this is one of those really popular sizes of units for Napoleonic infantry on wargaming tables. 










In this picture you can see fusiliers grenadiers and Voltigeurs next to each other for comparison (and again one guy in camp cap with complete camp outfit). Grenadiers in full red (no.3), Voltigeurs in yellow (no.1 and 4), fusiliers (2, 5 and 6) without epaulettes. Number 1, that Voltigeur, doesn't wear any epaulettes as well. The reason for this is that ACTUALLY only grenadiers were allowed to wear grenadiers. Towards the end of the Napoleonic era this probably had cost reasons as well. Despite all this Voltigeurs are so often depicted wearing epaulettes so I assume that it was very common for them to wear them as well (some variations, but always keeping the yellow and green or just green).

That black leather case (with the golden N on it on the fusilier in the picture) worn by everyone is the ammo case. The gentleman in the right has an additional bit of fabric over the ammunition case to keep the contents from getting wet (which would have made them unusable). When greatcoats weren't worn they were carried rolled up on top of the knapsack. I left the knapsacks off the minis for ease of painting.

Alright, I can't think of anything more to wirte now.  I hope that I didn't get too much wrong in this posting. I'm a newbie myself in terms of Napoleonics, but I have to admit that it's very interesting (i hope I'm not the only one in this thread who thinks so  ).

So the goal is to get this bunch painted by November the 14th. Oh, by the way: I also put together an officer, a flagbearer and a drummer. Those will be added as well. You'll notice that I'll end up with more than the 36 required models. No problem, I'm sure I'll find some use for them on the day. Maybe as extra troops or exhibition pieces at my painting workshop. If the next update will be about the 27th again I'm not sure. First the Polish Uhlans should get done.

Thanks for reading, I hope you find this whole thing interesting. Comments, critique and questions are always welcome of course!


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Added some more colour, some more details and backpacks!










Things are grinding down a bit now with all the detailwork. This is the point at which I have to decide how "well" these guys will be done on the day. Technically they only need the pommels on the shakos painted and some more decorations on the shakos and they're ready to field. Technically. Well, of course they need to be based as well.  But let's see how much time I have to do these properly. Of course they also need their "command models" done as well.


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

First WIP of the officer, drummer and flagbearer for the 27th Line Regiment:









I also started working on the comparative review of the Perrys Napoleonic French line infantry (1812-1815) and the Warlord Late Napoleonic French Infantry.


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Right, after a little pause on the Waterloo project I had a look at the calendar and realized that it's just 10 days until VIVAT III, the day of the big Waterloo thing. So I better get mon cul in gear and get the 27th line regiment done. 

True to their name, here they are arranged in line:









In this close-up you can see one of the fellas turning to go home, but the officer, who always has to have more eyes in the back of his head than in the front, yells him back in rank.










There's still so much to do. In fact, not much got done since the last update. Okay, the colours sergeant, drummer and officer are mostly done now (even though the Officer especially still needs a lot of work). I noticed that I made a mistake on the Voltigeurs (six dudes in the far right with the yellow pommels) and for some reason painted the cuffs yellow even though that was just a very rare variant. They should be red, as on the rest of the men. I fixed that now. At least they got proper pommels on their shakos now.

The most appearant thing which changed of course is the bases. I put them on 20mm square bases. Of course this makes no sense what so ever for the upcoming game, but as I won't be doing Napoleonic battles in 28mm (because I'm just unwell, not insane  ), so I based them for skirmishing. After all, there's the excellent Sharp Practice for which we have some plans (which should be really cool if they are to be.). By the way, they're playtesting a new version of Sharp Practice now. Very exciting stuff. And even if that shouldn't happen, I still got Songs of Drums and Shakos lying around. So I still could set up a game of these Frenchies playing catch with the few Austrians I painted before. Poses aren't very fitting, but oh well.

I also started writing the comparative review of the Late French Line Infantry boxes by Perry Minis and Warlord Games. Not sure if I mentioned that before, but that's going to happen pretty much as soon as I'm done painting these gentlemen here.

So yeah, fingers crossed I get the 27th presentable and on the table by the 14th of November. You can then see them live along with a bunch of their friends on a huge table.

By the way, I reactivated my twitter account a few weeks ago, so if you want to stalk me there just look up Battle Brush Studios.


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

I received the rest of the magnetic foil today (as well as a bunch of rivers from Gale Force 9. I just gave in and bought those instead of making my own rivers). Of course I'm not a monster and ask the guy who will command these dudes on the day of the battle to move around single minis, so I'm putting them on magnetized bases.

Here they are in attack column:











......painting on these darned horses also continues...









Of course they're 10 times more work than I had anticipated.


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Okay, it was time to start the hat party.










It may look a tad overpowering at this angle and with the nice lighting, but it's less so once on a table and all. Each company has a differently coloured pommel/plume on their shakos: 2nd company is sky blue, 3rd company orange, 1st company green, 4th company purple, grenadier company red and voltigeurs company yellow. The command figures are hanging out with 2nd company so they got blue plumes as well. In reality (this formation is basically depicting a battalion) each company would have a command of course and the regimental flag would be with staff. I think. I also omitted the battalion sappers who are another trademark of the French battalion. One corporal and a handful of sapper privates, all big burly dudes with big beards, axes and leather aprons.

So what's left to do? 
Basing
Buttons
Piping (white)
Piping (red)
Flag
Officer
Shoes require some neatening up (not too much, and I probably won't do the gaiters properly)

Oh, and the faces could do with some additional work.  Anyway, hope you like them so far!


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Update!

I managed to reduce the list to the following: 
.) Basing
.) Flag

I may finish the whole lot tomorrow!


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Let's say they're done:














































What do you think?


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Now with white background!


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## Tha Tall One (Aug 16, 2008)

Beautiful, as always. 
And that battle up top looks amazing with the decor.


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Thanks very much! The table next week is going to be even bigger.  Very curious as to what it'll end up looking like.


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## Sigur (Dec 9, 2010)

Alrighty, the comparative review of the Late Napoleonic French by Warlord Games and Perry Miniatures is online now!


*
http://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2015/11/review-late-napoleonic-line-infantry.html*











Hope you like the review! C&C are welcome as always!


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