Well - in the next step, I put together all the Landwehr soldiers I have already painted. By surprise, it was already almost a bataillon.
Well. Almost. I found that there's no sapper within this set. So I had to replace it by any other figure. The command part of this set is, however, not very large. So I took a fifer from the HaT Prussian infantry command set and simply painted a Landwehr cross onto his shako.
The use of a shako instead of a Landwehr cap was not very usual in Landwehr units, but it wasn't totally impossible either - especially when it was up to officers (that often came from regular units) and volunteer jagers (which sometimes also came from regular ranks). Some Landwehr units were issued shakos, as for example British stovepipe shakos. Plus - early Landwehr units were often equipped with a wild mixture of uniforms parts. Or in other words: looks great, prove me wrong.
My Landwehr also carries a pretty generic flag as well.
Although Strelet's Prussian Landwehr is a great set, it's a little bit 'short breasted' in numbers. I have to group 12 infantrymen and a command group of 6 per bataillon, meaning that a regiment consists of 36 infantry and 18 command - 54 figures in total, of which one is a reverent and three are totally useless Streltsky. You find 36 marching infantrymen in this set - which fits in the first place. But you only have 4 command figures. This means you have to find a solution to fill the gap of 14 figures for your command groups. Well - I have a handfull of different Prussian soldiers from other sets, so I was able to add two volunteer Jagers here and will be able to add some officers for the other bataillons. Some of the marchers will serve as NCOs and I'll buy some musicians from ART Miniaturen - but after all, I will finally end up with a gap of at least 3 infantrymen. Which is exactly the number of those 3 b*y Streltsky figures. *sigh* So much for those bonus figures...
Has anyone Strelets marching Landwehr soldiers on spare? I could share some Streltsky instead!
The cavalry part of my French army is already completed!
In the meantime, I have completed the bases for my lancier chasseurs
and for the chasseurs a cheval as well.
These chaps are from Newline Design and - as all figures from that company - recognizably smaller then figures from most other distributors. In case of light cavalry, this doesn't make too much of a problem, because these troops were often recruited from smaller sized men that ended up on smaller sized horses.
And let's be honest - no one will care too much about it on a gaming table, will one? I certainly like these models very much. In regards of style, they match really good with the HaT infantry. Plus I like the colour combination of green and pink.
I don't know why, but I somewhat dislike to paint cavalry. It's mainly because it means I have to paint horses - and painting horses takes a big amount of time. However, the results look pretty fine, so I'm happy with it.
Next deal will be the creation of the next command group for infantry. I already converted an NCO into a fanion bearer. The drummer will be from Franznap, this figure is still not completely ready. But apart from that, the second bataillon is already based and ready...
The first gun team is already painted. Which means that I have to order the belonging cannons, soon.
Additionally, I have two generals and one marshal in an advanced painting status. These staff figures are from the Strelets dismounted French staff set - technically a problem, because due to the rule book, dismounted generals would be largely limited in speed and range. But it's still better then having no commanders at all. There's a brigade general of cavalry on my desk as well - that would give me some flexibility because I could round up the complete cavalry as a brigade under command of a single general.
Whatever, there's still some work to do. To have an operative army at hand, one regiment of Line infantry wouldn't be enough. I'll have to add at least a second regiment. To do so, I have decided to paint a light infantry regiment using Zvezda's Voltigeur set. But I haven't decided yet which regiment I should take - a standard French light infantry regiment or one of the maaaany, many foreign or allied regiments that were often dressed as light infantry. The regiment irlandais perhaps? Or the magnificient blue Isemburg regiment? What do you guess?
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