Paint Table Saturday 3rd May 2014

Three weeks on from my last Paint Table Saturday entry and my target figure is 170 figures painted. You will recall that the last time I showed anything I mentioned that I'd lost count of how many figures I'd painted in 2014, and so I was starting from scratch. Since then, of course, we've had the Easter bank holiday so I should have been steaming ahead....well I've managed another 35 figures (so I'm now 92 figures behind schedule):

8 Spanish Militia

1 Spanish Malaga Line Regiment Officer

25 Hesse Darmstadt Erb Prinz Regiment

1 French Legere officer

So, seven of the eight Spanish Militia figures will complete my second (rather well dressed) provincial militia battalion. The eighth is a rather nice figure by Polly Oliver (from a bag of their American AWI Minutemen) - I have quite a lot of these figures assembled from purchases made from eBay over the years (2.1kg after my weigh in last week which is equivalent to about 650 figures), which have sat unloved in a drawer since I bought them. He'll get fed into a scruffier militia battalion once I get started on it.

The Hesse Darmstadt guys are done but not based up or "dipped" yet. You can see them sitting on the window sill in the photo above. If you have read the last few posts you'll know that I struggled to find appropriate figures for these chaps who performed so well in the Peninsula for the Emperor. Warmodelling (Fantassin) do a set of figures suitable for the Peninsula but I'm not struck on them - this left converting something else, waiting for a good manufacturer (AB, CGM, Xan or Khurusan) to bring something out, or going slightly off-piste.

Naturally, I went off piste. AB's 1806 Prussians work perfectly for Hesse-Darmstadt figures serving in North-West Europe in 1809 -  the problem is that the Erb Prinz Regiment changed uniforms on the way from Hesse to Spain. So, as I fancied painting some AB 1806 Prussians anyway, I decided to ignore the uniform change (okay - it's slightly imagi-nations, but if any button counters whinge, I'll pick up my toys and go home like the adult I am). This decision has led to some slightly mind bending questions of how I treat various aspects of their organistion etc - see More On The Erb Prinz here for this. They would have been mounted on their stands and be just about ready to be terrained except I decided rather at the last minute to add some NCOs and casualty figures (any figures left over as a result will be committed to the second battalion).

The Spanish Officer from the Regimento de linea de Malaga is (after slating them loudly and often) by Fantassin. He's actually a French Legere officer officer but close enough in 15mm to switch sides with a lick of paint. He's wearing the 1805 uniform of white coat, dark blue cuffs and lapels, and white collar piped dark blue. He was lying around on my table, looked easy to do, and would get my numbers up!

The Legere Carabiniers and Spanish Militia from previous weeks painting.

After being quite pleased with how the Legere Carabiniers turned out (although I'm now thinking the trim on their boots should be red as they are carabiniers) I started painting some Legere, so the officer was another easy figure to get some scores on the board.

Finally, these are my morning supervisors, Toby and Archie. Toby is an old boy, and these days he needs to go to the loo more often than he used to (I know how that feels - after the first pint or two I seem to spend half the evening in the loo), and he tends to wake up at 06.30 most mornings. My weekend therefore starts with a cold foot in the small of my back (my wife's way of saying "go and sort the dogs out") - she has unnaturally cold feet that, carefully placed, can get me out of bed in double-quick time.

Archie (the one on the right) in his normal supervisory role at my desk. I thought this came out rather well as a "selfie" - although clearly I need a shave. It's a poor show when you need to perform your ablutions before blogging!