28mm Napoleonic British Heavy Cavalry 1814-1815

My computer's gone screwy....adapter problems...Anyhow onwards with my Napoleonic project, the idea was to limit myself to buying and painting one unit per month, either a regiment of cavalry or battalion of infantry or battery of guns, so that I'd keep my interest in the period. The plan being to finish painting and basing a unit, then order another unit from Perry miniatures which usually arrive within 3-4 days. This keeps everything fresh...there's nothing worse than having a draw full of unpainted lead, a veritable lead mountain to dishearten even the boldest painter, so none of that here.

The British Cavalry - The 1st Regiment King's Dragoon Guards (1st KDG).

Restocking my Napoleonics I've continued with the British Regiment of King's Dragoon Guards:

Each regiment of cavalry will be made up of 12 riders with horses.

pack BH21 Dragoon command (1 pack of these)

pack BH22 Dragoon troopers (3 packs of these)

The riders were mounted on corks and painted separately from the horses, it makes it much less fiddly to do it this way. A black enamel undercoat was applied all over each figure.Then first colours were blocked in.

I must admit after reading the rules I'm going to play with namely 'March Attack' I've realised I need cavalry in squadrons of 6 figures and battalions on infantry of 16 figures. Ho hum so it'll be another order to Perry minis in the near future making each cavalry regiment 12 figures strong (i.e. 2 squadrons per regiment).

The tiny KDG on the blanket role will be added at a later date when I acquire some straw yellow acrylic paint and a very tiny brush.

1796 Regulations General Orders stipulated that this regiment (1st KDG) were to be mounted on black nag-tailed horses, horses of other colours would make up any shortfall on campaign e.g. dark bays, browns etc. The trumpeters horse was of no exception to this.

The Black horses were painted in 2 coats of black enamel paint giving a good flat colour,  various tones of greys were brushed over being careful to leave a lot of black untouched - it takes time to get the best effect, errors can be easily painted over. Lighter greys were used for the highlights. A couple of bays and a dark brown were added as though the regiment had added horses requisitioned on campaign.

Basing was achieved using 2mm thick plasticard 25mm x 50mm for each single figures 50mm x 50mm for doubles and 75mm x 50mm for threes. Basing effects were created using polyfilla stones (ballast) tea leaves and grass tufts (available from ebay seller Lord_Jaggard) and the odd bush etc.

1st King's Dragoon Guards heading back home to camp for Tiffin.

Next in the pipeline will be the infantry namely the 1st Battalion of 1st Regiment Granadiers a Pied of  Napoleons Imperial Guard and a battalion of the 1st Regiment British Foot Guards.

Cheers for now,
Peter.