Prussian National Contingent

After running out of steam on the ACW project, mainly due to the horrible quality of most of the figures, I thought a more manageable and satisfying project might be to tackle one of the medium sized groups of Napoleonic figures. The Prussians fitted the bill and over the last six to eight weeks I have completed them.

I haven't yet worked out how to stitch photographs together to give an acceptable panorama, so the pictures are four part views of the assembled forces. There are three guard infantry battalions (one small); four line infantry battalions (one small); a small jager battalion; and three Landwehr battalions. There is a heavy cavalry brigade with two regiments of Cuirassiers and a squadron of Garde du Corps, a small attached dragoon squadron, and a troop of hussars. There are five guns and two howitzers - one gun is Hinton Hunt, the others are Newline - with crews and three limbers, and a small engineer battalion.

They are posted here for interest, certainly not for the quality of painting, which is very basic, but as an example of the kind of force which can be built up in bits and pieces. While at times it would be nice to just to be able to order the particular figures you need, the serendipity of what you can find over time and how you can organise them into units is one of the fascination of the collecting side of the hobby.

Alan, who very kindly sent me a general figure to take command, also sent me pictures of his Prussian forces, which have a strikingly similar over-representation of Guards infantry and Cuirassiers (though they lack the Landwehr). I suppose the Guards are just another example of the difference in numbers of Riflemen, Old Guard, Polish Lancers, Highlanders and Scots Greys in metal and in the flesh.

The Prussians are waiting for flags. They are over provided with artillery and under provided with light cavalry and jagers, but otherwise seem able to function as an infantry division with attached cavalry brigade and artillery. There is a pleasing (if slightly unrealistic) variety of troop types.

I am limited at the moment in access to many of my figures so the next project will depend on what I can get at. I am also in the middle of finishing off and independent Portuguese brigade, two battalions of Hinton Hunts and one battalion of Der Kriegspielers, which may be next (the DK battalion is done).