Saturday, October 22, 2016

Spanish Army

For something completely different for this particular blog I thought I would share my Spanish Napoleonic army circa 1808 that I have ben building to do some serious Peninsular War fighting. I started with the French but then, when my co-gamers were slow on the uptake, moved on to the Spanish so my French would have something to fight! That project soon took over, but I'm now, at nine brigades of infantry, two of cavalry and five batteries of cannon ready to give the Spanish a bit of a rest.
I started with the line infantry, Emhar and Hat figures, and then moved on to the light and foreign regiments (Hat line), finishing with a brigade of Walloon Guards (also Hat line). As my eyesight got worse my glasses got better, and the last figures were more successful than the first. On the way I painted up some Prussian artillery and cavalry as Spanish (the former with some minor alterations) and scratch built a few oxen drawn limbers as well. Mounted command figures proved tricky. I had one from the Emhar set but I recruited a couple of Italeri French command into the Spanish ranks with minor conversions.
Here they are in all their 1/72 scale tattered glory. Please don't look too closely or judge too harshly.

The full army, nine brigades of infantry, two of cavalry, six batteries of cannon, all based for Age of Eagles. I'm not convinced this was the best rule choice for fighting Peninsular battles as the armies tended to be on the small size, but that's where we are at the moment.

Each brigade is based on a particular regiment. These are Aragon light infantry.

2nd Regiment, Barcelona light infantry.

I wanted to add a few foreign regiments. These are the Irlanda regiment, possibly my favourites in their light blue and yellow.

My Swiss Reding (Junior) regiment, that had all their coats painted red before I discovered my error!

Walloon Royal Guards.


Five batteries of artillery, converted from the Hat Prussians and given smaller cannons (Hat French artillery) than those monsters included in that set. In the background are three oxen drawn limbers, scratch built from some old (very old! 1973) French Airfix limber pieces and Pegasus cattle.

My first Spanish that I painted, line infantry by Emhar with grenadiers and command sets from Hat. They aren't a perfect match but I was eager to move forward and the Emhar was all I could get at the time. This regiment is based on Fijo de Ceuta.

The Princesa Regiment.

Guadalajara Regiment.

A smallish Zamora Regiment.

Command stands. The two mounted figures on the left are converted French Italeri and the one on the right from the Emhar Spanish line set.

Hat Prussian Dragoons  painted up as the the Pavia Regiment.

And the Almanza Regiment.