The Dirty Half Hundred and skirmish command stands

 

I had mentioned in a recent post (Portuguese 9th - Viana) that a while ago I had received a gift of a couple of hundred Napoleonic soldiers from a friend - primarily figures manufactured by Emhar. When I first began my Napoleonic collection six years ago (before that it was all WWII) I had bought a set of Emhar Spanish, but shied away from their other Peninsular offerings because I had found them somewhat stiff and unanimated, opting mostly for the HaT sets for this era.

Since receiving these, however, I have had to take a hard look at that bias. I found the Emhar British a real joy to paint, and, outside of perhaps one of the marching figures, not that stiff at all and with incredibly fine detail. So these Emhar British (only HaT and Emhar make dedicated Peninsular 1/72 British in plastic) became my latest battalion of line in Wellington's army, the 50th (Queen's Own) Regiment of Foot, also known as the Dirty Half Hundred.

My main reason for choosing this regiment was, to date, I didn't have any regiments with black facings. The only real draw back to the Emhar set is that it doesn't include flag bearers or flank companies, but I simply turned to my trusty HaT British to supply those.

The battalion with skirmishers out front.

A fusilier stand. I especially liked the pike bearing sergeant in this set.

Rear view. I notice now that the figure on the right seems to have sat in a cow paddy.

The command stand, with a converted Itlaeri commander and two HaT ensigns. The 50th's drummer, rather than wearing the usual reversed uniform, wore white with red facings. This figure is the Emhar drummer, with an attempt at some raised lace on the sleeves added by me.

Same stand, rear view. The regimental flag is black but came out a sort of purply grey in this photo. The ensign on the right with the King's colours is a converted HaT command figure.

A Bit of History for the 50th West Kent (Queen's Own) Regiment of Foot

The  50th was originally raised by Colonel James Abercrombie in 1755 as the 52nd during the Seven Years' War. It was renamed the 50th the following year after the disbandment of the previous 50th and 51s Regiments. 

During the Napoleonic Wars the regiment was involved in the Battle of Copenhagen in August 1807 and afterwards embarked for Portugal in May of1808. There they fought with Wellington's small army at Roliça and Vimeiro and stayed to take part in Sir John Moore's advance into Spain and then epic winter retreat to Corunna, where they fought in January 1809 before returning to England.

The 50th participated in the Walcheren Campaign fiasco and returned to Portugal in 1810, to go on and distinguish themselves in the battles of Fuentes de Orno, Arroyo dos Molinos. Alamrez and Vitoria. They participated in the pursuit of the French over the Pyrennes and fought their last fight of the war at Toulouse, in that ill-fated battle that took place after the abdication of Napoleon but prior to the receiving of the news from Paris.

Their nickname the "Dirty Half Hundred" came about because when they wiped the sweat from their faces with their cuffs the die would often come off, streaking their faces wth black.

And some skirmish battalion command stands

In the Peninsular War the British often created ad hoc skirmish battalions from their light infantry companies. These battalions (along with companies gleaned from the dedicated light infantry and Rifle battalions that were parcelled out among the various brigades) gave Wellington the thicker skirmish screens he needed to match the French in this arena. To this end I decided I needed some generic skirmish command stands without flags for these small ad hoc battalions. Made up of HaT figures, you can see the results here.

Pics of my two generic ad hoc skirmish battalion command stands. Somehow, battalions with two stands and a flag just weren't working for me!!

All figures are HaT. (The figure firing the rifle on the left must have a grudge against the neighbouring commanding officer. Not the first time these disputes were resolved on the battlefield!