Waterloo in 28mm - My journey log

[Helge]

Unlike the British where I added one base of skirmishers per battalion, my Prussians will have three bases of skirmishing Fusiliers per regiment. For the 15. IR, those are below. Also shown in Oberst (Colonel) von Crailsheim who commands the regiment. I am using 50mm "brigade-level" command bases for regimental commanders. This concludes my first line regiment for the Prussians. A small hurrah!

[CapnJim]

One down, how many to go?

They do look good...

[LazyStudent]

Only a small hurrah? I think this deserves a giant HURRAH! It's a good bite out of a division. You're well on your way! Vorwarts!!

[Helge]

One down, how many to go?

20 more! 9 more Line Regiments and 11 Landwehr Regiments. Speaking of Landwehr, I have started on a plan for the biggest hurdle of this Prussian project: the Silesian Landwehr. Four regiments of these formed the bulk of the initial two brigades on the field. That's 12 battalions - thankfully standard sized - with 288 figures. I am using Warlord plastic figs for these with a liberal sprinkling of metal command models. This is so large, and the Warlord models so generic, that I am planning to do the whole horde in one giant batch process.

For now, we therefore have the beginning of 18. Infanterie Regiment of 15. Brigade. These are commanded by Oberst (Col.) von Löbell.



The regiment was an amalgamated reserve formation from three different origins. By the time of Waterloo, they had only been partially refitted so each battalion wears a mix of old and new uniforms. For the 1th Battalion, shown below, that meant that the officers and some men wear the new line uniform with pink facings while many of the men still wear the grey reserve uniform or old line uniforms with red cuffs. There is no historical record for their flag - if they had one at all at Waterloo - so I used a suitable generic West Prussian option.

[Mindenbrush]

Great work and dedication 

[syrinx0]

Another excellent looking unit.

[waterproof]

A really great project that I like to follow. One question about the size of the unit. I have read that a battalion of the Prussians consisted of four companies. At that time I opted for 6 men per company, equal to 24 men per battalion. This had the advantage for me that I could also see a progress when creating the units.
You made your units 36 models large. Is there a reason for this or is it simply the freedom of the artist? 

[tomrommel1]

Very nice beginning of the Prussians!

[jon_1066]

A really great project that I like to follow. One question about the size of the unit. I have read that a battalion of the Prussians consisted of four companies. At that time I opted for 6 men per company, equal to 24 men per battalion. This had the advantage for me that I could also see a progress when creating the units.
You made your units 36 models large. Is there a reason for this or is it simply the freedom of the artist?

Helge addressed this on the last page:

... a few words on army organisation. I will of course use the same basing scheme as for the Anglo-Dutch with a standard battalion having 24 figures on 4 bases of 50x50mm each. Large battalions will have 6 bases for a total of 36 figures. For the Anglo-Dutch, there was a pretty clear line between the two size classes because most British/Hannoverian/Dutch units had around 400-500 troops while some of the Guards/Nassau battalions had over 1,000 men. For the Prussians, this is a bit trickier as virtually all their battalions have a target strength of 800 men with very little variation.

I found a scan of an old German book showing casualty figures for the battle at Ligny which I used to estimate unit sizes on June 18th when the Prussians arrive at Waterloo. As expected, this reduced the headcount of battalions in I and II Corps quite considerably since they bore the brunt of the fight at Ligny. That brings them closer to the 400-600 men range of "standard" size units and I have classed them accordingly. The regiments in IV Corps were not engaged at Ligny so they would have arrived at Waterloo with approximately their full strength. With the exception of organically smaller regiments - such as the under-strength Silesian Landwehr - I have classed such units as "large".

Appropriately, this gives me a dozen or so large battalions to lead the initial steamroller charge into Plancenoit, followed by regular units for the second wave. ...

[CapnJim]

Nice work on those fellas.  As usual, of course!

[Helge]

jon_1066: Thanks for taking care of the explanation. These are indeed large battalions and regular battalions will have four bases - one per company.

Here we have II/18. Infanterie Regiment. Like the first battalion, this was a reserve unit in transition so the officers and some troops already have the new blue uniform with pink facings. Those still in reserve uniforms came from a different source regiment than the 1st Battalion and wore short jackets with yellow facings. I have therefore used Perry metal figures for the reserve contingent of the formation.

[vtsaogames]

Wow! Fabulous!  Puts my AB 18mm Prussians in the shade. 

[Helge]

Here we have the Fusiliers of 18. IR in fairly standard uniforms, plus their skirmish screen.





Another regiment done. More importantly, I received my parcel of Perry models needed to complete the mega-batch project of painting all four Silesian Landwehr regiments (12 battalions). I have finished around a 150 Warlord plastic figures already and with the Perry command figs I can now finish this up (plus some more rankers to paint). Stay tuned for a rapid burst of Landwehr battalions over the coming weeks.

Also a footnote on the regimental commanders. The figures are a mix of Warlord, Calpe, and Perry. None of the manufacturers make sufficient field grade officers so I had to bulk-sculpt epaulette fringes onto a few dozen regimental commanders (field rank had fringes, company-level officers didn't). Thankfully the Landwehr officer - senior or junior - didn't really have much on their shoulders so this effort was limited to line commanders.

[syrinx0]

Another week, another nice looking regiment!

[Helge]

Alright, get ready for the Landwehr barrage! I have finished the 200+ Warlord plastic models and now just need to wrap up a handful of metal figures per battalion. Since the Warlord command range is very limited, I sprinkled in some Perry and Calpe models, as well as the metal pikemen kit from Warlord. I armed these with shortened pikes to represent sergeants since true pikes would have been out of date by 1815 even for Landwehr units. These figures are in marching pose which doesn't quite fit with the plastic poses - why Warlord, why? - but it does add a bit of much-needed variety. So here it goes...

First we have Major von Fischer commanding 1. Schlesisches (Silesian) Landwehr Regiment with three battalions. These are distinguished only by their white, red and yellow epaulettes.