Ideas for interesting Pennisular War figures.

[Rob_bresnen]

I have recently finished painting up some British and allies for the Peninsular War (in 28mm): Namely British regulars and rifles, Royal Navy Marines and Sailors, KGL, Spanish armed peasants/guerillas and Portuguese cazadores. This has given me a good basis for games of Sharps Practice etc. What I need to do next is the French.

The problem is that I am a bit uninspired by the French line battalions. I am sure I will paint a couple of battalion of French Line, but what else should I paint. I am looking for interesting, colourful units that fought for Napoleon in the Peninsular War. I have been looking at Irish Legion and possibly some Hussars, but what else should I be looking at?

[Littlearmies]

The Peninsula was a dumping ground for the "second rate" allies, 3rd battalions and anything else the French could dredge up so there are lots of options. Spanish Bonapartists (many wearing French cut uniforms but with brown jackets with red facings), Leval's Division (various German and Dutch battalions), Italians, Swiss, you name it.

My advice would be to seek out one of the old Embleton books on ebay (that had the coloured uniform plates) - if one of those images doesn't get your pulse racing then you shouldn't really be doing Napoleonics!

[Rob_bresnen]

I went on ebay and bid right away. Thanks for the tip.

[Rob Herrick]

A good one would be the Hanoverian Legion:

If you're feeling that's too much red, then paint them in their greatcoats. The regiment's commander requested that they be allowed to wear them at Bussaco to avoid confusion.

Another favorite of mine is the Legion du Midi:


Conveniently, they are in the same brigade (1st Brigade: General of Brigade Edouard François Simon) of Loison's Division, along with three battalions of the 26 Ligne.

If that doesn't suit your fancy, then there's always Laval's German Division for Talavera. JJ's Wargaming Blog gives a good OB here: http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2014/10/napoleons-german-division-at-talavera.html It's Badenese, Nassauers, Dutch, Hessians and Frankfurters, in all kinds of colors.

Then there's always Suchet's Army in Aragon to draw from. Here's a good order of battle: http://napitalia.org.uk/eng/sagobf.shtml You have French, Italians, the Vistula Legion, Neopolitans, French Cuirassiers in brown uniforms, al kinds of fun.

A good book to get is Military Dress of the Peninsular War, by by Martin Windrow and Gerry Embleton. There's 100 different color plates, showing just how varied a uniform things could be. 

[thequestingvole]

I would second the recommendation of the Embelton - it's a cracking book.

The Legione Irlandaise are worth a look as are the Marines of the Guard (present at Bailen). There are some rather excellent French Dragoons with bright pink facings, but I can't remember exactly what regiment.

[the commissar]

If you don't want to convert figures take a look at the Perry's Confederation of the Rhine figures. You can create  the various Rheinbund regiments that were made up of different contingents - most of whom fought (at least briefly!) in Catalonia.

My personal favourite is the Princes Battalion that had companies from Lippe Detmold, Schaumberg Lippe, Waldeck, Reuss, Schwarzburg Sonderhausen and Schwarzburg Rudolstadt.

[has.been]

We once had a Peninsular war skirmish game where we had:-
Swiss (French);  Irish (French) ; Polish (French) & Spanish (French)  but not a single French (French) figure.
To add to the mixture at one point there was a fight between the Reg. Irelanaise (Irish French) and The Inneskillan Reg. (Irish British) In fact when the rest of the British retired from the field we had a English French fight with no English or French !!!

[Lowtardog]

I would second the foreign regiments, I did these myself as got sick of doing blue. The irlandaise are nice also

[Belisarius]

The Garde de Paris, perhaps,  ( line troops ) consisting of two battalions one wearing white coats faced with red and the other red coats faced in green , if memory serves.