A new direction—to Waterloo!

Here it is, the 196th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. I have been fiddling around with various projects the last few weeks, but I have finally made a decision:

I am going to build a 28mm Waterloo Project, and I’m going to do all the Prussians myself.

There. THAT is a line in the sand table.

So, over the next few weeks I’m going to do some plotting and scheming here on the blog, while I also get started in the painting department.

“The WHAT department??” I hear you ask.

Yep. I have one other project that I have done all my own painting, and that is my Lord of the Rings project with the Games Workshop figures. The Prussians will be my second.

I already have a respectable amount of 28mm Napoleonics, including 24 battalions of French infantry, each of 24 figures. I have a small force of British, too.  Plus my good friend and gaming partner-in-crime Ray has more Brits, plus most of the Brunswick contingent.

The plan is simple, if daunting. I will buy and paint all of the new Perry Miniatures releases. I have three boxes of the plastic line infantry now, which will become the first regiment. Which regiment? Good question. I’m not sure yet.

The very first historical miniatures I ever purchased and painted were 15mm Minifig Prussians. I painted them as the Leib Regiment. For some reason, I have always been fascinated by that particular unit. Problem is, it wasn’t at Waterloo! Leib was in III Corps at Wavre.

So what units to paint for Waterloo? I have several books on the battle to help me decide, including Adkins Waterloo Companion, Bowden’s Armies at Waterloo, Haythornethwaite’s The Waterloo Armies, Hofschroer’s two volume The Waterloo Campaign, Linck’s Napoleon’s Generals, and Nofi’s The Waterloo Campaign, as well as Robinson’s The Battle of Quatre Bras and Uffindell’s The Eagles Last Triumph. Oh, and plenty of Ospreys.

My next problem is to decide how I’m going to paint all of these. I am interested in using the Army Painter method, as I’m not a very good or fast painter. However, based on some pictures I’ve seen, their dark blue is not dark enough for Prussian blue. Something I will need to consider.

Finally for now, I want to blame—I mean thank several people whose sites have motivated for this project. In no particular order:

The League of Augsburg, both for their interesting rules Republic to Empire and their forum with LOTS of great eye candy.

Martin Kelly’s Befreiungskriege blog, good for all things Napoleonic Prussian.

Martin is very partial to Calpe Miniatures’ exquisite Prussian figures. I like them too. They will probably be added to my force as well, especially if I can get ahead of the Perrys’ release curve and need cavalry.

Von Peter Himself, and his lovely and entertaining blog.

And the always amusing banter at the WD3 forum.

And of course Ray, whose fault it always is, no matter what is wrong.

OK. Let’s get this thing started. Here’s the “lead pile” so far: