Ottoman Turkish Janissaries

After painting so many units of French Napoleonic line, I was looking for something a little different.

I have always had a soft spot for Renaissance Ottoman Turks, and have the core of a 15mm army stored somewhere. It saw action in a few very enjoyable games in the 80's, so I decided to do the whole thing over again but in 28mm this time, and managed to complete the first unit of Janissaries over the weekend:

These guys have jumped a rather long painting queue, but it was a relief to be able to paint something without piping :

I have purchased miniatures from The Assault Group, or TAG as they are more commonly known, for this project. They are very nice figures, but took a little bit of "working out" in terms of what to paint where. That is probably more a function of the period and a lack of definition as to what combatants of period actually wore however, combined with the usual uncertainty when first approaching a new project:

There were also four command figures in each pack which I decided to spread across two elements, as I am basing in threes:

One of them includes a standard bearer, so I turned to Little Big Man Studios and their Islamic Banners, which I believe fit quite nicely (even though the Janissaries themselves were predominantly Christian):

These are decals which have to be applied to paper. This was actually very easy, although the bit that I found slightly mystifying is that they are in two separate halves with no join, so you have to position them carefully and then paint the blank space in between the two parts. It should be noted however that this is not the case with the bulk of Steve's banners and, even if it were, the end result more than justifies the extra minute or so of effort as I believe they look terrific.

That's it for the first unit or orta, and there is another on the painting table at the moment which I am hoping to complete within the next couple of weeks.

French Line Infantry Colonels

I accumulated twenty-two colonels that came with the Foundry French line command packs, so decided I may as well use them and base them with some surplus line figures:

I'm not sure that I will ever need this many, especially when there are a considerable number of the higher command echelon to complete, but I couldn't stand the thought of them sitting idle:

They are a little repetitive as they are all in the same pose:

Adding different figures:

And using a variety of horse colours helped mix things up a bit:

I like the Foundry figures, but find the metal rather soft and bayonets and plumes have a propensity to snap easily. This was however a good way to use up a couple of the march attack figures who were sans bayonet:

I have quite a few French allied contingents to complete down the track, so now have sufficient staff figures to cover them as well. Apart from that, I have enough to form them up into their own mounted regiment if ever I need to:

That's the French line part of the project completed. There are another dozen later line regiments stored somewhere which I hope to complete in the next couple of years, but I feel like a change and will paint some Ottoman Turkish renaissance Janissaries that have jumped the queue and made their way on to the painting table.

French Converged Grenadier Battalions

After having completed all my Foundry French line regiments for Albuera, I found that I was left with forty or so spare grenadiers. To my surprise I found that there was a converged French grenadier battalion of eleven companies and over a thousand men at Albuera, which was just perfect:

The strange thing is that this was never actually in my original planning, but is one of the few occasions when my over-ordering fits perfectly:

The converged grenadiers were actually made up of men drawn from the 45th, 63rd and 95th ligne, alongside the 4th Polish regiment, so there is little chance that they would appear as homogenous as depicted here. That said, it was nice to be able to paint some more of my favourite line grenadiers in caps:

Even if they don't get to carry an Eagle:

That's definitely it for the French line. I'm now going to concentrate on a few command stands to soak up the remainder of my Foundry command pack figures, and hope to have these completed very soon.

French 103rd Line Regiment

Finally there with the last of the Foundry French line and the completion of the 103rd:

The 103rd were present in Gazan's second division at Albuera, giving me all the French line regiments that were there, albeit in two battalion formations as opposed to the three that were present on the day:

This represents twenty battalions of four hundred figures in total finished, alongside twenty Portuguese completing that project back in January, so not a bad effort for 2018 thus far:

I believe I have another nine battalions of Calpe French line stored somewhere, but will save tackling them for a later date (mainly because I have forgotten where I have put them).

I also have forty or so line grenadiers left over as a result of my usual over-ordering, and will be using them for two converged grenadier battalions. As luck would have it (and much to my amazement), there was a converged French grenadier battalion at Albuera. It is almost as though I had planned it!