Confederation of the Rhine regiment no 6 Reuss Napoleonic 62

 Slight change of pace, still Napoleonic, still on the French side but just for a change , here is Rhinebund regiment no 6 Reuss, a principality in Germany that contributed to this regiment but did not fill it all. It did take part in the danube campaign of 1809 to an extent, and I can brigade them with one of my Nassau units , although they weren't at Wagram or Aspern. They could well be pressed into standing in for Saxons , I do quite fancy a Saxon force, I just don't know if I can make a bicorne wearing, essentially 18th century force, even if it's correct for Wagram as they will have limited use unless I went for revolutionary armies too and while my helmet wearing  Austrian infantry and grenadiers are probably alright, I would have to redo all my French infantry in bicornes, now I like painting French line infantry but there are limits! So maybe Saxon 1810 and onwards? But that's for another time.

A while ago I spent some time working in Girona in Catalonia, which endured three sieges during the war of Independence/ peninsular war the sixth regiment arrived just after the third siege, so I'll need  Westphalians and Italians for that and a characterful Spanish force built around regiment Ultonia (Ulster) and various less uniformed forces, I've already earmarked some Wargames Atlantic Prussian reserve to give me a start and of course I have a medieval town wall and some French artillery! 

 These chaps are mostly Perry plastic Austrian infantry with plastic  voltigeur and hussar heads plus three metal Perry Reuss command, the Waldeck command that came with these chaps have been press ganged into a Westphalian unit that will be along      ( with it's two companions) in due course. I've mainly used Pinterest as my reference, together with the Perry site, the drummer is based on a knotel illustration as is the officer. The metals were, it has to be said nicer to paint than the plastics, they're slightly more exaggerated but you can't argue with either the cost or the easy conversion possibilities of plastic, or indeed the weight taking them back and forth across the Atlantic! 

It's a rather light operatic uniform I think? Nothing wrong with that, nice and colourful in full dress and a nice change from French blue!

The flagbearer is a Victrix figure with the slightly longer jacket than the Perry with Confederate flag arms, I haven't got a flag for this unit yet, there doesn't seem to be an historical one but I've seen a coat of arms so I think I'll just adapt that, I  was inspired by the drum trim on the knotel illustration to treat the flag pole in the Reuss colours which are of course the colours of present day Germany (almost said West Germany, old habits die hard!) Primed in Halfords grey, agrax earthshade wash (except where I wanted black) the black is liquatex artists acrylic ink, good quality and much cheaper than miniatures paint, bit of a sheen sometimes but that's okay for shako,cartridge case and gaiters. I'm pretty happy with my economy Rhinebund regiment and good practice for white uniform jackets, blue breeches and freehand knotwork for my Hungarian and also the Grenzers still to come, probably have the final ( for now) French line unit next, bit worried I'm going to run out of figures out here! 

All the best 

Iain