Tuesday, March 12, 2013

2/39th and the Loyal Lusitanian Legion

I've been painting Napoleonic infantry for the first time in ages, more pointedly British infantry for the first time in years:

The 2/39th Served in the Peninsular Wars from 1809, seeing action at Busaco, Torres Vedras, Albuera and Vittoria.  Their uniform being of green facings.  I elected to do the unit in badly worn uniforms with lots of repairs and locally sourced cloth:


I'd forgotten how long it took to assemble Victrix Brits, and how tedious the British uniform is to paint, but after twenty or so hours they were done.

I went from those straight into a unit of Portuguese to follow up, making use of a ancient selection of Hinchcliffe miniatures donated to me by a club member.  They were rather basic British infantry models, but this meant a simple conversion would be enough to turn them into the Loyal Lusitanian Legion:


Serving in this form from 1808 to 1811, the LLL was a light infantry formation raised by colonel Robert Thomas Wilson, also present at Busaco, but noted for it's raiding activity.

Personally I think there is a charm to the Hinchcliffe models, sure they are slight and crude compared to the Victrix but they paint up easily and en-masse they look fine.


So that's two more regiments for my Anglo-Portuguese army, in the same number of weeks.  Providing valuable reinforcement for the upcoming game.  Next up, more French I think...

4 comments:

  1. Love that Hinchliffe regiment.. can I admit to liking it more than the Victrix one? It just has character...

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  2. Nice troops; the British look great - the Hinchcliffe are charming, I must agree and this particular unit/uniform very much so. Best, Dean

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  3. Very nice looking units, especially for me the British!
    Phil.

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  4. Sorry I am a bit late to this post but have been looking for inspiration to paint a battalion of the Loyal Lusitanian Legion and found this post. I really like the old Hincliffe unit you created. Has an old school charm that works for me. I recently did a battalion of old Connoisseur fusiliers (well, a year or two back which is recently in my book). The basing ties the older stuff together with the newer units.

    And I know what you mean about assembling the Victrix figs - a chore.

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