4eme Dragoons

Present at Vittoria, the 4eme Dragoons were just one of the many regiments Napoleon committed to Spain.  My Box of Perry Dragoons was able to furnish not only the unit mount and on foot, but also a little bonus in the form of a new commander.

Complicated, but a delight to paint.  More details below.  Here's the command group in close-up:

The mounted troops are based in threes for speed of movement, but the foot troops are based singly, to suit skirmish games as well as massed battle.

Much like my 60th Rifles, I decided to convert an officer and a bugler from spare parts.  This meant using a mounted torso for the bugler, so some careful cutting was required.

With the aid of a spare infantry man, a spare Victrix head and a drum, I was able to turn the thirteenth Dragoon into a General.

This model representing Maximilien Sébastien Foy, who served in Portugal and Spain from 1808 until the conclusion of the campaign.

A handy hint for painting the Perry cavalry.  Soft drinks tops filled with a popular brand of reusable modelling clay proved ideal for pushing carefully clipped sprues in to.  Onto these the figures were entirely assembled in groups of four, whilst he muskets and horses were dealt with separately.

This much simplified the process of painting the models.

Overall, it was a large undertaking to paint all these models at once, next time I would do the foot troops separately.  But the models are the sort which could tempt me to do another box.

But that's Perry Mini's for you!