33rd First Yorkshire West Riding Regiment of Foot

Now, if that isn't a classy title for a regiment, I don't know what is! These chaps also were known as "Duke of Wellington's Own"- which has in modern terms simply become the Dukes. They got the title as they were the regiment that Wellesley served with before his meteoric rise to dukedom!

Here is the full regiment, a normal sized lasalle unit. Now there has been a bit of talk this week about Lasalle basing, and how many figures per base is appropriate (here). I am going to opt for 4 per base, but I will make up a couple of mock bases and show you guys in the future, just to see what you think.

Anyway, back to the 33rd. Now, one of the guys down at the club had some spare Victrix peninsular sprues, which I gladly snapped up, so here is the officer for the 33rd, still resplendant in his Peninsular uniform- including Bicorne!

And lastly from the 33rd, those people who actually gave the regiment a good look (one or two of you I assume), will notice these in the rear rank....

The Kings Colour and the Regimental Colour, from GMB designs. More about flags tommorow however!

I also managed to finish off the other two Generals for the army, first is a Victrix Highlander from the 73rd,

And second is a Hanoverian Landwehr commander, which was converted using Victrix Hanoverian parts, and marrying them to a Victrix Highlander- with a very good result in my opinion!

This chap will be in charge of my Hanoverian detachment (Brunswick Support in Lasalle).

And what of an anecdote from Waterloo? Well, the story of Lord Uxbridge (the commander of the British and allied cavalry) is probably the strangest (and possibly untrue). The story goes that late in the day that Uxbridge rode off to meet Wellington, to tell him to get back off the front lines, for fear he might get shot.

Then, Uxbridge himself was struck in the leg by a cannonball, shearing it clean off. To which he stated,

Lord Uxbridge: "By God, sir, I've lost my leg!"
The Duke of Wellington: "By God, sir, so you have!"

The only thing this story reminds me of? Is Monty Python.

Well, time for hockey, hopefully will get some painting done tommorow,

CP

Horse?

Today started with research. My knowledge of horses comes primarily from horse racing; my uncle always owned a racehorse or two (the type that wins you BIG money when it doesn't bolt!); but beyond understanding the fundamentals of making a buck or two at the racetrack, thats about where my knowledge ends.

So, my issue arose when I tried to paint one! I have painted scant few horses in my years, and certainly not for a very long time (back to when I played Warhammer). So, I began by googling horses, and looking at pictures. I chose to paint up my two horses as Bays; which was a particularly popular horse at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, to the extent that a British Dragoon regiment was named "The Bays" for their horses!

Here are my two attempts to paint some Colonels, both models are metals from Victrix.

Here is the Colonel for the Guards, on a lovely Light Bay.

And the Colonel of the 27th Inniskilling on his Dark Bay.

Tragically, the pictures are doing them no justice whatsoever; the Dark Bay looks far more textured, rather than simply a black undercoat as the picture shows! Also, they are far, far less shiny in real life, the Matt Varnish has just not dried yet in the pictures... I need to do some work into making better pictures, but for now these will have to do. I am not totally sold on the saddle for the Dark Bay, the buff could be a bit too plain; although the plain does offset the gilded pompousity (totally a word) of the Colonel!

In other news, I managed to assemble my next unit of infantry; a medium British regiment. It will be painted up as the 27th Inniskilling, to give this Colonel someone to order around! I will hopefully get a start on them in the next few days.

CP