Brunswick Light Infantry Von Barner, 1777 (Saratoga)

With this week's arrival of some MDF bases from Sarissa Precision I was able to base this unit, that I have been painting over the last few weeks. 

Here is the unit as a whole (Perry Miniatures Hessian musketeers charging):

These figures are a bit of compromise as no one really makes specific figures for the unit. These are armed with the standard musket whereas the real light infantry probably carried a lighter carbine. The officers also should really not have gorgets. I've even compounded things with inaccurate striped overalls, but I really couldn't resist and I think they have come out rather well even if I have no particular use for them at the moment as I'm supposed to be focusing my efforts on a refight of Hubbardton, so what I actually need to paint up are a few grenadiers skirmishing as back-up to some jagers.

Painting was my usual technique of white or light grey primer, dark wash to bring out the details, block painting of the basic colours, a second wash (GW Agrax Earthshade in this case) then highlight with 1 or 2 shades.

The blue is Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue, finished with Prussian Blue, with a 50/50 mix somewhere in between. Reds use Vallejo Dark Red, Flat Red and Scarlet. Flesh uses GW Ratskin Flesh and Vallejo Flat Flesh. Black use, err, black, then Vallejo Black-Grey. There's lots of different browns, often with mixes but the most commonly used ones are Vallejo Mahogany Brown, Orange Brown and Light Brown, with Brown Sand for the furry knapsacks. I paint the hair using a variety of thee browns and intermediate mixes to give some variety across the unit. A lot of the white areas are actually Vallejo Ivory, with white being reserved for highlights. The leggings have a basic colour of Ivory, with the stripes initially painted in diluted Prussian Blue, then highlighted with Vallejo Light Blue. For metals, the "silver" parts start with Vallejo Gunmetal Greay and are highlighted with Army Painter Silver. "Gold" areas start with Army Painter Greedy Gold and are highlighted with Army Painter Bright Gold. Yellow is always hard to paint so I have used GW Yriel Yellow and Flash Gitz Yellow as they have lots of pigment, which works OK over a light primer/undercoat.

One of the figures in the musketeer charging pack has a slightly miscast face, making them tricky to paint well, and another pose has the musket sort of covering the left side of the face and blocking good access with the paintbrush. These are certainly a more challenging unit than the other figures I have painted for the Saratoga campaign over the last few months.

But anyway, here are some closer views:

that drummer in the turban is also from a grenadier command pack...

Here is the unit broken down for skirmishing:

I've painted a little command vignette for no particular purpose. The officer is a Wargames Foundry figure and the drummer is from Perry Miniatures:

In case you were wondering, painting the triangles in three colours around the drum hoops on three drummers was quite a lot of work and sent me goggly eyed at one stage. I did make one or two errors but am not unhappy with the end result. The next unit will be Hessians however with simple white and red diagonal stripes...

A couple of the figures in the unit are not actually from the Perry musketeers charging. As mentioned above, the officer in the vignette is Foundry, the drummer in the turban is from a grenadier command pack. The drummer on the command vignette base is from the garrison musketeer command. The bareheaded chap is from the grenadier command charging pack and the sapper is from the grenadier advancing pack, but with a head swap to one wearing a tricorne rather than a mitre. You'll probably get the idea that this unit was a good way to use some left over figures from my box of random Hessians!

I do have my next unit primed and ready to start. This is of Perry Hessian musketeers marching and I think I'll paint these as the Lieb Regiment, with yellow facings. The unit will number between 28 and 32 figures (I have to work out a couple of details about command figures, flags and basing) so these will probably take a couple of weeks. So I will see you then!