40th Foot - finished!

This is, of course, a bit of a lie - they're not finished: I still have to base them and there are still a few drummers, serjeants' stripes, sword pommels and missed bits here and there to complete. But for the moment, they're going back in the box and I'm going to move on. My job has really picked up recently so I haven't had much time, and the 40th have kept me busy since Christmas.
The blogger stats show this site popping up on all sorts of wargaming and modelling forums - French, German, Canadian and others - and its amusing/weird for me to read people discussing my project. The two most prominent sources for discussion are a) I'm mad and b) I'll never finish in time for June 2015.
The first point may be true but as far as b) goes - no, of course I will never get close - I'd need several more lifetimes and triple my meagre salary to manage it but I love doing this - for me it's the history of each, ordinary, forgotten individual that I find fascinating, far more so than analysing grand scale tactics, the battle itself and so on.

So here are the 40th Foot forming square one last time before they go back into a box for a good while.

I'm not sure what to do next; I have a choice of the following:
1) One of the 3 Rifles battalions - all that green would make a nice change
2) Scots Greys - I haven't started on the heavy cavalry yet, and I should get a move on
3) a Horse Artillery battery - I don't have many figs yet, I was keeping fingers crossed for plastic one day. I've done an RA battery already (as you can see here) so one from the RHA would be nice.
4) one of Halkett's regiments (30th, 33rd, 69th, 73rd) - bloodied and much reduced (thank heavens!) from Quatre Bras - I'm using all Victrix for these.

I don't know if enough people read this to actually have a poll - but please, if you see this, it would be fun for me to hear your opinion and I'll use that to make my decision. It's as good a system as any even if there's only a couple of votes!

40th Foot - part 3 - nearly there

On it goes - broken the back of the buggers now and the end is (maybe) in sight.
I'm still not sure how to base them - I think I'm going to have to have one row kneeling (not 2 as I know was correct) and 3 rows standing. At the moment I have a front rank kneeling, second rank firing or presenting, third rank with muskets raised skyward and fourth rank either at the ready or resting. I'd welcome anyone's thoughts on this.

 As always, still plenty to be done - but at least most of the incredibly tedious lace is now finished.

One of the best accounts of the 40th comes from Serjeant William Lawrence of the Grenadier company - I fancy this might be him in the centre of the pic. He served with the 40th in South America, the Peninsula and 1815. His writing is very much an infantryman's point of view - he spends as many pages describing the finding and preparation of a ham and two chickens after the battle as he does in the combat itself.