95th Rifles - work in progress - Part 3

Nearly finished now - just need to do plumes (which I'm going to do in a much lighter green) and some other details such as the canteen straps.
I love basing  figs and am constantly fighting an urge to base them before they are properly finished. Also, my current lack of space means that a unit of based figs takes up a lot more room than those which are still loose - so I'm hesitating. It makes more sense to just put these away and move on to the next unit but...I just bought a load of grass tufts! We'll have to see.

I put thirty canteen and backpack decals on these guys. I'm not sure what I think of the results, they are great decals but at this scale you are either a) too far away to even see them or b) so close up that you can see very clearly every wrinkle, crease, shine etc. i.e. the decal is very obvious.  I might just leave the rest - again not sure.

I've had a lot of fun with this unit - about half are Foundry, Front Rank and Perry metals, but the rest are made up of the bodies of Perry plastic riflemen, grafted onto all manner of Perry and Victrix legs with a variety of converted heads. The officer here, for example, is a Victrix head and officer body with a Perry hussar pelisse.

95th Rifles - work in progress Part 2

Just an update - they're coming along nicely and quite pleased so far. I asked for some help r.e. undercoating and varnish on the Steve Dean forum and received some very useful advice - I'm so used to working with plastics where the paint never chips off and needs no varnish, that all these metals were quite tricky at first (of the 65 men about 30 are metal). But now, thanks to the matt Daler Rowney varnish which I bought, things are much better. I'm very grateful for the advice, and increasingly I can see that the difference between terrible figs and beautiful figs has very little to do with an individual's skill but rather, is pretty much down to what you know.
Anyway, here are a couple more pics of Number 1 company, 2nd Battalion Rifles. Still plenty to be done but much, much quicker than all those damned redcoats!

Rifles it is! Work in progress on the 95th

Many thanks to everyone who voted! In the end there were just a couple more votes for the Rifles but next up I'll do a squadron of the Scots Greys (the runners up), I promise.

So here is No.1 Company (Miller's), 2nd Battalion 95th Foot. The 2nd Battalion formed part of Adam's brigade and, along with the huge battalion of the 52nd, really hammered the final advance of the Imperial Guard late in the day. So I'm going to have both this battalion and the 52nd in a desperate firing line, with the 71st and 3rd Batt 95th advancing in line (being at the other end of the wheeling line, by the time the 71st had formed up the French had already taken to their heels).

So... early days but such a pleasant change to all that horrible white lace.

The Battalion was only six companies strong at Waterloo but to compensate for this, each was very large. No.1 Company had a nominal strength of 115 men. They suffered 25% casualties in their sharp exchange with the Guard - 4 men killed and 25 wounded.

The company was commanded by Captain George Miller who was wounded by cannister shot fired by a British cannon which had been captured by French troops, “They fired it three times, loaded with grape, into our square, and did great execution.”  A Peninsula veteran, Miller had received a special gold medal for his conduct at the Nivelle. He was promoted to Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel for Waterloo and died in 1843.

Man down at the front - poor Tom Plunkett!