Austrian Pontonniers - Victrix & Perry 28mm

Week 8 of the backlog, and something a bit more unusual this time. Here we have a couple of detachments of Austrian Pontonniers. These are made from a combination of bits from Victrix Austrian Landwehr figures, and Perry Austrians (the two figures with aprons), plus some axes and plumes from the Victrix French Line Infantry set.  The plumes were glued to the Landwehr heads which was an easy conversion with plastic figures.

The role of Pontonniers was making pontoons and supporting other water crossing operations, which was pretty important given all the rivers in the Austrian Empire (and generally for that matter). 

In some Napoleonic rules, including my own quick play ones, engineering units like this can build or destroy bridges, and help in defending and attacking obstacles like built up areas. Quite necessary rules to have if you are refighting some historical battles.

Below are some reference pictures of Pontonniers, from the now sadly unavailable Rawkins book (EDIT: I've just learned Anschluss Publishing is rereleasing this series, which is good news, though the Austrian one has not yet been released). Coats varied from Licht-Kornblume or Light Cornblue (which I have used to distinguish them from more common darker blue uniforms) to darker shades, and breeches were often the same colour, or white for dress uniform, or whatever was locally available.

For reference also, the Sappeurs and Miners wore a similar uniform, and carried similar equipment, but the jacket was a Eisengrau or Iron Grey as below. I considered painting one of the sections like this, but this scheme resembles Landwehr which could be confusing so I stuck with the Potonniers.

Thanks for looking and more next Friday! :)

Austrian Landwehr - Victrix 28mm

Week 7 of backlog posting, and here are two Austrian Landwehr battalions. These are made from the Victrix Austrian Landwehr kit. This is just the Austrian Infantry with Corsehut headgear instead of helment or shako, that I mentioned last week is one of my favourites.

I've painted these ones up in earlier 1809 colours, with green jackets, and red facings (Duchy of Kärnten Landwehr) for one unit, and yellow facings (Duchy of Salzburg Landwehr) for the other. 

I've just kept the standard Landwehr Corsehut headgear these figures come with. Some pictures show a variety of headgear like tophats but not game to try that conversion!

These join my other six Landwehr battalions which are Perry and done in the later 1813 grey uniform (though facing colours vary). They can be seen here.
Next week, a more unusual Austrian unit... ;)

Austrian Line - Victrix 28mm

Week 6 of Friday backlog posting. Here we have four units of Austrian Line with the earlier helmet rather than Shako. These are Victrix figures which are my favourite Austrian plastic kit due to the options. This is another 3 boxes making four units of 36, with leftovers used for some support companies that I will also post shortly.

Here are the two yellow facing battalions, which can be any of the regiments with these facings, while the other two units have black facings.

These 144 infantry will join their thousand or so previous colleagues, which can be seen here.

Thanks for looking!

Tirailleurs Corses and du Po

Two Light Infantry units, Tirailleurs Corses (Corsican from Napoleon's home island of Corsica) and du Po (Piedmontese). These units were often brigaded together and earned a reputation as veteran troops.

I made these from extra elite company figures in the Perry set, together with a Victrix Officer and Drummer in each. The figures are not quite right, e.g. Corses apparently had their ammo pouch on the front rather than the rear - but close enough for my purposes. I've also used a few less figures and more active poses than in most units, which suits the fact that they will often be deployed in open order as befits their light infantry role.

Tirailleurs Corses.

Tirailleurs du Po.

One example of the various and diverse examples you can find on uniforms of these units! Both would be wearing Shakos in later periods, and the Corses likely had blue rather than brown uniforms for at least some of their history. However, the brown is one of the few uniforms of that colour and wargaming tradition for the Corses by now, so I wanted to paint them up in that colour :)

UPDATE 10.03.2024. Dave W on The Wargaming Forum has pointed out this interesting piece of history, indicating it's likely the Corses actually wore blue with green facings, specifically: "...brown uniforms are from the Army of Italy units of Corsican Legions, formed of National Guards taken to the mainland. There were 5 and all had different facing colours. The Tir.Corse, like du Po, were always dressed in French legere blue, but with the ‘green’ facings given from origin (1802) according to d’Ornanos request. The Tir. du Po wore chapeau at inception and did so thru 1808 at least."  

See this source as one account with some more details. Article in French but you can right click and select translate to English in Chrome. More links to sources in this thread.

I also have a large and growing backlog of newly painted units I must add to this blog (twenty nine of them at current count!), so will try to add at least some of these in near future. :)

Italian Light Infantry - 28mm Victrix

Back to some Napoleonic painting with some Italian light infantry or 'Reggimento Fanteria Leggera'. Victrix French earlier period infantry to match my  Italian Line Infantry.

2nd Regiment with blue facings at front, and 1st regiment with yellow facings in rear.

These might be used for various other Light Infantry units in a pinch in certain scenarios!

Italian Artillery - 28mm Victrix

Some artillery support for the Italians. More Victrix figures used here, their 1804-1812 French Artillery set with 8 and 12 pdrs.

The kit comes with a variety of head options also including bearskins (for Guard Artillery), campaign shakos and bicornes and some bare heads, but I chose full dress shakos for all figures. Nice to have the option!

The guns also come with ammunition chests but left those off here for now.

12 pdrs are the two pieces on the left in pics above (and on right in pics below). They have larger barrels though a little hard to tell apart unless looking straight down upon them. I might need to paint the cuffs and collars of the 12 pounders in light blue as for 1st/Guardia Artillery so they are easier to tell apart! Other four guns are 8 pounders. 

There's a powder scoop arm option which was not really used at this time (but I stuck a couple in anyway).  

The bases are a bit small for the dynamic poses you get with plastics, as compared to metals, but managed to fit everything on. 50x100 bases would work better than these 50x75mm bases though.

Thanks for looking. On the painting desk at the moment more French and French Ally Generals.

Also for any other bloggers out there, it seems Blogger has changed the format for picture uploading in an annoying way (a simpler more restricted option) - but I was able to switch back to "classic blogger" format which works better thank goodness. You will find option on the bottom left menu.

Italian Line Infantry - Victrix 28mm

I have finished doubling my Italian Line Infantry and now have four units of them. Been putting them off because the figures are the early Victrix figures which require a lot of assembly, and painting of yet more white uniforms. Virus lockdown, which looks like being almost over here in New Zealand thankfully, has been a good excuse to get these done!

The Italian infantry had a complicated system with slightly different combinations of green, red and white for facings of their uniforms, and there is a lot of source inconsistency as to what regiment was wearing what during different time periods.  I cheated here and just painted all of these in the 3rd/5th regiment scheme for ease of painting and putting on the table and storing.  Facings are mostly green.

If I do more Italians, (perhaps using Perry) I will do another four units with more of a red theme to the facings.

While I've done four units of 36, for the scale we most commonly play at they will be fielded as six units of 24. This gives me four line units like the following.

Plus a combined Grenadier unit.

And a combined Voltigeur unit.

I also did up these four skirmisher bases. Once again from the Victrix kit, and I have plenty left over for more skirmishers and command.

Next up is some Italian artillery. Two 1804-1812 Victrix French artillery sets are being used for these, to get the 8pdr and 12pdr guns and earlier uniform. After that perhaps some Italian light infantry. 

Thanks for looking! Hope you are all getting through this damnable pestilence ok, keep well!