The 91st of Foot (sort of, nearly)

I'm slogging along with my Peninsular War rosbifs, and making heavy going of it too. However, I'm very nearly done with my very first Black Powder battalion, with just the Light Company to finish for the left of the line. Even at this level of painting, they're taking forever — I don't seem to be able to just sit and paint for hour after hour as I used to.

The colours came from the WarFlags site, printed and over-painted, and I chose the 91st simply because their regimental colour matches the facing colour I'd already started painting. I don't actually know anything about the regiment beyond its existence, and to be honest, I don't really care that much. At this point, a generic British formation is all I'm after.

Note: I am informed that the 91st was actually a Scottish regiment, originally the 98th Argyllshire Highlanders, who wore kilts up until about 1809 (?)  Fortunately that's before my chosen period, just. But in any case, hopefully nobody too knowledgeable will look too closely.

These figures are all from a single box of HäT plastic 1/72 figures, which are the only cheap plastic ones I've found that wear the pre-Waterloo stovepipe shako. That's why part of the battalion are standing at shoulder arms, while the rest are marching merrily along — there aren't enough figures of either type in one box to do a whole battalion.

The situation is easier with the Strelets boxes, as each of their sprues are entirely of one type of figure, with a few minor differences so that the bases don't all look like robot-clones marching in lock-step. However, the Strelets sets are all in the later Belgic shako, and there are only half the number of figures per box (at the same price as the HäT box) — roughly enough for one battalion per box, with a few spares. The Strelets plastic feels a bit greasier than HäT's; hopefully after a good scrubbing in detergent the paint won't just fall off them.

I'll add a couple of 95th Riflemen on detachment to the Light Company, in homage to Sharpe, which I'm currently rewatching for the umpteenth time. I haven't yet decided how I'm going to base the Lights; whether to base them individually, and make a sabot for when they're in the line, whether to just put them on a 6-figure base like all the others, or to split the difference and put them on two 3-figure bases.

A bit later...

I decided to base my Light Bobs individually, and make 3d printed three-figure sabots for them.

The plastic figures are mounted on 12.5mm (½ inch) steel washers, and there are 5x1mm magnets inset in the bottom of each socket in the sabot base.

This way I can scatter them individually if they're out in skirmish order, or if I'm feeling lazy I can just leave them in their sabots.

Here are the two sabots alongside the other six-figure bases in a 3d printed half-battalion movement tray. Only the front rank of the Lights are painted as yet; the guys at the back are still in their black primer.

Next morning...

And this battalion is done. Now, on to the next, which I think will be kilted Scots, just to torture myself a bit. I need four battalions of foot for a complete Black Powder army; I expect I will be both ancient and irretrievably insane by the time I finish them all.

I've got a box of Strelets Highlanders in Attack primed with black gesso, ready to be painted. I've painted tartan before (see this old post) but never in this scale, and only on individual figures, not as a production line.