I have started working on converting a.ready painted Gajo figures to additional units, to fill out my army. They only have three infantry regiments represented and I wanted a few more. This is basically just an exercise in changing facing colors on different units to make them other units. So, not too hard. Although painting some of those colors took a bit of time, not to mess them up!
When I ordered some supplemental models from Gajo, they were kind enough to send me a whole bunch of extra figures (they were closing out those lines I guess). In some cases there were a bit beat up and needed some extra level of painting, but who is going to complain about getting free stuff! The one unit they sent a whole Buch extra, was the 11th Line Regiment. This is the only unit in the main army that had white coats. I was not sure what I was going to do with these, as they do not have a lot of cross use. I first considered repainting all the jackets, but that was not a pleasant prospect. I finally decided I could get away with doing them as National Guard in summer jackets. Two of these battalions are present at the early battles, so I did two units. With that, I went through and changed the facings to match those units. I painted out the lapels white and changed the colors and cuffs to red. I also changed the pompoms to red. The figures in longer coats with tails, I did repaint blue. Since I had the figures, I did two over strength units.
The next unit was a lot simpler. I was able to convert a unit worth of 1st Line figures into 6th line figures, just by chasing their lapels to white. These were a bit banged up, so I did have to refresh their shakos with black and their coats with blue. Once again, not boing to complain about free figures!
Finally, I had another unit of 4th Light Infantry. These guys basically have the same uniform as the 7th Line (I think they got combined at some point). With these, I just needed to changed the cuffs to green, with red cuff flaps from the red cuffs originally painted. The pom poms also had to be changed to red. I just noticed that I forgot to paint the shako piping, so I will need to go back and do that…..
Another fun project was to make a band of drummers! Just like the US, I had extra guys. They were all from the 11th, so I just based them up as a drum line. The unit has no real purpose, but something fun to put on the table for color and get some use of the figures.
All the units had flags from Virtual Armchair General attached. I had to replace some flag poles with wires, because they were broken. I also decided to cut down some flag poles to make them more table friendly. I topped them with some white glue balls and then painted that brass. The basing is the same Muddy Paw mix I have been using.
With that, I have four more units of infantry. I have more to go, but will probably squeeze something else in, just to break up the monotony!
- Manteuffel