Napoleonic casualties (Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge entry #8)

So this is my entry for the next fortnight theme. I have long had these minis and for a long time I wanted to turn them into a casualty marker for my Napoleonic games. The minis are from Warlord Games small Napoleonic Prussian range. While the plastics are an absolute pain in the behind due to their soft detail and undercuts these casualties are just brilliant… characterful faces, crisp detail and great interaction between the minis. The only change I made was replacing the banner to be carried by the wounded soldier with a musket (from a Victrix French Guard set). Warlord means these minis to be used as part of the unit, where a banner would be fine, but I felt that on a casualty marker this would just draw too much attention, so I did without. The minis were painted up to act as a casualty marker for a unit of silesian Landwehr or more specifically the 3tes Battalion, 13te Schlesische Landwehr, as denoted by their yellow shoulder boards.

Prussian Landwehr casualties (front)

Prussian Landwehr casualties (back)

But there are also some more casualties. I initially planned to do these as part of the fortnight theme, but after not doing so well on the last two rounds and since it seems I am unable to take proper photos this year (even if my life depended on it), I decided to stick to just one base of minis for the theme round and here is the rest. I painted a awful lot of Napoleonic French and Prussian units over the past 2 ½ years and one thing that is missing are casualty markers for them. As as part of the Challenge I decided to paint a few more up, to beef up their meagre ranks. The French are from Perry Miniatures (metal). Virtully all my French are wearing greatcoats and to my knowledge these are the only two French casualties in greatcoats around, so I simply had to use these.

French casualty (front)
[Not sure where that green smudge on his nose comes from… it is not on the mini itself]

French casualty (back)

French casualty

The other is a Prussian Regular by Calpe Miniatures. The brick-red collar and cuffs denote him to hail from a Brandenburgian unit.

Prussian Regulars casualty counter

All of them are mounted on octagonal bases, each numbered through (by my better half… my hand writing is rubbish). While this is not really a fabulous new idea, I do not like the bases with the integrated casualty wheel (too thick for my taste). They are placed behind the unit that took casualties, with the side that matches the number of casualties facing front. They are placed left or right behind the unit depending on the moral state they are in. The clever bunnies amongst you will realise, that  some units may take more than eight casualties. In that case the counter os moved one base towards the centre of the unit, with each base it is being moved denoting a +8. But I already explained this in more detail in an earlier post for those interested.

And one more shot. When taking these photos, I did not realize, that the shutter was still still open on the camera when removing the mini. This created a somewhat ghostlike shot that I wanted to share with you.

French Ghost

And as usual… here is the link to the special page Curt set up for you to see (and cast your vote) on all the entries.