Latest Italian WIP

Compared to the previous lot of Italians, this bunch have fairly leaped off the painting table! I finished painting these 12 chaps on Sunday after undercoating them on Friday night.

These are the Chasseurs of the Italian Royal Guard using the figures from HaT's 8170 French Guard Chasseurs. They're not nearly as pleasing to the eye as the Zvezda Grenadiers, but because the detail is more chunky, they're a hell of a lot more easy to paint, hence the speed in painting. I've included interlopers as officers; the marching Chef de Battalion is a metal Kennington figure with a plastic HaT 8095 French infantry 1808-1812 head, and the Eagle bearer is from HaT's 8251 Light Infantry Command set which is also a head conversion using a bearskin head from the chasseur set. 

The most interesting inclusion in this set is the fifer. Having neglected to put any command figures besides an NCO, the fifer figure was included not once, but 4 times in the one kit! While one fifer could be justified, 4 seems a bit of overkill when not one officer figure was included.

HaT seem to have realised the errors of their way and now include a separate command pack for every new release viz. the new Light Infantry figures.

After having so much fun and unexpected success with John R.'s guerrillas in the Battle of St. Helene, I decided that I should paint up some guerrilla figures that I've been ignoring after painting up my topper-wearing Spanish line troops from the same set. As a taster I include the first figure which I quickly dashed up in muted browns and greys to make a change from green, white, red and black!

March attack figure doing his best John Wayne swagger

Advancing figure with charged bayonet.

Kennington head conversion officer

Head conversion Eagle bearer. Pole looks bent at the base, but I couldn't fit it without bending. Reminds me of trying to build model aeroplanes as a kid; something always looked bent out of shape, but wouldn't fit any other way!

The fifer

2nd march attack figure

Loading figure. Has his feet apart like a rock guitar hero!

Complete unit based; waiting to texture and flock the bases, varnish the figures in AP dark and attach the flag to the staff.

Sinister bandido. Looks one-armed, but is actually reaching behind, under his cloak