Venezuelan Fusileros.

The first pair of South American reprobates nearly complete.

And a comparison against some source material.

A few little bits to finish off, musket barrels will I think be blacked given the humid climate in that part of the world; shako pom poms may yet be re-painted when I can find a source that gives colours for individual companies.

Dipping a Toe in the Water. South American Wars of Liberation.

Finally took the plunge on what for me is a totally new era of wargaming, the South American Wars of Liberation c.1810-1824. After a couple of weeks of reading & googling I felt confident enough to go out and purchase the first figures for the period. After a certain amount of umming & arring I purchased two boxes of Victrix Napoleonics, one each of French and Austrian infantry. A combination of covered French shakos on Austrian bodies with trousers modified with green stuff gives a fairly close approximation of the Venezuelan/ Gran Colombian infantry that I want for phase one of the project.

The genesis of these are shown above, initially the plan is to base the units for Regimental Fire & Fury with four fusilier bases, one grenadier base & one light infantry ( cazadores) base all of four figures and just keep going until I run out of suitable bits. At that point, given that I'll have a heap of French uniformed bodies and Austrian shakos I will assemble those as a proxy for Spanish Royalist troops. Hopefully they won't be too far off the mark, looking through some Knotel prints it seems as if some Spanish uniforms of the period followed a 'French' style.
Right, off to get some paint on these fellows- wish me luck.

Army of Antigonus Doson Completed.

The title says it all, depicted below are the assembled forces of Antigonus for Sellasia 222BC. Have decided to just re-fight the action in the centre & Euas hill as originally intended principally because work pressures preclude too much time being spent on hobbies over the next few months and secondly because I wish to temporarily draw a veil over things Hellenic for a short while to explore 19th century warfare in the  New World.

 Above. Antigonid cavalry, The Phalanx & Acheaen League Thorakitai. The latter to form a solid back up for the light troops.

 above: Thracian Infantry, generic Greek cavalry & out front Illyrian light infantry, these will form the hinge between the two phalanx elements.

Above: Acheaen league thureophoroi, Cretan archers & Acheaen heavy cavalry led by the indomitable Philipoemen.

Spartan opponents will be shown later in the week when time and photogenic light allow.

And now for something completely different..and an appeal for assistance.

After many months of blundering around in the Hellenistic world I've decided to try something different, namely the South American wars of independence circa 1820. I've started to root out information on the internet and in the somewhat limited sources available in English.
An honourable mention should be made here for "Regimientos de Americas" a small Madrid based publisher who have started to produce a series of booklets on the conflicts in South America in the early 19th century. They also sell a remarkable series of replica patches issued by the various revolutionary movements to commemorate their divers victories. The one below was issued to British troops serving under Bolivar.

Now while this is all well and good it doesn't help me with a fundamental part of driving the project forward, namely suitable figures in 25/28mm to bring this series of conflicts to the tabletop.
The Spanish forces shouldn't be a problem given the ranges of Napoleonic figures available. Likewise the Riflemen of the British Legion serving under Simon Bolivar shouldn't be too difficult to source either.
Where I do start having problems is with the other units in the Armies of Bolivar & San Martin:
British Legion infantry, similar to Napoleonic British but with plain jacket & bell shako. Would late Napoleonic Prussian figures be more suitable?
British & Venezuelan hussars, again fairly typical hussars but with bell shako. Which nationality would offer the closest match?
Argentinian infantry, from what I can make out French Napoleonics offer a fairly good match ( even the forage caps are quite similar) but would Spanish or Portuguese be closer?
Ideally I'd like to use plastic figures for ease of conversion & economy.
I open the floor to you Gentlemen and look forward to any suggestions from those of you more knowledgeable than I on this period of history.

A dozen very blue thureophoroi.

The latest offering for the Sellasia project, twelve Achaean League thureophoroi ( the standard is the give away). They all need javelins or spears adding at some point but this is dependent on me purchasing a new batch off NorthStar at some as yet, undefined point in the future.

Things are plodding along quietly on the Sellasia project as at present work is intruding heavily on leisure time.
It has however given me a little time to re-think the scope of the game. The original intention was to refight just two thirds of the battle, leaving out the phalanx vs. phalanx clash between Antigonus Doson & Cleomenes on one side of the battlefield, mainly due to me not wanting to model another terrain board for this clash of kings. Things have moved on a little since though, firstly Mr. J. Jonas was kind enough to point out the tactical possibilities of including this part of the battle allowing that we gamers might not want to slavishly follow the historical course of the battle. Secondly as previously noted work commitments will probably push the date of the game forward into the festive season giving me lots of scope for 'shed time' in the rapidly shortening autumn evenings to build suitable terrain boards.