Of packs and men

The bits which make the Napoleonic uniform interesting and fun to research are also the parts which makes the painting un-fun. Or at minimum, not quick.  But finally got three more elements of the Perry 'Berdin' uniformed boys based up. The different uniformed drummers with all that lace, the drum and the cords, the officers, the piping, and the need to add the flag and all which that entails, made these slower to get done. With the Perry box not containing any 'command' without dress uniform to compliment, the overcoat lads to be done will be quicker!

Remnants from all my conversion work, I had a number of British backpacks which had the attached canteen and cartridge box removed leaving only the pack and roll.  I decided to glue them onto spare bases which had previously had skirmishing figures but these were 'decommissioned' with changes made to the rules.  The spots where the figures were placed had been filled in and the bases were thus blank.  With only thought to fill the blanks with something visual and with no other need for the packs, they were placed as if a unit had removed them to proceed into battle. You can see these in the first photo.

It might be noted that the Perrys had made some British grounded packs, complete with loose straps, on their French Dragoon box sprues from which I took inspiration (those have been used as other markers).

I debated whether to align the packs in straight lines to perhaps satisfy the sergeant-major or to have them in piles with the soldiers hope that they would not get plundered or destroyed.  I went with the hurriedly abandoned look. Grin.

The blank element still has the dice and labeling spots for game purposes

These blank [OK, formerly blank] bases can be used to keep second rank formations a mystery and they can be moved without disclosing the troop type it represents for 'fog of war'.

Hmm, the second rank element are ???

a quick photo of a French 'corps' with the new sized artillery elements in the formation.