Visiting Celle - Part 2 - Waterloo diorama and Celle's city centre

Part 1 is here.

Although it was very exciting and interesting to roam between the historical exhibition pieces the centrepiece of the exhibition was a huge, two-piece diorama of the battle of Waterloo. It was built by a group of German wargamers and consists of about 15,000 28mm miniatures. Frank one of the organisers gave some details about the diorama on his blog 'Figuren und Geschichten' but honestly you don't get an idea of its size when you haven't seen it. Thus with no more ado to the pictures (please click to enlarge):

Viktoria and me observing the French cavalry charge.

French heavy cavalry (Carabiniers) on the charge.

Visiting Celle - Part 1 - Exhibition KGL at Waterloo

Last week we spend a couple of days with my aunt and took the chance for a day trip to Celle. Celle is a town of about 70,000 citizens in Lower Saxony and besides its wonderful castle Celle inhabits the Bomann Museum. Currently there's an exibition about the Hanoverian and KGL troops at Waterloo taking place which caused my interest. Thus we met there with a dear friend of ours. Viktoria, Niclas and me spent a couple of interesting hours between exciting exhibition pieces and countless 28mm miniatures.

Niclas, Viktoria and me in front of the museum.

The exhibition is accomodated in the cellar of the Bomann Museum and admission is really fair with 5 EUR (app. £3.50) for adults for the whole museum. The special exhibition itself covers one large room which is dominated by the huge diorama made of 15,000 28mm miniatures. Alongside there are a lot of glass cabinets with exhibition pieces and a lot of pictures on the walls. All of them precisely described (though in German only) which makes it rather easy to follow the common threat. Here's a small selection of some of the pieces. Unfortunately the glass of the cabints proved really reflective. Maybe because of the soft lighting. Anyway feel free to click the pictures to enlarge them:

Colour Sergeant of the 7th Line Battalion KGL

Altogether they have a wonderful selection of uniforms there. Especially outside the UK it seems rather difficult to get a view of British uniforms but since the KGL used more or less the same dress code the chance in Celle was unique for me. Although there are some excellent books about the KGL and British uniforms of the Napoleonic wars it's priceless to see the pieces in reality.

Sergeant of the grenadier company of the 4th Line Battalion KGL

Major Baring and three more 2nd KGL Riflemen

During the weekend I finished the announced riflemen finally. First of all their brave leader Major Georg Baring who lead the defense of La Haye Sainte during the battle of Waterloo nearly 200 years ago:

It's a rather simple conversio based on Perry Miniatures' light infantry officer, a bicorn head from the plastic box and some greenstuff. Although I'm definitely no talented sculptor I'm rather satisfied with the figure. Especially the part of the breast where the knot of the mirliton hat was sculpted. I had to remove it and then imitate the straps of Baring's jacket. Best seen on the image in the middle. Baring is based on a rather unusual 20mm x 40mm base. Actually that is slightly smaller than mounted figures are usually based but I wanted to be able to place him seamlessly between the riflemen on foot.

 

Second is a sergeant showing the boys where to go.

Another officer on foot. I'm not sure whether my attempt to paint NMM gold on the strap of the mirliton was successful. Looks a bit too yellow I'm afraid. So I would appreciate any hints for NMM recipes based on Vallejo Model Colors.

Once again it was great fun to paint this bunch of Perry miniatures. They are very well sculpted and a funny detail is that all the riflemen have a moustache. The only thing I didn't like that much is that all the colours of the uniform are very dark. That doesn't leave too many possibilities over to play with highlights. Especially the many black parts are a bit boring for painting and unpleasant for photography. Anyway the riflemen wore such an equipment in 1815...

2nd Light Battalion KGL - Eight men finished

Unfortunately I missed the Paint Table Saturday this weekend. But I wasn't lazy anyway. Here are the first eight riflemen for my 2nd Light Battalion KGL:

The battalion was part of the Kings German Legion which was founded in 1803 after England lost its Hanoverian possessions to Napoleon. The legion consisted of eight line battalion, two light battalion which were - at least partly - equipped with Baker rifles, four batteries of foot artillery, two batteries of horse artillery, two regiment of heavy dragoons and three regiments of hussars. Overall there were between 20.000 and 30.000 Germans who gathered under the banner of King George III. Mostly of course from the lost Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg but from other occupied German countries as well.

 

The KGL took part in all major British campaigns during the Napoleonic wars. They fought in Hanover, Pomerania, Kopenhagen and during the Peninsular Campaign as well as during the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo.

The 2nd Light Battalion KGL gained immortal fame during Napoleon's last battle when they defended La Haye Sainte. Under command of Major Georg Baring the helt the estate until late afternoon when the ran out of ammunition.

 

Some friends and me are planning to revive this very event in a special scenario for Black Powder. As one of the "British guys" - those bumblebrains collecting the British forces for our Napoleonic games - I got swept into the preparations of the game and agreed to paint some riflemen. "Some" in this case means 40 since we decided to play the scenario with a 1:10 ratio...

 

 So these are the first eight and there are some more to follow rather soon. The miniatures are from Alan and Michael Perry's excellent Napoleonic range and although I didn't like the colours that much - too much black - it was real fun to paint them. Once again some figures with very characterful expression.

For further reading about the KGL I highly recommend North Ludlow Beamish's work. It's a contemporary report which was published in 1837. Although there is a reprint edition it's available for free at Googleplay here in German and English.