More Rifles!

Part of my existing collection contains the Light Division and their most famous unit - the 95th Rifles!

As I mentioned before, I have plans to replace my existing collection with a combination of Victrix and Perry models. When I started collecting Napoleonics, Front Rank was the only manufacturer who made Cazadores that I liked.

The Light Division is a wargamer's dream:

1. An elite formation that saw action in almost every major Peninsular action (unlike collecting, say, the French elite Imperial Guard which probably shouldn't appear in great numbers on a wargame table unless you are playing really large games or very specific portions of a battle).
2. Lots of different coat colors! One of the soul destroying aspects of painting Napoleonics can be the endless drudgery of painting the same models over and over and over. The Light Division has red coated light infantry, brown coated Portuguese, and green jacketed riflemen!
3. It is a formation that was often detached on it's own in the Peninsula, making it appropriate even for very small games and skirmish level scenarios!

While I am very proud of my Light Division (only one brigade is shown above - I have both finished), the Front Rank models do not look good rebased with the rest of my collection. They are much larger than the Victrix I've used for the rest of my collection. They didn't look bad in the display case, but originally I based everything as single figures. I wanted to put the two light battalions on multi-figure stands and after trying to base the first unit, I found they looked terrible packed as close together as my Victrix units. The size difference was magnified as the models looked crowded. Thus I have made the decision to rebuild the Light Division with Victrix models (inclding the new metal Cazadores that will be out later this year). For Historicon, I only need Craufurd's original Light Brigade consisting of the 43rd, 52nd, and 95th. I MIGHT use my Front Rank 95th if I run out of time. They really are nice models and the size difference did not bother me until I tried to pack models onto 50x45mm bases.