7th Cavalry Brigade in 6mm for the 100 Days Campaign

The next unit I completed for my growing 6mm Napoleonic project was the British 7th Cavalry Brigade. I made use of the Light Dragoons and Hussars that are provided in the Baccus blister pack I bought at The Joy of Six.
The 7th Cavalry Brigade was made up of 3rd (KGL) Hussar Regiment and the 13th Light Dragoon Regiment, so these figures were perfect.

The lines are slightly skewed to give an impression of movement.

You may be wondering where I am getting my research from for these units, initially it is based on the cards that came with the 100 Days Campaign set, but I am using two main websites for filling in the details.

First of all this impressive OOB for the Waterloo campaign has helped enormously in the details of Regiments etc. On the other hand, I was guided by a chum to this French website which details all the uniforms of all the units involved in the 100 Days. Despite it being in French (my French is at a schoolboy level...) this last one has been a lifesaver as I haven't had to invest in a library of tomes detailing the correct shade of Bricoles. 

Finally, below I have detailed how I go about basing these units. The cavalry in particular have been tricky and I had to think about how best to create the basing for two lines of tiny horses... I hope this helps anyone else trying out in the big world of 6mm.

The first stage is to superglue the front line in position (you could do the rear line first, either works). You'll notice that I have already painted the base in Intermediate Green, this is just in case I miss some spots in future stages.

Then, very carefully, using a cocktail stick I gently ease Pollyfilla into the gaps between the horses and cover the front half of the base. Taking a steel ruler I square up the back end of the Pollyfilla whilst it is still wet.

Next stage is to take some PVA glue and brush it very carefully onto the Pollyfilla once it has dried (usually 24hrs). I then dip the base into a plastic Chinese take-away tub filled with silver sand. I use this sand for 6mm as it is very fine but still creates a texture on the base.

Again, leaving this to dry for a few hours, I water down some Intermediate Green and apply it with a brush. I have found that if this paint is watered down enough it actually spreads out across the sand and means it is easy to apply.

Once the paint is dry, I inkwash the base in Flat Earth, watered down so it fills in around the sand.

When the inkwash is dry I gently drybrush the entire base in Yellow (I use a bog standard acrylic paint I once picked up in an art shop).

Then I superglue the rear row into position, the closeness of the two lines shows how hard it would be to get the Pollyfilla in between all the ranks.

Using the cocktail stick again (the longer the better), I do the same as before and ease the Pollyfilla into place around the rear ranks.

However, when this is dry I clean up the rear line where some of the Pollyfilla has spilt over onto the area of the label. I just sand this excess plaster off.

Then I follow the same steps with the sand, paint, inkwash and drybrush as before to blend the front and rear sections together. The rear strip where the label will go is painted Black and I spray Matt Varnish on the entire base.

The final stage is to add grass tufts to the base and patches of Woodland Scenics static grass to break up the shape of the base. And there you have it, it probably takes about two to three days to complete with drying times, but as each stage only about ten minutes they can be done whilst you are getting on with other projects and painting. 

I hope this was of help!