King's German Legion, 5th Line Battalion

The 5th was raised in 1805. In 1815 it was brigaded with the 1st and 2nd Light Battalions and the 8th Line Battalion in the KGL 2nd Brigade under the command of Colonel von Ompteda. The brigade was part of Lieutenant-General Charles Alten's 3rd Division. The brigade was positioned to the rear of La Haye Sainte, just to the right of the main Brussells road. At some stage in the afternoon the light company of the 5th was sent to reinforce Baring's garrison at the farmhouse. The battalion was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Linsingen and comprised 6 companies. KGL line battalions had seen their complement reduced by the removal of troops to stiffen new Hanoverian units. As a result, the number of companies was reduced from 10 companies to 6.


When La Haye Sainte finally fell around 6pm, the battalion was annihilated in a futile attempt to assist the garrison as it ran back toasted the Allied lines. When the garrison had finally be forced to leave the farmhouse, it found itself pursued and generally harassed by French infantry. The Prince of Orange ordered Lieutenant-General Charles Alten to send some infantry to assist them. Alten had two brigades in his 3rd Division, the second of which was the KGL brigade that included La Haye Sainte's 2nd Light Battalion. Alten ordered Colonel von Ompteda to advance. Von Ompteda queried the order on the grounds of having seen cavalry to his front. However, the battalion moved forward and after engaging some French infantry was set upon by cuirassiers and cut to pieces.


These figures are Perry plastics, which require you to do rather more gluing that is required for the French and Prussian sets. But you have plenty of variety and, as is no expected with Perry sets, lots of spare heads. Given that the light company was sent off to La Haye Sainte, I based it on two bases with 2 figures each. The smaller number of figures required for the KGL battalions means that I used up all the flank company arms. The KGL had a couple of uniform differences from British line units. The backpacks were dark blue rather than black. The unit insignia was written in red on the sides of the packs - I gave this a go but it looked messy and to be in scale the writing has to be very small indeed; so I decided not to bother. For the same reason I decided not to add any insignia to the light blue water bottles. (I think you might be able to buy transfers for this sort of thing, which might work.) Otherwise, though, these are painted up as per British infantry.


I have now painted all the 3 currently available sets of Perry plastic Napoleonic infantry. I still like the French figures the most - there is just something very satifying about both the figures themselves and the painting of them. These KGL figures were reasonably quick to paint, although I found the faces tricky to do. As with the Prussian infantry, I find that the hardest part to get right is the trousers; I wonder whether "less is more" when it comes to highlighting mid-grey trousers/breeches.


Obviously I've now found somewhere to take photos. I need to experiment a bit with the light and which part of the garden works best, but taking photos inside isn't an option so it will have to be some part of the garden from now onwards. Anyway, next week I'll have the 3eme Ligne for Waterloo and after that more Carlist War stuff.


20 figures. Painted October/November 2011. Flags by GMB.