"Wanted: 1/72 Napoleonic Portuguese" Topic

The Portuguese are an underproduced topic in 1/72 scale. The few plastic sets I can see on plasticsoldierreview.com are out of production and (typical of 1/72 plastic figures) in too many active poses. Maybe someday HäT will produce a set, but until then I'm looking for substitutes that can be painted into shape.

The whole army is available using Black Watch figures. Those are beautiful, and I will probably have to build a few units of Black Watch figures, but I think I'd have to start skipping mortgage payments to build a whole army from them.

It looks like the HäT Nassau Infantry will stand in pretty well as Portuguese line infantry (leaving out the grenadiers). The epaulets aren't right and the shakos are a bit too "French", but for the most part they seem okay.

I don't know a lot about the uniforms of Portuguese cavalry, but it looks like British dragoons should substitute pretty well.

I'm not sure what other options I have for Caçadores. Suggestions welcome.

- Ix

I guess my copy/paste of the photo URLs of HäT Nassau Infantry didn't work above, so here's attempt #2:

It's fun to do paint conversions. I have done this for other periods in 1/72.

In that scale, the 95th rifles can pass as cacadores.

Emhar do a set otherwise just use British painted blue. They started the war in the barretina which the Belgic shako was allegedly based on; so late war British. Later on they went stovepipe so HaT Dutch Militia would do (in fact their Belgians would also work for earlier). They didn't wear a French style uniform at all so I wouldn't use the Nassau set.

Hannants currently have 3 boxes of the Emhar figures in stock!

They ship worldwide…..

Newline do Portuguese link they are 20mm metal so a little smaller than most 1/72 plastics but look fine to me if you mix a few figures in with plastics, or keep them in separate units.

Otherwise I think the Dutch Belgians are great idea or 'paint conversion' of Brits. My first ones were made from early Austrians with heads from Scots Greys, while the Scots Greys with Austrian heads became Russian dragoons. No need for quite do much shenanagins these days with wider ranges of figures.

I think the Nassauers would be good for Spanish in French style shako which was quite common after the old white uniform and bicorrn but before stovepipe and British uniform.

Haven't used their Napoleonics, but their 20mm medievals are a perfect match with Revell medievals. So should be ok !

I'm not a Napoleonic button counter, so the Portuguese strike me as being in brown British uniforms.

Timbo W, I bought some Newline British earlier this year. They are gorgeous figures, but I found them quite noticeably smaller than the 1/72 plastics I already have, so I'm ambivalent about Newline at best.

- Ix

The HäT Netherlands Militia and Belgian Infantry do indeed look more like the drawings of Portuguese soldiers I have. I'll try using some of those.

I spent some time last night looking at various British light infantry as potential conversions to Cazadores.

The Revell British Rifles and Italeri British 95th Regiment are both nice sets with great detail, but contain many unusable figures, a few wrong details, and are nearly unavailable (and therefore expensive when found).

The HäT British Light Infantry are probably the best option, somewhat meh sculpting, but generic and easy to convert with paint. They are also actually available on the market.

- Ix

There are quite a few options for Portuguese. Newline are lovely figures but are a bit small compared with most 1/72. SHQ have a Portuguese range and are essentially the same size as most 1/72 plastics. They are a fair bit cheaper than Hagen roughly half. Their sculpting is generally very good but perhaps not quite as detailed as Hagen so have a look first. Hagen are a bit larger than typical 1/72 but not incompatible.

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The SHQ Dutch heavy cavalry can be used as Portuguese cavalry.

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Have a look at this site. Lovely work and he uses Hat British as Portuguese Cacadores.

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My sneaky trick for Newline is to add an extra bit of cardboard, so double height basing them effectively, if they are mixed in with plastics. If they are in their own unit I don't worry about it.