13th Battalion (Royal Highland Regiment of Canada), CEF

The 13^th was one of many battalions raised by the Royal Highland Regiment of Canada (Black Watch) of Montreal. Three served as regular battalions in the Canadian Corps (the 13^th Battalion in the 1^st Division, the 42^nd Battalion in the 3^rd Division and the 73^rd Battalion in the 4^th Division), the rest supplied drafts of reinforcements to these (and likely other) battalions in the line.

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

13^th Battalion (Royal Highland Regiment of Canada), CEF

Those who are paying close attention will have noticed that there are more troops in this battalion than any of the other battalions I’ve painted so far. 20, in fact, where the others have only 15. This has nothing to do with relative sizes of the battalions at any particular point in the Great War and everything to so with the packaging of miniatures. Old Glory Miniatures packages their Great War highlanders in packs of 10 which include 8 riflemen, a piper and an officer… The Lewis Gunner and Bomber came in a completely different package of “Characters”, which put me at 12… 3 short of the 15 required for a battalion. So, at some point, I broke down and bought a SECOND pack of Higlanders - which gave me another 8 riflemen, a piper and an officer… The piper and officer are being used in another unit (of mostly home-cast figures) and the rest… well I painted them up with the formation patch of the 13^th as I wasn’t going to be making any other units of highlanders using Old Glory Miniatures.

Half of the above figures I painted ages ago – the first pack of ten, then the Lewis gunner and bomber when I picked up the “Character” pack on a separate occasion. Those that I did paint earlier got a bit of a touch up – formation patches were repainted as were the helmets – so everyone would have a matching colour of helmet (originally I’d painted them the same khaki as the serge of their uniforms?)

The originals I painted with a half kilt apron - in the front - and tried painting a Government Sett on the pleats at the rear. The new ones I just painted as a full kilt apron because... well... I was feeling lazy! Though I did repaint the officers trousers - which were originally khaki - to look like trews. 

Detail of the formation patch. The red patch of the First Division surmounted by a blue circle (blue for the middle junior of the division and the circle for the senior battalion within the brigade).

As I mentioned in the last post I recently ordered two more brigades worth of miniatures. One of the manufacturers I ordered from was Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design, who later in the day (or perhaps it was the next day…?) sent a notification that the package had been shipped via UPS and is to arrive later today!? ZOUNDS! While it’s exciting that it will arrive so quickly (considering I also placed an order with Wargames Foundry in May and I haven’t seen or heard anything from them yet… I guess that was just two weeks ago…). I’m a little anxious though as, in the past, when bringing stuff across the US-Canadian border UPS usually charged HORRENDOUS “brokerage fees” – now I don’t mind paying GST to the government – I LIKE roads and fire departments and socialized medicare and such – but the brokerage fees just go to UPS and are essentially extortion – if you don’t pay their fee, you don’t get your stuff! I’m not sure about stuff coming from the UK though… I guess we’ll see later today.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have two more battalions of highlanders for the 3^rd Brigade I’ll probably finish up – most of them are painted and just require some touch-ups – so I’ll probably finish them up next. The are mostly made up of the very first miniature I ever sculpted – a Great War Highander! The fourth battalion in the brigade was a regular battalion and I’m not sure what miniatures I’m using for it. I may have ordered enough extras from the Foundry  to do that unit… So I’ll have to wait until they arrive to finish it up.

After that I’ll probably launch into painting up a brigade of the 2^nd Division using the Gripping Beast/Woodbine Design miniatures – though they will require some assembly (separate heads) – not to mention basing and priming… so there may be a bit of a break in posts while I get all of that done.