French Carabiniers

These are 9 x FN 106 (horse attached) and 3 x FN 311 (dismountable). The FN 106 came with a reasonable paint job which I've tried to replicate on the FN311, not quite my usual painting style but close enough. Next up will be 12 x FN 56, Guard Horse Grenadiers, dimly seen in the background in this photo. Any tips for painting black tack on black horses in a toy soldier style would be much appreciated!

Six of one, half a dozen of the other

Here are my French Guard Lancers, 1 x FN41 Guard Lancer Trumpeter, 2 x FN40 French Guard Lancer Officer, 2 x FN40 converted to lancers holding lance upright, plus 7 x unidentified lancers with couched lance. I think the unidentified ones might actually be Austrian Uhlans, the bases have been filed smooth so can't see any catalogue numbers. I have pinched an idea from Mark of the Ilkley Old School blog and painted half as Polish Lancers and half as Dutch, I don't believe that's too much of a stretch as I think I read somewhere that they where brigaded together at Waterloo?

 

A mixed bag

Been busy painting over the last couple of months but haven't got round to posting on the blog, so here's a bit of a catch up.

British 7th Hussars, a mix of HH OPCs, HH KGL hussars with the peaks filed off the headgear, plus some Lammings to make up the numbers.

Coldstream guards ( or at my level of paining detail, a generic British regiment with blue facings!)

The 33rd foot (West Riding of Yorkshire regiment)

And finally, I converted a couple of Fusilier officers to ensigns and did a head swap on a Newline drummer to add a command stand to my 23rd fusiliers.

Quick wins

Another British Light Dragoon unit, this time the 12th.

These are 12 x BN50, a recent ebay purchase, already painted very close to my own style, just needed some touching up and black lining, then re-basing. The horses needed a little attention, they were all a uniform chocolate brown.

A certain Arthur Wellesley joined the 12th as a subaltern  in 1789, I wonder what happened to him?

.

To sporran or not to sporran.

 The 42nd Highlanders, aka The Black Watch.

The rank and file are DK 188, the officer is BN 37, the piper is BN 38, the sergeant is BN31. I'm not sure what the ensigns are, there is no listing for a highland ensign in my HH catalogue, they could be castings from a conversion.

The DK figures and the BN 37 officer have sporrans, the others were without. I know the Black Watch wouldn't have worn sporrans in the field, but I don't like to remove bits of original castings if I can help it, so I added green stuff sporrans to the figures which were lacking them.

*EDIT" I just found the following link, indicating the ensign was a David Clayton creation, BN39.

http://www.vintagewargamingfigures.info/rblack/hinlist.htm

French 1st Hussars

 These are "Horse attached series" FN114, I think mostly original, but some are a bit smaller and have less detail, so possibly 2nd gen castings?

I must say, I prefer painting the "Dismountable" series, these OPC's were a bit fiddly.

When I was deciding which regiment to paint, I considered the "Hussars of Conflans" as featured in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Brigadier Gerard" stories, but minimal research was enough to show that they were an ancien régime unit, recruited in the Rhine Palatinate from German speakers, and they switched sides early on in the French revolutionary wars, so they were ruled out. ACD was a great story-teller but not a first-rate historical source.

I then thought, why not go with the 3rd Hussars, as featured in the Ridley Scott film "The Duellists"? The hero, Armand d'Hubert is an officer in the 3rd at the start of the story. Funckens describes the uniform as Sky Blue, but the illustration looks like a darker hue. In the movie d'Hubert (played by Keith Carradine) is shown wearing a uniform more closely resembling silver grey, so I was now getting confused.

But having got the idea of a sky-blue uniform in my head I decided to go with the 1st Hussars, as depicted in Funckens.

More light relief

 Just completed a French Light battalion, haven't decided on which specific unit they represent, TBH I really only do that with British units, maybe a bit chauvinistic? Or just the fact that facing colours do identify historic regiments in the British army and I'm familiar with that, while French infantry are a bit more anonymous. I should maybe do a bit more research, Whatever, here are a couple of pics. HH figures apart from the flank companies, which are early Minifigs, and the eagle bearer is a conversion from an early Minifigs officer. The drummer is (I think) a Newline cast.

A little light relief

 52nd regiment of foot, the Oxfordshire Light Infantry.

Close-up added at Rob's request, my photography skills are even worse than my painting skills:-

I cherrypicked this unit for my next project

 These are the 11th Light Dragoons, aka the "The Cherrypickers".

Apparently a small contingent of the 11th  were caught by the French while dismounted, picking wild cherries, hence the nickname. 

These are BN50, all original as far as I can tell. They certainly have the catalogue number incised on the base. Does anybody know if Claytons also had the catalogue number on the base? They are very clean castings and have clearly never been painted before, so no detergent bath needed.

I had to paint them as the 11th as a tribute to Sir Harry Flashman, VC. If you haven't read the George McDonald Fraser "Flashman" novels I suggest you do so!. Of course, by the time Flashy joined the regiment in 1840ish they were the 11th Hussars and wore scarlet trousers, which were round his ankles most of the time. 

Trying not to let things drag on

 Here's my latest unit, the 1st (Royal) Dragoons.

A mix of BN204 and BN40 with a couple of non-HH horses.

*edit* Here's me pretending to be a dragoon

More French line infantry

Latest French line battalion, couldn't identify the marching figures as the bases had been filed so no catalogue number, but they look like original HH. They were all "elites", but I filed off the epaulettes and sabre-briquet and the corresponding cross-belt to make them fusiliers. The Grenadiers and Voltigeurs are HH originals, the eagle bearer is a conversion from the officer figure.

*edit* I think the marching figures are FN/9 Grenadier marching, or possibly DK versions of same.

La Bataille de la Forêt de Mérite (remastered}

After my last post where I showed the setup for a small game which was supposed to test my amendments to Charles Grant's original 1970's rules, I decided to add some river sections to the terrain. Here is a pic of the game in progress:

It took me a couple of weeks to complete the game as I only played a move or two per day, and I had a week on the Costa del Sol halfway through (which was very nice, good weather, good food, covid restrictions gradually being rolled back). I won't give a move by move account , but the rules seemed to give a good game, however they still need a bit of tweaking. British Rifles, even taking a full stationary move to reload, have devastating firepower. need to address that. Artillery rules are simplified, not using any 'devices', instead a battery (1 gun + 4 crew) fire with the same effect as a battalion of infantry, but with increased range. fire effect decreases by 25% with the loss of each crew figure. That seems to work well. Command and control effect on morale is just calculated as a percentage of cumulative losses, rather than relying on individual officer figures becoming casualties. Morale tests generally have little effect until a unit falls below 50% strength, when they automatically break and run. Will have to tweak that as well. Another few test games needed!

La Bataille de la Forêt de Mérite

Somewhere just north of the Pyrenees in1814......

To be continued.........

Generally speaking....

 A few French personality figures, hoped to get these done by Christmas but once again real life got in the way.