28mm WAS/SYW French: IR55 Waldner (Swiss) 2nd battalion

 

Here is the second battalion of Waldner and the final battalion of my French army. I've also finished off more generals. All that remains to do is some cavalry generals.

Flags are from GMB.

28mm WAS/SYW French: IR55 Waldner (Swiss) 1st battalion

 Here is the first of this two-battalion regiment and, when both are finished, that completes my French army of 22 battalions, 26 squadrons and three batteries.

Flags are from GMB.

28mm WAS/SYW French: 104th Royal Lorraine, both battalions

Here is the finished regiment. Just one regiment to go until this army is completed so I thought I'd add a splash of red in the form of a Swiss regiment.

 

28mm WAS/SYW French: 104th Royal Lorraine

 

Back in April 2010 I painted this regiment for a friend. I was living in Thailand at the time (what a great place!!) and my camera was the opposite of hi-end.

https://nigbilpainter.blogspot.com/2010/04/104th-royal-lorraine-was.html

But I promised myself that I would have this regiment in my own army one day. My French army is aimed to be for the end of the SYW and this uniform may have been the WAS version but I have given myself artistic licence. Furthermore the earlier time frame had this as a two battalion regiment but by the SYW it was down to one. So two is what I will do.

The uniform for the WAS was as per the Biles illustration (yellow coat). By 1758 the coat was pale grey/white with yellow cuffs and by 1761 it had changed again. The flags were by Dave Morfitt.

One last note about the drummers' livery. Stanisław Leszczyński was Duke of Lorraine and Barrois so while the regiment's drummers (according to Kronoskaf) used the French royal livery in the SYW, my suspicion is that for the earlier WAS period, the drummers might have used the livery of the Duke of Lorraine based upon his coat of arms of a bull's head on a yellow background.

28mmSYW French: Caraman Dragoons, last cavalry regiment

 

The last cavalry unit for my French army which now has 26 squadrons of cavalry. There are also 18 battalions of infantry but I think I will increase this to 24.

28mm SYW French: Royal Dragoons

 

So this is the first of the two Dragoon regiments to finish off my French army. I have used the same figures which work fine, differences being mostly resolved by paint. The other one will be Caraman. Thanks to Frederic Aubert for the lovely flags.

28mm SYW French: Tallyrand Cavalry

This is the last of the Horse regiments (so 9 in total) which, using French nomenclature, are classified as cavalerie légère or light Horse. I will also be doing two Dragoon regiments to finish off the left wing. The Talleyrand coat of arms was red with three golden lions rampant so I have given the musician a red coat.

 

28mm SYW French: Noailles Cavalry

Another regiment of Horse done. This is the 8th out of the nine planned.

As for the musician, the house of Noailles' coat of arms was red-yellow so the coat might have been a combination of those two colours. Equally, it might not. There are no sources and this is an 'educated' guess.

 

28mm SYW French: Henrichemont Cavalry

 

I'm slowly plodding my way through these French cavalry regiments and this unit finishes my second brigade and the right wing.

28mm SYW French: Conti Cavalry

This was a 'Prince de Sang' Regiment as the Conde-Conti family was a part of the larger Bourbon family. They used their own livery of sand with light blue as per the infantry drummer picture attached.

This is the 6^th regiment finished for my French army.

 

28mm SYW French: IR73 Haynault

 

These are the last two battalions of my 23 battalion strong Franco-Palatine force. The lovely flags are from Dave Morfitt at his 'Not by Appointment' blog. In terms of cavalry I will need about 25 squadrons and I have finished eight so some way to go. The artillery are largely finished.

28mm SYW French: IR8. Bourbonnais, four battalions

 

This was a very senior regiment in the French army and counted as "Petits Vieux". It participated in many SYW battles although it was fortunate not to be at Minden. I have painted this regiment because I like the colour combination of the ordonnance flags as well as the elegant absence of any facing colour. This almost concludes the French infantry – all that remains is the two battlion regiment of IR73 Haynault.

The figures are all from Black Hussar except for three Foundry drummers. The dead and wounded are also very nice sculpts from Black Hussar.

28mm SYW: French Horse Fitz-James

 

This is a very interesting French cavalry regiment. It was raised in 1691 from English exiles although Kronoskaf records it as an Irish regiment. I speculate that by the SYW there were still a few aged rankers from either England, Ireland or Scotland (who had joined in the WSS) but that the majority were probably French. This regiment, of 4 squadrons, was sent to help Bonnie Prince Charlie in the 1745 – 3 out of 4 squadrons were captured en route and only one landed, without horses. They hastily grabbed local horses and did fine service including at Culloden. They surrendered later on after the battle and were treated as French prisoners of war. During the 1745 they wore tricornes. By the WAS/SYW this was just a two-squadron regiment.

These are mostly Perry AWI Spanish Dragoons with their heads removed. Heads in bearskins come from Black Hussar. The command are surplus Ebor WSS. This is the 4^th regiment of French cavalry finished.

28mm SYW French Infantry: IR18 Touraine

Happy New Year everyone.

Looking through my blog (a useful aide memoire) I see that I painted this regiment in April 2010. The fact that I'm doing it again suggests that I like the flags and facings and, indeed, that is how I chose what regiments to paint when I work on a French army.

This project will consist of 18 French battalions and I'm about 75% finished. The next regiment will be Haynault which is an area today that straddles the French-Belgian border although in the 18^th century it was mostly in France. The northern part was in the Austrian Netherlands.

Lovely flags from Dave Morfitt at his Not by Appointment blog.

 

28mm SYW French Infantry: IR29 Bretagne

I have never painted this regiment before so I am pleased to have them sorted now. Indeed these two battalions complete the French Division for my SYW army. The French division has ten battalions and they will be joined by a Palatine division of about 8 battalions, half of which are done.

The flags are by Dave Morfitt and I cannot recommend them highly enough, as I have said in a previous post.. The shading looks a little severe on paper but when applied to the standard poles they look great. Plus they are free. The figures are from Black Hussar of course.

 

28mm SYW French Infantry: IR14 Poitou

 

I painted this regiment in 2018 but it was subsequently sold. http://nigbilpainter.blogspot.com/2018/12/syw-french-ir-14-poitou-both-battalions.html

Thus the need to paint it again for my own army. The flags are from Dave Morfitt and I cannot recommend them highly enough. The shading looks a little severe on paper but when applied to the figures they look great. Plus they are free. We just need to encourage him to do all the flags for the French army.

28mm SYW French Infantry: IR25 Limousin

 

I have painted this regiment twice in 15/18mm and three times in 28mm. It is my favourite French infantry regiment of the WAS/SYW and I think that may well be because of the flags. These are from Dave Morfitt and are fantastic.

Note that black cockades were normal for the SYW but white for the WAS. I prefer the white for aesthetic reasons. That completes 6 battalions for the ten I plan to have in this division.