SYW: French Orleans Dragoons

Dragoon Regiment Orleans was owned by Louis-Philippe, duc d'Orléans, but was commanded in the field by mestre de camp lieutenant comte de Pons Saint-Maurice. Whilst dragoons in other nation's service seem, by this time, to have fought mostly mounted, in France they retained a significant dismounted role. For example at the Battle of Hastembeck, this regiment served on the right wing in a dismounted role while at the Battle of Krefeld they were mounted.

This regiment wears almost exactly the reverse colour scheme of the other Dragoon regiment I have painted - Lanquedoc.

Capitaine Oudinot and the Gardes d'Honneur

A few months ago I purchased two boxes of Perry Hussars - a total of 28 figures. Allocating 24 to the 4th Hussars (one squadron done, the rest en-route) that left me 4 figures left over. I decided to paint them up as Gardes d'Honneur, a single company or half a squadron of the 4th Gardes d'Honneur. Plus I had an officer left over. Having also decided that I wanted my French army to be commanded by a more obscure Marshal, I hit upon Oudinot who, it appears from wiki, had a son Charles (born in 1791) who was a cavalryman to boot!

Thus we have the Marshal's personal escort, a half squadron of the Gardes d'Honneur commanded by his son Charles. Surely these guys will never actually fight, except perhaps in extremis, but they will look dashing sitting at the back of the battlefield surveying the carnage about them.

But perhaps I could turn these three figures into a six-figure squadron so if anybody has some (3 to be exact) Perry cavalrymen lying around without purpose, you could sell them to me? I can buy an extra command sprue from the Perrys but it is the rankers I am after.

Russian Napoleonics: Arkangel Infantry

Anybody who regularly reads this blog will probably remember that the Napoleonic project involved Prussians. Well, it will, in due course, but I have been side-tracked into buying some new plastic Russians from Warlordgames. Four boxes to be precise and here is the first box done - the 1st battalion of Arkangel'gorod' regiment. Gorod, in Russian, just means 'town' so this is the Arkangel regiment from the 8th division.

Firstly, the figures are not bad at all. The box comes with seven sprues of plastics (each with 4 figures) plus four metal command - a drummer, officer and two standard bearers. While the plastic figures have the normal problem of loss of definition on their sides they are nice and animated and each sprue has musketeer heads as well as grenadier heads. Actually I think the plastic figures are rather nicer than the metals which are crude. There is also a decent little sheet of flags for five regiments and it was seeing Arkangel's flags that made me do this regiment although I will not be doing all the other regiments from the 8th Division. I have decided to allow myself artistic licence and just to do four regiments whose flags I like! I plan a fictional division of 12 battalions to face off against my 10 battalions of French, more pictures of which will be on here soon. Don't forget that next year will be the 200th anniversary of the 1812 campaign!

Bercheny Hussars

My apologies for being quiet of late but I have been rounding off a number of projects and there
will be quite a bit to post over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, here is a French SYW regiment of Hussars. The use of hussars was in its infancy in Western European nations and the French only had four regiments, mostly raised by Hungarian emigres. This regiment, Bercheny, was probably the best of them and one regiment, Polleresky's, was disbanded in 1758, (its squadrons hived off to other regiments) for doing what hussars do rather well - looting and pillaging. They sure look pretty but their quality leaves much to be desired.

The figures are from Front Rank. The flag is conjectural.

40mm: Prussian IR 22 Prinz Moritz von Anhalt

Here are the first four Prussian battalions finished. The turquoise and white flagged regiment is IR 12
and the blue-red flagged regiment is IR 22 Prinz Moritz von Anhalt. The figures are by Trident from their AWI range of Hessians and they are lovely figures to paint. I would like to do the entire Prussian infantry using Trident's figures.

The reason why I'm showing them on verdant but bare terrain is because I don't have any 40mm specific terrain yet. If I keep going with this project, which I'd like to do but which time and budget constraints might delay, then I'll look at some scale features. As more people get into 40mm, more ephemera might become available.

40mm Prussian Generals

I would normally use mounted figures to represent Generals of Brigade, but as nobody has made them yet I am having to make do with officers on foot. For 40mm there are three companies making figures for the SYW or useable for that period:

Sash and Saber - a specific SYW range.
Trident - an AWI range with a good Hessian contingent that serves for Prussians.
Front Rank - an AWI range with Hessians/Prussians as well.

The gentleman on the left is a Front Rank figure painted as Generalmajor Karl Ferdinand von Hagen, who was killed at Hochkirch. Although he looks a bit young, this is a well sculpted figure that comes with a separate right arm and a choice of 3 separate heads.

The figure on the right (whom you have seen before) is from Trident and represents Generalmajor Emanuel von Schoning, who was killed at the battle of Prague. Both figures are wearing regimental uniform, in the case of the former IR8 and in the case of the latter, IR46.

Size-wise they sit well side by side. The Front Rank figure has led an epicurean existance, as have all figures from this manufacturer, which would account for his ample stomach whereas the chap from Trident has a somewhat lean and hungry look.

40mm Austrian Dragoons (2)

I know it is Tuesday, but Blogger is acting like it is Monday after a busy weekend out clubbing! In other words, Blooger is acting up, so here is the text that should have gone with the pictures in the preceeding post: As promised, I’m showing you the 40mm Austrian SYW Dragoon Regiment Sachsen-Gotha, resplendent in its red coats and light blue facings. The cavalry figures come from Chris Hughes at Sash & Saber (Saber spelt the American way – when I fenced as a youth a long time ago a Saber was a “Sabre” but that is the richness of the English language!) and they come with three different horse poses and three different cavalrymen poses and separate hands with swords in them. This allows great variety in pose and I think he has done a great job showing the movement of a cavalry charge. So far then, in his 40mm range, you can buy Prussian musketeers, fusiliers, grenadiers, some artillery and dragoons. In the Austrian range you can buy Austrian and Hungarian fusiliers and grenadiers, artillery and dragoons. I’m hoping, as he fills out this range, to see wildly charging hussars and more static Cuirassiers in reserve not to mention generals, grenzers and other light infantry.The Prussians being charged (the unfortunate IR 12 Erbprinz von Hessen-Darmstadt) are from Tridents AWI range of Hessians, which work perfectly for the Prussians. In the Kronoskaf article on the Sachsen-Gotha dragoons, they show a different lace on the horse furniture but I believe this lace might be a later-war detail. I have given them the plain red schabraque with yellow lace as I think this is more appropriate for WAS or early SYW. They also mention a completely different colour for the schabraques of officers (in this case green) and I think that too is a late war change but this time I kept that as it made a nice change and it might make it easier for these chaps to rally in the event of disaster. Still the way they are charging forward, one feels, perhaps, that ones simpathies lie more with the Prussian infantry about to be carved up. Lastly please look at the buildings in the background. They are 25mm scale and work well with the 40mm figures. Doors are the key – stick a 40mm figure next to a 25mm door and it looks foolish, but if there is no door visable then a large 25mm building will work with 40mm.