Saturday 15 May 2010

Regiment Armagnac, 1st battalion


The Armagnac Regiment was part of the Comte d'Estaing's force, the first French troops to participate in the AWI and which arrived in America during summer 1778. After the failed attack on Rhode Island, the French force moved off to the Caribbean and attacked St Lucia, which had been captured by the British. The resulting battle of La Vigie is in the first "British Grenadier" scenario book, which requires two battalions of the Armagnac regiment at 18 figures each. They are in the earlier uniform. A wiki search reveals that a post AWI colonel was one Comte Alexandre Andrault de Langeron - this chap was an ardent royalist who left France when the revolution started and joined the Russian army, rising to the rank of General and commanding a corps in 1814.

As this is the first battalion, the flag used is the white colonel's colour; the more colourful drapeau d'ordonnance will go to the second battalion. The distinctive French finial and cravat was sourced from Front Rank, who sell these things in packs. Given the white uniforms of these troops, I used a grey undercoat rather than my usual black one, specifically Army Painter's grey spray which is an exact match with Coat d'Arms "525 Uniform Grey". I then used my usual Foundry and Coat d'Arms paints to build up to the final pure white highlight. I continued to use blacklining but for the white uniforms and gaiters I used Coat d'Arms "533 Slate Grey" instead of black to create a slightly softer look. Overall I'm happy with how these figures turned out (although the quality of photos still leaves much to be desired!).

I'm afraid work has intervened to prevent more regular posts. I have a load of stuff photographed, AWI (British cavalry) and Sudan, so hopefully next week will see more posts.

18 figures. Painted March/April 2010. Flag by GMB.



14 comments:

Sire Godefroy said...

Sacre bleu, gorgeous stuff again. I'm more into that 'Campaign of 1777' thing, so actually no need for French auxiliaries. But never say never...
The officers are my personal favorites here. Didn't know that the French didn't carry flags in pairs like the British; good to know for any SYW troops to come maybe.

Hope to see more soon. :-)

Cheers
SG

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Lovely work!! I especially like the French regiments in the AWI...

Anonymous said...

Beautiful work on the French.

Thank you for sharing your work with us folks.

Helen

Consul said...

This is an AWESOME unit! One of my favourites of yours.

Looking forward to the stuff from Sudan.

Consul.

AD said...

Excellent work as always. Thanks for posting!

Betts-Davittovich said...

fantastic as ever, really must get my AWI out for a wonder, got side tracked by Napoleon again

cheers for the reminder

Nigel

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

Ahh you got the French going now Giles!:-) Very lovely work and nice tones on the white!

Cheers
Christopher

Doc Smith said...

A lovely job Giles - I think you've really hit on a perfect tonal shading for white uniforms.

I use a very watery blue wash over a very thin black one then highlighted which looked OK but never really blended in like true shade should. I reckon the grey you've used does it perfectly - a nice overall 'soft' tone for the uniform's folds and crevices.

After trying so many things for so long I can't believe the solution was so simple!

Thanks heaps for sharing this Giles, truly masterful painting technique!

Cheers,
Doc

Post Modern Bellerophon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Consul said...

I don't mean to alarm you but it seems a lot of your photos in older posts are no longer working?! Perhaps this is just a problem I'm experiencing...

Consul said...

They're now working again.

BigRedBat said...

Loveluy work!

AJ (Allan) Wright said...

Nice shading work on the backpacks Giles.

Tiny terrain models said...

Really nice, might add a Regiment Armanac to my 10mm army