General de Brigade Baron Nicolas Philippe Guye

This is the second Young Guard command stand I painted last year, for the brigade under Baron Guye that comprised the 3rd Tirailleurs and 3rd Voltigeurs.  Again, these are Foundry figures and this time one is clearly a general (or even a marshal with all that fancy braid down his front) rather than a mere senior officer.  He is accompanied by an officer of Tirailleurs.  I can't find out much about General Guye.  He appears to have been born on 1 May 1773, became a General de Brigade in Janury 1810 and an officer of the Legion d’Honneur in March 1814.  Apparently he died on 15 July 1845.  Many of the Waterloo orbats refer to Guye as a "Maréchal de Camp".  I understand that this rank is pretty much the same as "General de Brigade", and that the latter name was used for this rank during the Napoleonic Wars.  For the sake of simplicity, I've referred to Guye here as a General de Brigade.  He wears the light blue markings of that rank on his sash.  It's a bit unfortunate that these two figures are both on the same horse sculpt.  I did try to find a different one from the various mounted figures in the Foundry packs I had bought, but none of the other horses seemed to work.

So I now have 2 generals to command my non-existent Young Guard, and no generals to command my existing Middle Guard.  I am very much hoping that someone, whether Perry Miniatures or Victrix, do Young Guard in plastic.  Perry do marching figures (and the chaps sitting on their packs), but I'd quite like a dramatic firing line for use in the Plancenoit fighting.  I bought some skirmishing figures which Foundry advertised as "Young Guard", but I didn't examine them sufficiently beforehand and they don't have epaulettes, which makes them useless for 1815 Young Guard.  (I've painted these as normal light infantry, and I'll post on them at the weekend).

Given I don't have much to say about old Baron Guye and his Tirailleur chum, I thought I'd take this opportunity to muse aloud about what I want to get done this year.  Of course the arrival of Son No.2 is now imminent (in fact he's due tomorrow), and I really don't know what long-term impact that's going to have.  But here's what I've planned out for the year.  Much of this depends on Perry AWI releases, as I foresee mainly AWI with a bit of 1815 this year:


- AWI British: I already have plenty of British regiments painted up in metal, but there are a handful of larger units that I intend to do and re-do in plastic when the Perry set is released in March (I have in mind these regiments: 17th, 40th, 57th, 63rd).
- AWI new Perry metal releases: so far the Volunteers of Ireland, northern militia for Bunker Hill and a couple more Continental regiments.
- AWI highlanders: lots of King's Mountain figures for both myself and their manufacturer, Bill Nevin (these are quietly progressing in the background at the moment).  I need to decide how to arrange my own figures for these; I have in mind some more skirmish-level actions that involved the 71st.
- AWI American cavalry: I started working my way through Eureka's Continental dragoons and then got side-tracked (I have a Carolina militia unit almost finished; it just needs a flag).
- 1815: Middle Guard - I want to finish Michel's division of the 3rd and 4th Chasseurs.
- 1815: 1st Brigade/1st Division/I Corps - again, I'm half-way through the 54th Line from Quiot's division and would like to finish at least the 1st brigade this year.
- 1815:  bits and bobs from Westphalia Miniatures - these guys are producing some amazing stuff that I really want to paint up sooner rather than later.
 

2 figures. Painted September 2012.

Just to finish, here are a couple of pictures of some of what I got up to over Christmas (the beginnings og the 54th Line in the background):