These Foundry figures are painted up as skirmishing chasseurs from a French light infantry battalion. I'm not assigning these figures to any particular regiment - there aren't any legere regiments in the 1815 divisions I've been working on; I believe there were only half a dozen legere units present at Waterloo. I bought these figures from Foundry thinking they could be used as skirmishing Young Guard at Plancenoit; in fact, the figures are marketed as being "Young Guard". However, these figures don't have epaulettes, which I think is wrong for the Young Guard regiments in 1815. I have seen suggestions that there uniform shortages may have resulted in some men wearing coats without epaulettes and that, like the newly-raised Middle Guard untis the Young Guard may gave had a "rag-tag" appearance. However, my Perry figures all have epaulettes and I'd like to keep these dinstinctions for my Young Guard. The Imperial Guard needs to look a bit special, I think. So these figures were relegated to regular army.
Not being well-versed in the actual gaming of later Napoleonic battles, I don't know the extent to which legere centre companies would have engaged in skirmishing. My reading suggests that the light infantry regiments were used in a similar way to the line ones, and whilst there may have been occasions where more than just the flank companies were sent out to skirmish, such occasions may well have been rare. But you never know, and these figures may come in useful at some stage. The figures are drawn from 3 of the 4 different chasseur companies and I gave a couple of them white trousers to mix things up a bit. These are the first legere figures I have ever painted and I was initially caught out by some details of the uniforms. For example, I had assumed that the metal straps on the shakos were yellow metal like the line infantry, but it appears they were silver. The drummer figure clearly isn't in imperial livery, but according to the Mont Saint Jean uniform website it is perfecly acceptable to have some musicians in the older style uniforms as it's probably that not all of them would have received imperial livery coats in time for the Waterloo campaign. These are nice, characterful sculpts; well worth doing, I think.
10 figures. Painted October 2012.
9 comments:
They look great Giles in particular I really like the gent with the rifle propped on his knees and firing.
Christopher
Great looking figures Giles.
Very vell painted minis !
Best regards Michael
Being skirmishers, I think you will get away with little inaccuracies more than maybe a formed unit and then there is always Sharp Practice. The figures are so good, they need to be on the table whatever the setting and you have done a great job on their faces.
Cheers,
Pat.
Super stuff Giles - I remember when I first saw those figures advertised in WI. I liked the chap sitting cross legged aiming his musket then - and I still do. You've done a wonderful job on them.
Always loved the French lights. I will have to do a unit (4th legere)for the Brigade I am working on.
Great looking figures Giles, always love figures in "action posses"
All the best
Airhead
Those look great Giles foundry really do some cracking figures!
Lovely job Giles - the one propped on his knees firing is a favourite pose but the shako-less one lying prone is the most striking. One of the best painted heads I've seen for a while. I love the old Foundry skirmish poses too and I recently picked up some Foundry legere in colbatch which I'm hoping to paint up. I'd be very pleased with myself if I got half the result you have with these!
Cheers,
Doc
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