3rd Chasseurs, 2nd battalion

A couple of years ago, I painted the 4th Chasseurs of the French Imperial Guard and at the beginning of this year I had the urge to paint another battalion.  One of my aims for this year is to paint the complete chasseur division of the Guard for the Waterloo campaign.  The orbat provides for 6 battalions - 1 each of the 1st and 4th Regiments and two each from the 2nd and 3rd.  The Perries give you multiple options, with figures in greatcoats and in full dress, both in standing and advancing poses.  You then have the special figures in scruffy hats which are designed specifically for the 3rd and 4th Regiments.  In order to utilise all these figures, I decided to start off with a very scruffy 4th Regiment and work backwards with each battalion looking less scruffy than the last.  Therefore, this second battalion of the 3rd Regiment uses mostly the specific figures with varied hats but also incorporates some chasseurs in bearskins.  The first battalion of the 3rd Regiment will be completely in bearskins.  Readers will notice that it's the rank-and-file who have the bearskins, and not the command figures.  I expect that any bearskins that were going would have been nabbed by the officers, but never mind.

The 3rd Chasseurs appear in the "General de Brigade" scenario on the final attack of the Guard at Waterloo, where it consists of two battalions of 24 figures each.  For the greatcoats, I used the same recipe as with my French artillery and the 4th Chasseurs - the Foundry "French Blue 65" palette with a final light highlight of "Deep Blue 20B".  I gave more of the figures grey or greying (as with the sappeur) hair than I did with the 4th Chasseurs, as I wanted these chaps to look like grizzled old veterans.  The bases are the larger ones from the Perry plastic boxes, with the edges painted brown to match the rest of my collection. Not much more to say, really.  I don't know when I'll get around to the 1st battalion, but that will then be one "brigade" finished and all the chassuer battalions I'd need for the GdB scenario mentioned earlier.   I do like these figures.  There's something very satisfying about marching French infantry in dark blue overcoats - probably because they're quick to paint! 

24 figures. Painted January/February 2013.