3rd Chasseurs, 1st battalion

This is the first battalion of the Imperial Guard's Third Regiment of Chasseurs (the second battalion being here).  Painting the Guard units that made the final attack on Wellington's position at Waterloo has been an aim of mine for the past couple of years.  Like so much of my 1815 project, it's rather slow burning - it will be next year now before I paint up the commander, General de Division Michel.  In the "General de Brigade" Waterloo orbat, the 3 battalions of the 3rd and 4th Chasseurs form a "brigade" under Michel.

As I've mentioned before, the route I've taken with the 3rd and 4th Chasseurs is to start with the 4th and work backwards, making each battalion look less scruffy than the last.  So the 4th sport a variety of different headgear and a mix of white and blue trousers, while the dress of the battalion here is now completely uniform and the appearance is much closer to the parade ground look of the Imperial Guard.  I wanted to keep some element of uniformity for the brigade as a whole, and that's why all 3 battalions are wearing greatcoats.  The 1st and 2nd Chasseurs will be in full dress rather than greatcoats.  Like the earlier battalions, the paints used for the dark blue were the Foundry "French Blue 65" palette with a final light highlight of "Deep Blue 20B".  I have added brass fittings to all the muskets (I think I left some of them white metal on the earlier battalions) - I understand that one of the things that differentiated the Imperial Guard from other infantry was the brass fittings on their muskets.

Others more versed in Napoleonic lore than I may know whether all regiments of the Guard carried eagles.  I recall reading somewhere that only the first battalions of the 1st Grenadiers and the 1st Chasseurs had eagles, but that could be wrong.  To be frank, I didn't bother checking as I knew that I wanted the first battalion of all my regiments to have an eagle (save for the 4th, which is only 1 battalion anyway and which I wanted to look quite ragged).  I suspect that as recently raised units the 3rd and 4th Chasseurs may not have had any flags at all; but it seems a great shame to have Imperial Guard units without proper flags, even if that may not be historically accurate.  As I find is often the case with Perry Napoleonic figures, the eagle was too short to accommodate the GMB flag, so I had to add some extra length to it.  Unfortunately I rather messed it up, which is why the bit of pole just below the flag is noticeable bigger and bulkier.

Save for the brigade command stand, this is probably it for the Imperial Guard for a while.  These Perry figures are fun to paint - quick and easy to do.  I'll have a couple of other things to post before I go on holiday - some more AWI militia and my first completed unit of 1860s Paraguayans.  At the moment, though, I'm hurriedly trying to paints things for various people - Bill's KMM figures and "Project X", the latter of which will be flying to NZ with me...   

24 figures.  Painted July/August 2013.  Flag by GMB.