Monday 30 November 2020

75th Demi-Brigade


This is my third completed unit of French infantry for the Egyptian campaign.  The 75th Demi-Brigade appears in just two scenarios in the GdB book, The Pyramids (60 figures) and Alexandria (24 figures).  This unit is designed for the latter, and given it's 24 rather than 36 figures I've provided it with two flags rather than three.  I've mentioned before that the GdB scenario book doesn't always divide up the demi-brigades into individual battalions, which I assume reflects the fact that some battalions were absent on garrison duty.  So for the Alexandria scenario, for example (which is the French attach of August 1799, not the British attack of 1801), the orbat has the 18th, 32nd and 22nd Light demi-brigades in two specific battalions, whilst the 13th, 61st and 75th are just given one unit each of 30, 36 and 24 figures respectively.  This all makes for a decent amount of painting - for the French forces in this scenario you need 300 infantry, 8 guns and crew, and 26 cavalry.  But you can see that it's "AWI" in size, and with much less cavalry and artillery than you might usually expect for a Napoleonic battle.  Of course Alan Perry hasn't made any Albanian and Ottoman forces to provide the opposition as yet; I really hope we does one day as otherwise one's limited to French v British games in this theatre, which I think would be a shame.  In the very interesting video interview with Wargames Illustrated, Alan said he'd do Ottomans at some stage. and I know Black Hussar Miniatures (formerly Westphalia Miniatures) do Napoleonic Saudi and Afghan figures, but I don't know whether they are in any way suitable.           

That's pretty much where I got to with the Napoleon in Egypt project.  I also painted 6 figures of the 88th Demi-Brigade (another 36 figure unit), but that's remained unfinished since 2017.  There's a small "vignette" which I'll post about next, but in the meantime here's the current state of things:




24 figures.  Painted July/August 2017.  Flags from GMB.







2 comments:

Valleyboyinnz said...

Great stuff Giles

David said...

Splendid brushwork Giles!