French chasseurs (3)

By way of a coda to my trio of French colonels, this is my completed unit of combined French chasseurs.  Back in 2011 I painted some skirmishers and a couple of officers, using figures from the Eureka Miniatures French Revolutionary Wars range.  I also started work on a close-order unit using the Perry chasseur figures.  I completed two 6-figure stands and was painting a third when I realised I had lost one figure - so my third stand only had five figures instead of six.  I decided not to buy a new pack just for that one figure on the basis that eventually it would turn up.  Of course it didn't turn up, and four years later, at this year's Salute, I decided to bite the bullet and buy another pack.  Naturally, a couple of weeks later I found that I actually already had another unopened pack which I'd completely forgotten about.  Then after painting that pack and the missing one figure I found myself with five figures spare, so I thought I'd paint up a 4-figure stand as well.  And now I have one figure left over.  As a result of all this farting around, this unit has grown beyond what I intended and, at 28 figures, is the second-largest unit in my AWI collection (the largest is my 32 figure Black Watch).

There are 5 regiments represented here, differentiated by the colour of their facings: Armagnac (light blue), Viennois (grey), Auxerrois (black), Gatinais (violet) and Royal Deux-Ponts (blue faced yellow).  I chose the Royal Deux-Ponts because I wanted a non-white uniformed regiment and I hadn't painted these guys before; I almost decided on the Dillon regiment instead, which I painted a while ago.  I like how with French combined units of chasseurs and grenadiers you can have very colourful mixes of troops - it's not all about white coats.  The way I painted the white coats is the same as with previous French infantry: undercoat with Army Painter "Uniform Grey" spray (an almost exact match with Coat d'arms "Uniform Grey 525" which I use for touching up); then first highlight of Foundry "Arctic Grey 33A"; second highlight of Coat d'arms "Light Grey 211"; third highlight of  Coat d'arms "Tank Light Grey 526"; then finally pure white (any brand that is to hand).  I like the shading and highlighting effects that this combination produce, although I appreciate the "look" won't be to all tastes.  I think the chasseurs are supposed to have hunting horns on their coat turnbacks - I did these for the earlier figures that I painted, but forgot on the later ones.

In terms of French chasseurs in the "British Grenadier!" scenarios, the position is somewhat complex.  The chasseur and grenadier companies of French infantry regiments did not operate in formal combined battalions like their British counterparts, but seem to have been thrown together in ad hoc units as the need arose.  For Savannah, you have 3 units of 6, 8, and 10 figures.  So that's 24 in total, and you can re-arrange into different sized units if you wish.  For La Vigie, you have 1 unit of 18 figures.  The storming of the redoubts at Yorktown has 3 units of combined chasseurs and grenadiers from 3 parent regiments (Royal Deux Ponts, Soissonais and Gatinois), each of 18 figures.  What I'll do for Yorktown is to use these chasseurs here as 1 of those units and then paint up 36 charging Perry figures, mainly grenadiers but with a base of chasseurs thrown in.   You need lots of grenadiers for Savannah (24 in fact), so they are next on the French list.

28 figures.  Painted August 2011 and August 2015.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The chasseurs with their 2 officers and 8 skirmishers

 

If you want to know what this photo is all about, you'll need to buy the 4th AWI/"British Grenadier!" scenario book from Caliver - out now!

 

Lieutenant-Colonel Curt Bogislaus Ludwig Kristoffer von Stedingk

Curt von Stedingk (1746-1837) was a Swedish aristocrat with impeccable military credentials.  His maternal grandfather was Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin, one of Frederick the Great's field marshals.  Von Stedingk first experienced soldiering at the age of 13, as an ensign in the personal regiment of the Crown Prince of Sweden and served in the even Years War (on the other side to his grandfather).  After time at university he joined one of the French army's "foreign regiments", the Royal Suédois.  This regiment had been created in 1690 from Swedish prisoners taken during the War of the League of Augsburg.  It recruited in Swedish Pomerania and so many of the rank and file were of German extraction, but the regiment was only allowed to have Swedish officers.  Von Stedingk became colonel of the regiment in March 1784. (The French army's foreign regiments were disbanded in 1791 and the Royal Suédois was reorganised as the 89th Line.) 

Von Stedingk arrived in America in 1778 with the first French force under the command of Admiral D'Estaing.  After the failure to capture Newport in August, the fleet moved off  to the Caribbean and in December the French fleet under D'Estaing began a series of attacks on British possessions.  The French seized first Saint Vincent in June 1779 and then Grenada, which was captured on 3 July.  Von Stedingk appears to have been present either at the seizure of Grenada or the fleet action between D'Estaing and Admiral John Byron that followed.  At the seige of Savannah in October he commanded the left column of the attacking force. His column lost some cohesion during the advance, which was undertaken under severe fire, but the French managed to capture a section of the British earthworks. Apparently von Stedingk managed to plant an American flag in the British trenches, but he was then wounded and a counter-attack by grenadiers and Royal Marines forced the French to retreat.  After the unsuccessful siege on Savannah, D'Estaing and his force returned to France.

George Washingting recognised von Stedingk's contribution to the war effort by making him a founding member of the Society of the Cincinnati.  This society, the brainchild of Major General Henry Knox, was founded in 1783 to maintain links and friendship between officers of the Continental Army.  Other original members also included Louis de Nouailles.  Unfortunately, it seems that the King of Sweden, Gustav III, told von Stedingk that he could not wear the insignia of the Society as the award cam from people who had revolted against their king.

Von Stedingk remained in the army and participated in the Russo-Swedish War of 1788-90, a rather inconclusive affair which Gustav III began to distract attention from domestic issues (he was assassinated in 1792), and was promoted to major general.  He then served as Sweden's ambassador to Russia before taking to the battlefield again in the Russo-Swedish War of 1808-1809.   That war has some important effects on Sweden: Finland was lost and fell within the Russian Empire, and King Gutav IV was deposed and the House of Bernadotte became the new ruling family of Sweden.  Von Stedingk was the commander of the Swedish army at Leipzig in 1813 (which only participated in the action rather late in the day), following which he was promoted to field marshal.  He died in 1837, aged 90.        

The uniform took a bit of research.  From about 1750 onwards the regiment seems to have had dark blue coats with buff or yellow-brown facings, so resembling traditional Swedish infantry uniforms.  I found conflicting information about the colour of the blue - whether dark blue or a lighter colour.  In the end I went with a more medium/light blue, in part because the uniform would then resemble that of the Royal Deux-Ponts regiment and I could therefore use this figure as the commander of that regiment as well.   The Perry sculpt looks a bit older and more portly than you'd expect of a 35 year old.  I gave von Stedingk a powdered wig because that's what he wears in the various portraits of him that I've found.

1 figure.  Painted August 2015.

 

 

Colonel Louis Marc Antoine de Noailles

Louis Marc Antoine de Noailles was born on 17 April 1756 into an established, very well-known aristocratic family.  The family held a dukedom, created in 1663, and it produced a long line of soldiers, which included several marshals of France - the French army defeated at Dettingen in 1743 was commanded by the third Duke de Noailles.   The family's links to the monarchy (one of the senior female members was a maid of honour to Marie Antoinette) ensured that it suffered during the French Revolution.  Some members were executed and others were forced to emigrate.  One of the grand-daughters of the fourth Duke escaped the guillotine only as a result of the personal intervention of the American ambassador, James Monroe - she was the wife of the Marquis de Lafayette.  

The family's future misfortune could not have been imagined when young Louis Marc Antoine arrived in America in 1780 with Rochambeau's expedition, preceded by his friend and brother-in-law Lafayette.  At this time, de Noailles appears to have been colonel of the Soissonnais regiment (at the age of 24).  He participated in the siege of Yorktown and helped arrange the terms of Cornwallis' surrender.  By all contemporary accounts, he was a brave, energetic and intelligent young man.  Like the Marquis de Rostaing, de Noailles was elected to the Estates-General in 1789 and was at first a keen supporter of reform.  However, the increasingly violent and extreme nature of the revolution persuaded him to leave the country, as he emigrated to the United States.  There he became a partner in the Bank of North America in Philadelphia.  This was the new nation's first central bank, given its charter by Congress in May 1781; it was liquidated in 1908.  De Noailles seems to have grown bored with life as a banker as he accepted an offer to join the Vicomte de Rochambeau's expedition to Haiti (then called Sainte Domingue) in 1802.  That expedition was intended to deal with the ongoing slave revolt on Haiti, but in May 1803 war broke out again between Britain and France and Rochambeau's force found itself in combat against a British squadron under Rear-Admiral Sir John Duckworth.  De Noailles acquitted himself well in the ensuing battle, but while travelling to Cuba afterwards his ship was attacked by and English frigate and de Noailles was severely wounded.  He died of his wounds in Havana on 9 January 1804.

De Noailles is painted here as a senior officer in the Soissonnais regiment, which had maroon facings.  I haven't yet painted that regiment and it doesn't seem to feature in the "British Grenadier!" scenarios.  As for de Noailles himself, in the published "British Grenadier!" scenarios he appear as a brigade commander in the Savannah scenario (with a "poor" rating, which seems a bit of a shame).

1 figure.  Painted August 2015.

 

Colonel Just-Antoine-Henry-Marie-Germain de Rostaing

This is the Marquis de Rostaing, the first of a trio of French officers for the AWI who I'll be posting about each day from now to Monday.  He is from the Perry Miniatures set AW148, "mounted French colonels", and I have painted each of the 3 figures as a specific individual. 

Born on 24 November 1740, Rostaing was a page of Louis XV and joined the army in his late teens, joining the cavalry as a lieutenant.  He then transferred to the infantry, becoming colonel of first the Auxerrois regiment and then the Gâtinais regiment in 1778.  His service in the AWI and, in particular, during the Yorktown campaign earned him promotion to brigadier rank in 1781 and then to marechal de camp.  After the war Rostaing, along with many senior military officers, was elected to the Estates-General of 1789, a meeting of France's three "estates" (i.e. the clergy, the nobility and the general populace), which was summoned by Louise XVI to help resolve France's financial problems.  This blog is not the place to go into the how's and why's of the French Revolution, but the meeting of the Estates-General in May 1789 was not a success and the Third Estate, representing the commom people, broke off to form a National Assembly with a view to governing France.  Two months later the Bastille was stormed.   Rostaing may not have been a fervent revolutionary, but he was clearly a man who saw that things had to change.  He served in the National Assembly and was appointed to the important Comité militaire  which supervised the new Republic's military affairs.   In 1792 he was promoted lieutenant general and seems to have retired soon afterwards.  He died in 1826.

I have painted Rostaing as a colonel of the Gâtinais Regiment (which I painted in 2011 - see here), hence the purple facings.  He remained colonel of the regiment until 1782, by which time it had been renamed the Royal-Auvergne regiment, as recognition for its heroics in taking Redoubt No.9 at Yorktown (the regiment eventually became the 18th Line).  Rostaing and his regiment were present at Savannah and Yorktown, so at the former battle he would have been 39 years of age.  This Perry sculpt looks about right for that age, I think.  I will be using these three mounted officer figure for, in effect, brigade commanders.  In the "British Grenadier!" scenario books Rostaing appears as a brigade commander in the Yorktown redoubts scenario (in the forthcoming 4th "British Grenadier!" scenario  book from Caliver).

1 figure.  Painted September 2015.

 

Bastille Day

14 July is Bastille Day in France - happy felicitations to any French reraders.  So it seems appropriate to post some photos of my AWI French troops.  These photos were originally taken last summer as part of a potential project with a wargames company; but my 10-year camera lacks sufficient resolution (or whatever the technical term is) for the photos to be of top-notch publication quality and so they didn't make the cut.  But it seems a shame to waste them and I enjoy seeing the troops out of their boxes.  I've had photos published before - notably the deluxe "British Grenadier!" rule book, the third AWI scenario book from Caliver and a couple of  issues of "Battlegames".  I quite like the shots - it is supposed to be a French camp somewhere in the South.  The infantry are mainly by Perry Miniatures.  The camp followers etc are from Eureka's Revolutionary Wars range.  The buildings are by Tablescape and the flags from GMB.

You can see the individual units under the French label.  It's been a while since I painted French troops and I'm keen to do more, as they are very pretty troops.  I have a half-finished unit of chasseurs that needs polishing off (this is the unit above flanked by two individually based Eureka Miniatures officers).  The unit stalled because I lost one figure and it wasn't until Salute earlier this year that I finally decided that I'd never find this figure and so bought a whole pack just to replace it.  I'm intending to finish painting this unit next month.  I'll then do a unit of grenadiers and some more line infantry, and I have in the lead pile the various command figures that Perry released.  So at the moment I have 3.5 battalions of infantry and several skirmishers (who aren't shown here).  The figures are mainly from Perry Miniatures.  The singly-based officers, as mentioned, are from Eureka Miniatures' Revolutionary Wars range, as are the various camp follower sets. 

I've also added another label for the various "parades" I occasionally have of my collections.  The original AWI parades are some years old now so I should have a go at re-doing those, although I suspect each side no longer fits onto 1 table - the American forces in particular are much larger now than they were in 2008.  I did a parade of my 1815 French collection last year, but I seem not to have posted about it then for some reason; given everything I've painted since I'll have another session with my 1815 stuff at a later stage.

Was there a direct causal link between France's involvement in the American Revolution and the fall of the Bastille?  The cost of the war was one of the contributing factors to France's economic problems, which were a major cause of the French Revolution.  It is also sometimes said that men who fought in American returned home with new-found revolutionary fervour, but I expect it's easy to overplay that.  As it happens, I'm currently painting the Perry Miniatures sculpt of General Marcognet, a soldier who fought in America as a very young junior officer in the final stages of the AWI and by 1815 had risen to command a division in d'Erlon's I Corps.  I wonder how many other soldiers were present at Waterloo who had also been in the AWI.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camp Frenchmen (5)

I had forgotten about this pair of figures, which I think comes with one of the other Eureka Miniatures Revolutionary camp vignette sets.  Sometimes I do wonder what goes through the minds of Eureka and/or their sculptors when I see the things they bring out.  For these two pillow-fighting ladies I continued the theme of painting the hussar-ish jackets in the sky blue and yellow of Lauzun's Legion.  I couldn't actually think of any alternative, as I don't think that the British Army had hussar cavalry units in the 1770s - no doubt someone will correct me if this is not correct.  I did think about doing a "Mrs Loring" vignette by adding a suitable officer figure to represent General Howe, but that sounded a bit silly and putting Mrs Loring into a hussar dolman and garters was stretching things a bit too far, I thought.  So instead we have a couple of "camp followers" for my AWI French army and maybe also some entertainment for my original 1815 camp Frenchmen.  I wasn't sure whether the "garters" on one of the women were supposed to be the tops of stockings; I decided the latter were too tricky to paint, anyway.  They are both brunettes because I thought blonde hair wouldn't look right with the yellow collars and cuffs (snigger) and I've never liked painting black hair (because I just think it looks a bit dull on 25mm figures).  No doubt one or both of these ladies resembles one of Legatus Hedlius' many special friends...

Nothing else to say on these, so perhaps a brief run-down on what's currently on the painting desk: final AWI highlander figures for Bill Nevins (I'll post some more pics of the 42nd Foot in a day or two); AWI northern militia; AWI southern militia; 3rd Chasseurs of the Guard for 1815; more Great Paraguayan War; ACW Bull Run Virginians; the Irish Legion of 1819 (another wave to the Legatus!).  I'm waiting for various figures to be released and/or purchased before all those units will be completed, but this list makes 7 units on the go at once.  I've also just received a parcel from Messrs Perry containing lots of AWI goodies, which should keep me going until Christmas. 

2 figures.  Painted August 2013.

Camp Frenchmen (4)

This is the last of the Eureka Miniatures French camp sets, a cantiniere with a provision cart.  This is an all metal set, with lots of different bits of "provision": loaves, sacks, boxes, fruit, hams and various things the identity of which I haven't worked out yet.  The cart is too small for all these items, which is handy because you can then use them for something else.  I intend to find a table, a couple of suitable figures and make some sort of camp rations vignette.  The canvas cover is separate so I suppose you could leave it off and just pile everything into the cart.   I followed the pictures on the Eureka website and hung a rabbit and a string of onions from the top of the cover. 

As with all these sets, I wanted this to stand muster for both the AWI and Napoleonics.  So with the AWI in mind I painted the cantiniere's jacket/dolman in the sky blue and yellow of Lauzun's Legion.  I don't know whether this matches the colours of any particular Napoleonic hussar regiment, but I would be surprised if it didn't.  I also painted the skirt in standard dark blue as opposed to any fancy tricolore stripes.  I decided to paint the cart in my normal wood colours rather than French artillery green.  The cover is just Foundry "Canvas A" dry-brushed with the B and C colours.    

1 figure, a donkey and a cart full of stuff. Painted June 2013. 

Camp Frenchmen (3)

Here are the next two French camp vignettes from Eureka Miniatures: a sword sharpening team and a wheel wright.  Again, I tried to paint these sets with both AWI and late Napoleonic use in mind.  The chap turning the grindstone in the sword sharpening in supposed to be an artilleryman, which is why he has a dark blue waistcoat (unfortunately I forgot to give him dark blue breeches as well!).  The other 2 figures are just supposed to be dressed in civvie clothes.  There's not a huge amount more to say - the grindstone was painted with the Foundry "Stone" palette; the workers' aprons with Foundry "Leather"; the Phrygian hats with Foundry "Terracotta".  These are nice little pieces that don't take up much table space and, in you don't mind the hats, are probably usable for anything from 1750 onwards.  Next up is the cantiniere set, which I finished basing this morning.   

3 figures, painted February 2012.

Camp Frenchmen (2)

I've been working my way through the 3 Eureka Miniatures "Wars of the French Revolution Camp Sets", with a view to using them for both Napoleonic and AWI games.  It takes a bit of chronological fiddling to squeeze these figures within the AWI and the 1815 campaign,because most of the men are wearing hats that are closely identified with the French Revolution, notably the "Phrygian cap" (otherwise known as the "Liberty cap" and the Smurfs' hat).  In ancient times the cap was associated with the inhabitants of Asia Minor ("Phrygia" being part of what is now Asia-side Turkey) but was worn throughout the Greek and Roman empires.  It is thought that the style was adopted by freed slaves, and that is how its association with liberty and freedom began.  This of course reached its zenith wht the French Revolution.  Apparently Napoleon hated the phrygian cap, in which case it is probably unlikely that tradesmen working with the army in 1815 were still wearing them by the time of Waterloo.  Then again, who knows what they types of non-uniformed people wore.  There doesn't appear to be a consensus on how the Phrygian cap came to be adopted by the French revolutionaries.  It became a standard symbol or "revolution", and was worn by patriots in both America and France.  One argument is that the French saw it being used in the Americas prior to the revolution; another that its use began in France and the cap was then exported to America.  So there is some scope to argue that some people in America in 1781 might have worn this hat, perhaps early radicals whose ideas were flamed by the American cause for which they were fighting.  To be honest, though, it looks unlikely that the cap was worn with revolutionary purposes prior to 1790.

There are 3 vignettes in the range so far, with an indication that more will follow.  This first set is a field bakery, with 4 figures, a (resin) stone oven, a piles of logs andsome sacks of flour.  The lady kneading the flour has pins in her feet which go through holes in the flour to attach into the table - this makes positioning everything very easy.  It's clearly a well-thought out set.  I wanted the bakers to look scruffy and covered in flour, so dappled them with a slightly off-white colour.  I took inspiration for this from the excellent painted example on the Atelier Robin site here (I like his idea of another table with lots of loaves on it - might have to do one of those).  The table itseld was painted with my standard dark wood palette - base coat of GW "Scorched Brown" (or whatever it's called now), wash of dark brown ink, then highlights of Foundry "Spearshaft" A and B.  The oven was painted with the Foundry "Stone" palette - using the A base colour and then drybrushing with the B and C colours.  If you were painting this as a proper Revolutionary War set, you'd probably paint the feathers in the woman's hat as a tricolore, but I left them white, as being more of an AWI French colour.  The pokalems I decided to paint as normal - I don't know the extent to which this sort of hat was worn prior to the 1790s. 

So hopefully this is something that could be used in games that feature French encampments, such as Savannah and Yorktown, and so this set receives AWI and Napolenic French labels.  There are two other vignettes which I'll post about soon.  I've been on holiday recently and been subsumed by work; hence the lack of posts the past 2 weeks.  I've enjoyed painting these sets and really hope that Eureka follow them up with more.

4 figures and various other bits.  Painted March 2013.

French chasseurs (2)

Here are the further Eureka Miniatures figures that I mentioned a short while back. These are from the Revolutionary French range. I am not sure what codes they are exactly, as I picked them out at Eureka HQ in Melbourne (with help from John Baxter and Mark Spackman - hi guys!), but they are all actually "grenadiers" rather than "chasseurs". I have no idea how the 1790's uniforms of the two flank companies differed, but the uniform on these figures is certainly very close to that of the Perry Miniatures chasseurs. Leaving aside the headgear for a moment, these Eureka figures have the standard flank company accoutrements of moustaches, epaulettes and swords. The coat tails are long, but that is in keeping with the 1779 regulations and the Chartrand Osprey refers to some units having tails that were even longer than the regulations required. So it's only really the hats that are a problem, in that they are clearly proper bicornes and much larger than their Perry equivalents. I decided not to remove the pompoms, because some of the illustrations in the Chartrand and Mollo books show these on flank company soldiers. I did, however, file off the grenade emblems on the catridge boxes.


I like these Eureka figures. They have style and when painted up in white I think they do pass muster as AWI figures. As I said before, I think it is unlikely that the Perry French range will include skirmishers (but you never know). The Eureka figures are larger than the Perry ones, about 30mm from toe to top of head; the hats then add anything up to another 4mm in height. The two regiments represented here are the Soissonnais (in the crimson facings) and Touraine (in pink). I chose these regiments simply because I liked the facing colours! The way I paint the white coats is as follows. I undercoat with Army Painter "Uniform Grey" spray, an almost exact match with Coat d'arms "Uniform Grey 525" which I use for touching up. This undercoat acts as the base coat. The highlights are then Foundry "Arctic Grey 33A", Coat d'arms "Light Grey 211", Coat d'arms "Tank Light Grey 526" and then finally pure white (any brand will do).


I would also like to mention that Christopher "Axebreaker" has posted a review of the new edition of the "British Grenadier!" rules that I use on his superb blog. He kindly mentions the large number of photos of my AWI collection that illustrate the book (which is why I haven't blogged on it myself!) and then comments on the book and the mechanics of the rules. The new edition is pricey, and follows the current trend of new rules being glossy, highly-polished hardback books. Personally I didn't hesitate in buying this new edition because "British Grenadier!" are the only AWI rules I will ever use. Those who find the game slow or frustrating for an attacking player will find new rules in this edition that speed up movement and make charges a tad more likely to succeed - so anyone who has dropped the rules on either count may like to give them another try. And with Perry Miniatures releasing plastic AWI infantry at some stage (perhaps in time for Salute next year?) and a remake of "The Patriot" in the works it's a great time to get into the period!


(Ok, I made up that bit about "The Patriot"...)


8 figures. Painted June 2011.