von Heer's Provosts

I still have a backlog of painted units but I wanted to jump ahead a bit to return to the AWI.  I was very excited when Eureka Miniatures announced their "ragged" Continental cavalry range, which I think was first released at the end of 2010.  The range developed into both ragged and non-ragged figures, but the key feature was the array of different hats that could be placed on to the figures' bare heads.  The only American cavalry available in the Foundry/Perry ranges are the Continental dragoon figures from Foundry (which I used for the 3rd Dragoons and intend to use again for the Philadelphia Light Horse).  Those figures, however, have a crested helmet that is not suitable for various other cavalry units.  Eureka's different hats address this problem.  Armand's Legion was the first unit I painted and I'm rather ashamed that I have waited well over a year to paint up some more (I bought quite a few figures when in Melbourne last March and then picked up more at Salute this year).

These two figures represent von Heer's provosts.  This corps was formed in summer 1775, following a petition to Congress by George Washington for the appointment of a Provost Marshal.  Shortly afterwards, Congress adopted formal Articles of War which set out the rules of behaviour that the new Continental Army was to follow.  Men were recruited to assist the Provost Marshal in the enforcement of these Articles.  It appears that most of the recruits were Pennsylvanian Germans.  A permanent Provost Corps was formed in May 1778, and Bartholomew von Heer, another Pennsylvanian, was appointed to its command.  Von Heer had soldiered in the Prussian, French and Spanish armies and had petitioned Washington for the position.  In addition to enforcing discipline in the army and apprehending drunks and deserters, the Provost Corps acted as escorts and honour guards.  The unit's strength seems to have been between 60 and 80 men.  Sources refer to dark blue coats with yellow facings.  There is some divergence as to hats: crested helmets are mentioned as well as tricornes.  This might perhaps reflect clothing worn at different times depending on the nature of the provosts' duties.  For example, I can imagine that when guarding Washington's headquarters the provosts may have worn smart dragoon helmets.  However, when out on picket duty in the field perhaps a softer hat may have been more practical.  The tricorne is shown in Uniformology's book on American Cavalry and that is the look I have gone for here.  A nice couple of figures to have floating around the rear of an American position.  I am currently basing a unit of South Carolina militia cavalry that really show the variety afforded by these excellent Eureka figures.

2 figures.  Painted October 2012.

 

French Foreign Legion - 1st Battalion

Britain, France and Portugal all provided troops to assist the Isabellino government.  In the case of Britain, such assistance was predominantly in the form of the granting of permission for Spain to recruit British and Irish citizens to form the British Auxiliary Legion.  Very few professionals from the British armed forces were permitted to participate in the war.  France, on the other hand, saw a cheap and easy way to assist the Spanish government at little risk to its own citizens - it decided to transfer to Spain the newly-formed Foreign Legion.  The FFL was formed in March 1831, apparently as a form of immigration control; foreign nationals with military experience were languishing in Paris with little to do, and allowing them to join the French army was a way of ensuring they didn't spend their time formenting dissent against the government.  A second advantage was having a corps that could be deployed to those parts of the French empire that were unpopular postings with the regular army.  7 battalions were formed initially, with each battalion comprising men from a particular nationality or linguistic group.

Soon after its formation, the FFL was sent to Algeria to assist the consolidation of coastal territory occupied by the French.  In 1835 it was sent to Spain, arriving in Catalonia in August with a strength of some 4,000 men.  Its commander, Colonel Joseph Bernelle, abolished the separation of troops by nationality and reorganised the corps into 5 battalions.  The legion went straight into action in northern Spain, fighting various small actions and no doubt fending off guerrillas in what was very much pro-Carlist territory.  The Carlist took great exception to "foreign mercenaries" waging war on behalf of the government and captured legionnaires and BAL soldiers were routinely executed.  It appears that the legionnaires responded in kind, looting and pillaging their way around the coutryside.  I won't go into the full campaign exploits of the FFL, but will do so in a later post.  There is an excellent year by year summary of the FFL's involvement on the "Toc de somatent!" blog here.  Suffice to say for now that the FFL was virtually destroyed in the war, with barely 500 men of the original 4,000 making it back to France.

 

 

A couple of painting notes.  I wanted the greatcoats to be a different colour to those of the Carlists and Isabelino regulars, a grey with a blue-ish tinge.  I used the Foundry "Confederate Grey 117" palette, which I think did the job pretty well.  The officers' dark blue tunics were painted with Foundry's "French Blue 65" palette, with an extra highlight of "Deep Blue 20B" (this is the recipe I now use for French Napoleonic light infantry and artillerymen, i.e. figures all dressed in blue).  I am planning to do 3 or 4 battalions in all, each of 24 figures.

24 figures. Painted July-August 2012.  Flag by Adolfo Ramos.

Carlist Artillery (2)

Here's another Carlist artillery piece I painted earlier in the year and completely forgot about.  This is a French-made 6-pounder, with crew painted in the "regulation" Carlist artillery uniform of grey frock-coats with black collars, turqui trousers and turqui beret with yellow roundel and black tassel.  Some sources indicate that this uniform was adopted later in the war, from 1837 onwards.  I'm not too fussed, really - you don't need much artillery for the Carlists so I'm happy to mix and match different uniforms.  The gun was painted in my standard woodwork combo of Foundry's "Spearshaft 13" palette.  For turqui, a blue that was used extensively by both sides, I use Foundry's "Deep Blue 20".

A quick word on what I'm currently doing.  "American Civil War week" is awaiting completion of the final couple of vignettes, principally a Stonewall Jackson command stand. I've finished a couple of units of cavalry for the First Carlist War and some 1815 brigade command stands, all of which are currently being based.  I'm currently painting the last few figures for a unit of 1815 French legere skirmishers and some AWI cavalry.  In fact, I'm going through a cavalry phase at the moment - 33 horses and riders painted over the past couple of months - and I'm happy to keep that going.  This means that I'm going to be spending the next few weeks on more AWI.  Given that the Perries have just released lots more photos of their forthcoming plastic AWI British infantry, I'm hopeful that these will be released early next year and I want to clear the AWI decks a bit prior to their arrival.  Those decks include: several American cavalry units; some more British line infantry; Brunswickers; French.  In the short term, however, I'm going to concentrate on the variouos Eureka Miniatures packs I bought at Salute: cavalry and French camp vignettes.  In terms of posts, I have some French Foreign Legion and a full Isabelino "parade" to come before the cavalry make an appearance. 

Four figures.  Painted February 2012.   Buildings in the background by Touching History/Paul Darnell.

Guipuzcoa infantry - 2nd battalion

This is my third full battalion of Carlist troops, the second from the Basque province of Guipuzcoa.  The background to these troops is explained in my post on the first battalion, here.   Carlists in frock coats gives you various options, from the dark blue of the Tortosa province battalions to the standard grey of Carlist armies.  I wanted to add to my Guipuzcoa force as the orbats I've been looking at for the northern campaigns require 4-5 battalions of such troops.  Frock coats worn by these units seems to have been pretty much the same colours as the greatcoats - so that's what I did here.  It's accurate, but not particularly colourful.  The "colour" in the Carlist armies comes from irregular and newly raised troops in civilian clothes and cavalry; some of the latter will appear here soon.

I painted these in much the same way as the first battalion.  The trousers would have been white in the summer and red in the winter, but I wanted to mix things up to indicate troops with a variety of clothing and some civilian brown trousers too.  Nicely sculpted figures; very quick and easy to paint.  The buildings in the background are by Paul Darnell/Touching History.

Next up - the French Foreign Legion!

20 figures. Painted February/March 2012. Flag by Adolfo Ramos.

Navarre Guides

The Basque country of north eastern Spain was a fertile recruiting ground for the Carlist cause.  The area enjoyed the autonomy of remoteness and was traditional in outlook - its inhabitants were conservatives and natural Carlist supporters.

The province of Navarre provided a dozen battalions to the Carlist northern army and a battalion of "Guides".  The Guides of Navarre appear to have been essentially elite light infantry.  They took part in the battle of Oriamendi in March 1837 and then the Royal Expedition into central Spain in May.

Perry Miniatures make specific figures for the Navarre Guides, as their uniform was quite distinctive.  The command pack gives you 4 command figures and 2 casualties, so if you base your figures in fours you end up with a unit of 16 or 28 figures.  That's not really a problem as the unit was lage anyway - some 1,000 men apparently.  So this unit on my 1:30 ratio is almost there - and to date, my largest unit of the First Carlist War.  These figures are pretty nifty and the uniforms are quite smart.  Michael Perry makes very good command figures, and I particularly like the officer with the drawn pistol - he looks like he means business.   

I painted the coats with the Foundry "Slate Grey" palette and then used all kinds of things for the blankets.  Some patterns worked ok, others didn't.  I couldn't really think of patterns that didn't feature horizontal stripes of varying thickness and colours.  But the overall look is ok, I think.  It's a sign of how behind I am with posting that I started painting this unit in January.  As it is relatively large, it took a while to finish, as I worked on other things in the meantime.  I then had to order the flag from Adolfo Ramos direct in Spain (which was very easy to do, as it happened). 

28 figures. Painted January to March 2012.  Flag from Adolfo Ramos.

Bastille Day Parade

It's been a busy past couple of months and I've neglected this blog appallingly.  I am sorry.  However, I'm pleased to say that recently I've managed to photograph everything I've been painting over the past .4 months and this means I'll be able to post regular updates from now on.  For various reasons I've been finding it difficult to take satisfactory photographs.  I don't claim that I've resolved the best place and time in which to take them, either in my garden or the kitchen, but at least I have somethig I feel able to post.  Painting has proceeded apace - my ACW Reb army now stands at 6 completed and based regiments and I have lots of First Carlist War stuff finished and on the workbench.


Something I've been meaning to do for a while is take a look at my 25mm French Napoleonic collection.  This is something on which I have been working sporadically since early 2007, when I painted various French and Dutch-Belgians things for Loughton Strike Force's Waterloo game at Salute.  The nature of 25mm Napoleonics has bene revolutionised since then by the introduction of hard plastic figures.  That makes it cheaper to build large forces in 25mm, but of course the time required to paint figures is the same irrespective of whether they are made of plastic or metal.  Seeing all these figures together made me realise what an undertaking it is to collect Napoleonics in 25mm.  Whilst appreciating that I've painted lots of other things over the past 5 years, a total of 8 infantry battalions, 1 cavalry regiment, 1 gun and a few command stands is not particularly impressive.  But it's a start.  In orbat terms, what we have here is Bachelu's 5th division from II Corps with some other bits and bobs.  And Napoleon, of course.  Most of this collection has never seen a dice rolled in anger, so it was fun to set them all up.  All the figures are from Perry Miniatures save for the gun and crew, which are Foundry.  

 
Incidentally, the equivalent AWI parades I did a few years ago (and which are both rather out of date now, given the AWI stuff I've painted since) can be found here and here.  Over the next few weeks I'll post some First Carlist War and Napoleonic items.  I've delayed "ACW week" a bit while I finish off a couple of "extras".  I'm also pleased to say that I've started painting AWI again :^)

PS: Photobucket continues to be most irritating and it's way of dealing with photos is rubbish.

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American Civil War wip

I mentioned before that I'm planning an "American Civil War Week" along the lines of my "New Zealand Wars Week" of last year.  I have 4 ACW regiments finished and am working on the final one.  There are a couple of vignettes to polish off too.  I haven't taken any proper photos yet - the dire weather in the UK have prevented that, as I need to go outside and it just hasn't stopped raining since (I think) late March.  But here are a couple of "teasers" of the Jackson's 1862 command so far. All are 25mm Dixon Miniatures, with 3 GMB flags and 2 hand-painted ones.  There is an interloping Alabama regiment, but otherwise the brigade is Virginian.  About two thirds of the figures were painted over 10 years ago and the remainder since March this year.

Something I've noticed since Blogger unilaterally decided to change the format of their blogs is that placing photos is now much more confusing....