2/4th Tirailleurs

This is the 2nd battalion of the 4th Tirailleurs - the 1st battalion is almost completed but I wanted these guys to be my last post of August. AB figures, the flag is by "Flags for the Lads". Typical unit of 24 figures.

Cossacks!

Well, 12 of them.

I fancied doing something a bit different this time and decided upon a unit of Warmodelling (Fantasin) cossacks. There are 4-5 poses in all and unfortunately I'm not entirely satisfied with either the sculpts or my paint job. The lances are sticking out at odd angles making basing them a bit of a problem i.e. lances sticking over the bases and preventing them from lining up flush. They seem to be a mix of Don cossacks and Ural? cossacks. I painted the lances an brown-red colour to distinguish them from the line units.

I have a bag of Old Glory 15mm Prussian Landwehr (lances) cavalry in caps which will suffice to make  another unit of cossacks. I've had these for a while and was going to sell them, lead snobbery set in as I painted up more and more AB's. However, A Google search shows they are remarkably similar to the Don cossacks, the OG cavalry are a bit smaller than AB and Warmodelling which is historically plausible as the cossacks were mounted on smaller ponies compared with the line regiments. I guess I'll also need some suitable Cossack banners for them as well.

No Russian army is complete without these chaps for their great skill in skirmishing, reconnaissance and generally harassing the enemy!

Guard Lt Cav Command

Here we have the commander of the guard light cavalry division;  General Lefebvre-Desnouettes and the commander of the lancer brigade Colbert-Chabanais. You have just got to love those elegant names which of course I have no idea how they are pronounced! My eldest daughter is taking A-level French and may shed some light here. I'm sure a family visit or two to Paris over the next couple of years may help also. :)

These are AB figures; Desnouettes  is dressed as a Chasseur a' Cheval officer and Chabanais is in fact the Poniatowski figure. He came with an ADC that I used elsewhere in another command base (Lasalle I think). The only difficulty is explaining away the furry cape he is wearing, I painted it up as a grey/white cloak which I know the guard lancers wore.

Guard Chasseurs à Cheval

These are AB figures and generally were easy to paint. I must confess that I didn't do as much detail as I would have liked, the hussar braid was covered by the blanket roll and what there was difficult to see. So I didn't bother. The orange Aurora colour goes well with the green of the saddlecloths.  Incidently, the flag is a part of the Eagle bearer figure, I was tempted to cut it off and use a GMB or Maverick one but it hasn't turned out too bad. Similar to the lancers this is a large regiment of 1,200 chasseurs and I've made it an 18 man unit to account for this.

Next will be the command base for Desnouttees...

Guard Red Lancers

These took a while to complete as there is a lot of detail here and there. The figures are AB's and the flag is by Maverick Models. Usually, my cavalry units are 12 strong but I've made the guard units 18 man since they  were large units of just under a thousand troopers. I've painted them as the 2nd regiment which were also known as the Red Lancers because..well they had red uniforms. I was tempted to paint six of them up as the Polish squadron which would fit in with the hundred days but I'm not sure if it would do for other campaigns?

Verdict? they were a joy to paint and even with only a few colours applied they started to look like a smart unit.

Slightly different style to the basing this time, I just used grey rocks and then applied the smaller ballast (all darkish brown) and just highlighted. I didn't paint the entire stand this time which is my usual practice. I'm going off this format because I'm not entirely satisfied with the look which is not so good compared with what other folk achieve. Added the flowers and the tufts.

The Chasseurs a Cheval are next to be completed, again an 18 man unit. I'm also planning a command stand with their divisional commander Desnouttes, Lallemand of the Chasseurs and Colbert-Chabanais of the Lancers.

Family Day Out - Belsay Hall

Just got back from a fun packed day at Belsay Hall and castle in Northumberland, this is an English Heritage site and is free for us since my wonderful Wife has a Gold card membership. The theme this year was all things Regency so the Hall had a few rooms filled with costumes from the TV series from that period. Think Jane Austen etc etc. The best bit for me was the reinactors of the 68th and 33rd regiments who went through their drill evolutions and fired off several volleys. There was only 17 of them between the regiments, I guess even heroes must have their August holidays! I recognized a face or two from when they appeared at Alnwick castle a few years ago.Other attractions were a camera-obscura and an elegantly dressed lady telling us about the joys of tea. As you can see further down I also got robbed by highwaymen....Anyway, enjoy the photos.