Saturday 16 July 2011

French chasseurs (1)





I promise to make more of an effort with this blog, which I have neglected of late. As an hors d'oeuvre to some more substantial posts on AWI French units I offer this trio of figures from Eureka Miniatures' Revolutionary Wars range. I think this range is useful to the 25mm AWI gamer, although there are issues with the uniforms, principally the shape of the hats and the absence of water bottles. The coats of the figures are long, but that suits the 1779 ordinance and Chartrand in his Osprey refers to the "ample and generous" cut of the 1779 coats; so this point isn't too much of a worry. The hats are another thing, although I think the hats here are ok and I will shortly post about some chasseur skirmishers which really do require a leap of faith re their headgear.




The two officer figures here are listed in the Eureka range as "officer encouraging skirmishers" (the chap brandishing the sword) and "artillery officer" (the chap with the brace of pistols). I think they are very characterful sculpts and look pretty good in AWI white rather than 1790s blue. I am working on a 24-figure unit of chasseurs which will have 4 bases of 6 figures, all of which will be rank and file (for reasons I'll explain when I do a post on the unit itself). The purpose of the two Eureka officer figures is to provide some visual command for this 24-figure unit, which otherwise will lack any command figures. I expect I'll place them in front of the unit or one figure at each end. They can also act as command for the 8-figure chasseur skirmish unit I've just finished. The chap waving the sword is from the Armagnac regiment and the other is from the Viennois regiment (in 1779 dress).




The looter vignette took some time to plan. My original idea was to have a Hessian plundering a Frenchman - as the plunderer has a moustache I couldn't paint him as a British soldier or an American. But then it occured to me that the uniform was wrong and it wouldn't make sense for a Hessian to be outside the lines (of, say, Savannah or Yorktown) nicking stuff off a dead Frenchman. But is also seemed odd that a French soldier, probably recently arrived, would be as badly dressed as the looter is here. In the end, I decided that the looter was a deserter in search of extra provisions, who is still wearing his uniform coat (from the Auxerrois regiment) but has found local trousers and is in search of other items. The dead grenadier is from the Armagnac regiment again. I filed off the grenade on the ammunition box but left the chain on the bearskin, simply not painting it black.




4 figures. Painted June 2011.

6 comments:

Iowa Grognard said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Iowa Grognard said...

You've been very busy, hardly neglectful. Its good to see another post though, and as always I look forward to more.

My own boxes of French are so far down the painting que that they are moonlighting as a shelf holder for some stuff.

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Hello There Giles,

Good looking figures! Eager to see more as they develop. I hope everything works out swimmingly with the anticipated house. It is an exciting time in the life of a young family.

Best Regards,

Stokes

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

They both look very nice Giles! I need to do some French as well someday.

Cheers
Christopher

Ray Rousell said...

Lovely painting, they look great, I like the shading on the light blue facings, great job!!

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

Just love the face on the artillery officer... if you looked in the dictionary under hauteur there'd be a picture of his face...! :o))