Régiment de la Garde du Paris - 1812

Régiment de la Garde du Paris

The battalion below represents the 1st battalion of the Garde de Paris from late 1808 - early 1812, or the combined 1st and 2nd battalions of the Garde de Paris in February of 1812 under the command of Colonel Jean Francois Rabbe, renamed the Régiment de la Garde du Paris.

The figures of the regiment are Hinton Hunt originals for the most part I believe, with perhaps a few good quality copies, but sometimes it is hard to tell the exact origin. The mounted Colonel is a modern Franznap sculpt.

I could not have done this without the generous donation of the fusiliers by Nigel S, so a shout out to him for helping me bring this regiment to completion!

The white uniforms were a challenge, but in the end turned out quite well.

As always with French uniforms, all of the detailing takes forever!

The command group are mostly from the grenadier company, though I believe, despite the red plume, the drummer would not be considered a grenadier.  I think the red distinctives were just part of the drummers standard uniform and an ode to the earlier green and red jackets and bearskins.

The voltigeurs were unusual in that they wore the bearskin as well.  Theirs are one of my favorite uniforms to date.

The uniform of the grenadiers is a close second!

Note the hand painted paper flag.  I used a printout of a basic French flag from Napflags as a template, and printed in black and white with a ~70% transparency setting to make it very light, and then just painted over it.

The Franznap French Colonel is just an all around excellent sculpt!

Love the combination of the white, green and gold!

What's next?  Lots of Spanish!  

Though I do hope to clear off a few odds and ends from my painting desk first...

The Butterfly of Distraction Lands in Nashville!

 I have been warned the the Butterfly of Distraction was loose, but little did I know it had made it's way to Tennessee.  Our local convention, Nashcon, is a couple of weeks away, so perhaps I can be forgiven.  As part of the festivities, I have agreed for some unknown reason to play in a L'Art de la Guerre tournament.  I have been furiously re-organizing my DBA armies to fit the new format, and found to my surprise, that I only needed to pull out enough commanders to make a couple of General's stands for a late Feudal English period army.

The Garde de Paris continues to progress, but for some reason I felt the need to paint some Hinchliffe 20mm artillery first.  The Paris Garde has been waiting patiently for the return of my attention.

I also got it in my head that I wanted to pull out my copy of Melee from The Fantasy Trip series.  One can not have a fantasy melee without some skellies, so I finally finished up the last three of those that had been moldering in a corner.

Not period correct for an army led by Edward the III, but beggars cant be choosers.

Two British 6 pounders courtesy of Aly, all nicely spruced up and ready for action.  The 6" French Howitzer was still new in the package, which was a joy to build.  It came with enough spare axel hub caps to replace the missing ones on the British 6 pdrs.

I've been working on thinning the paint for a smother painted surface and have been very pleased with the results!

Not a lot of progress since my last post, but little by little they are getting there.

Melee!

I needed some more good guys to fight the aforementioned skeletons, so what better than some Fountain Guards of Gondor!

These are 40mm pre-painted hero clix kind of figures which I rebased for Melee

40mm skeletons from a discontinued epic Greek fantasy line.

This guy must have connected with that old rusty sword!

Then Aston Villa came to Nashville to play a friendly.  Nashville acquitted themselves well in 2-2 draw.  Had to go see that!

This is actually a shot from the previous game, but is pretty standard for any game I attend.  I even sneak a mayonnaise pack into the stadium for my hotdog.  Can't believe they only provide mustard, ketchup and relish...

We always chill in the stands and let the crowd disperse.  It's a fun way for Cindy to attract the attention of the players.  :)

Oh Yeah, and we also went to Lake Tahoe for vacation!

Alright, back to the painting desk!

Le Garde de Paris - A lesson in Planning Ahead - Or Lack Thereof....

Ooops!

My rendition of the Paris Municipal Guard, which served in the Iberian Peninsula has been a rather humbling one.  I typically prime my figure and then undercoat with a thinned brown wash to accentuate detail and naturally deepen the color of recessed areas.  This is all well and good for typical French or British uniforms, and my intention was to paint these in the early war green coats with red facings, but in the end I decided to go with the later war white uniforms.  So now I am painting white over brown, which is a pain, as I like to use thinned paint.

Here they are ready for painting.  Many thanks to Nigel who provided the Hinton Hunt Fusiliers making up the rank and file! 

Old Guard Grenadiers will serve as the elite companies, as both Grenadiers and Voltigeurs wore the bearskin!

I played around with trying a one coat vs a two-coat application of the white, but in the end went with a  one coat application that will need to be augmented in raised areas.

Here is the battalion in progress with a Grenadier NCO accompanying the eagle bearer as well as a drummer and a Lieutenant from the Grenadier company leading the command section.

I've also been playing around with some Grenadiers for a combined regimental Grenadiers force of a light infantry regiment.  Here is an unusual uniform but one that is quite plausible, as many grenadier companies did use the colpack, and in this case have replaced their trousers with local Spanish cloth.

Here is a French 6 inch howitzer by Hinchliffe from their 20mm equipment line, that I was lucky enough to procure.  It is destined to serve in a horse artillery battery.

Road Trip!

Cindy and I were lucky enough to hit the road last week and go to the Ozarks for a few days.  It was a lovely break in the routine!

Up on the balcony of the Crescent hotel after enjoying a simple pizza dinner.

The pizza was meh, but the view was stunning!

Spillway creek from Leatherwood Lake.  We saw a whole family of river otters here!  You can barely make out a Great Blue Heron in the distance.

This was a wacky find.  Just beyond the damn is an old Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) stone quarry.  Someone had taken the time to make a meditation spiral with the loose stones!

The path above the damn.  The damn itself was a beautiful affair made from quarried stone.

A lovely dinner on the back porch of our B&B with deer grazing below us.

Elkhorn Tavern at the Pea Ridge National Battlefield.  I knew nothing about this battle and we just stumbled upon the battlefield.  The park is huge and was the sight of a large civil war battle that by and large decided the contest west of the Mississippi for the Union.  The tavern served as a hospital for both sides.  The current building is a reproduction, as the original was burned by the confederate army.

Cindy enjoyed the impromptu tour of the battlefield, and honestly, the park had some of the most beautiful vistas we were to see during the whole trip!

OK, Enough Distractions - Back to Painting!

Hotdogging in Spain: The Frankfurt Battalion of the German Division

Oberstleutenant Fritsch takes command of the Frankfurt Battalion in 1811 while on duty in the Iberian Peninsula.  Along the way they drill to reinforce their company organization along French lines.  This is the last battalion of the German Division painted by Dick Tennant.  I will be adding the Guard de Paris Battalion which was initially brigaded with the Frankfurters, as well as a Battalion from Hesse-Darmstadt.  Once those are complete the German division will be finished!

Oberstleutenant Fritsch doesn't have his nameplate yet, but it's coming soon.  He is a modern Franznap figure, whereas the rank and file are all Hinton Hunt figures.

As usual with Dick Tennant's brushwork, just a little touchup and some shading and highlighting was all that was required to bring them into top notch shape.

Showing off their nimble formation changes given their smaller 24 figure battalion.

Squares never look quite right with the smaller battalions, but it gets the point across.

Here they have wisely decided to return to Germany...

Oberstleutenant Fritsch

All of the silver bullion sets off the deep blue and red of his uniform quite well.

Addressing the troops.

Up next: The Guard de Paris in their 1811 white uniforms faced green.

You'll have to trust me that the facing color is Green.  I stole this image from the interwebs and they look awfully blue!