Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Wednesday 24 August 2022

WSS: French Infantry Complete (Phase One, anyway!)

 There you go - the heatwave has moved on, my attic room is once again habitable, and a parcel of newly painted soldiers has arrived safely from Lee, who has done his customary excellent job (thanks again Lee). Any minute now I'll be back working on my hobbies!

Three battalions, which I have now based up and fitted with flags, all ready for the Duty Box. Here we have 2 battalions of Béarn and 1 of Toulouse. The castings are, as ever, 20mm Les Higgins/PMD, though the mounted officers are Irregular, albeit sitting on Higgins horses to keep the scale tight. The flags are by David of Not By Appointment, which I have had professionally laser-printed by Malcolm at Lothian Printers, in Dunbar. 


 

This completes the French infantry for the official "first" (probably only) phase of my WSS project. I should probably do a new group photo, but I'm still waiting to get some general staff figures back from the caster (it can't be much longer, surely?).

 

Very dark, wet morning here, and my flash photo wasn't very successful; I've included a couple of photos from my official WSS Catalogue collection, to make up for it.


32 comments:

  1. Lovely stuff. How many French is that now?
    Great that you can use your wargames room again now. Mine hasn't been bearable for weeks either.

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    1. Hi Chris - French are now up to 14 Bns and 8 cavalry "units" of 3 bases (= 3 sqns) each, plus 4 artillery units (I only use a single gun to represent a battery in this period). They still are short of 2 units of dragoons.

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    2. Great. You always need lots of French.

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  2. They look great Tony although I can't get used to seeing Frenchies in grey. How many units do you have now?

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    1. Thanks Ian - the honest answer is "I don't know", so I thought that was rather a poor show and put some more columns into my Catalogue spreadsheet. From this, I think I have the following counts of units (bns of foot, regts of 3 sqns of horse or dragoons, 1 gun = 1 battery):

      Austrians: 22 (13 foot, 5 horse, 4 art)
      Bavarians: 24 (15, 5, 4)
      British: 19 (10, 6, 3)
      French: 26 (14, 8, 4)

      Austrians have to get another 2bn regt refurbished, the Austrians and Bavarians have each to get another unit of cuirassiers, the British have an extra unit of dragoons to be refurbished and the French have 2 units of dragoons in teh pipeline.

      The plan includes another small army - this was supposed to be Dutch, but at the moment I'm thinking about Hesse-Kassell, not least because they didn't wear grey! If this happens they would have 4 bns, 2 horse and 1 gun.

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  3. Nice! Seeing these I can't help feel I've made my Franchies too white.

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    1. People will argue forever about the correct shade of grey for French, Austrians etc etc. No-one really knows, though there are a surprising number of experts. Like Ms Truss, I am weary of experts, so whatever colour you have painted your Frenchies then you are correct! In any case, uniform cloth was probably better quality by the SYW.

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    2. Cloth straight out of the shop will look much different after weeks in the field. I think you can remain at ease with even Fifty Shades of Grey .

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  4. Gives me a great sense of satisfaction to have painted these and then seeing them all based and finished like this. The flags are very crisply printed with rich colour and that basing colour really sets off the sky grey coats. On the subject of grey coats the mid grey primer will be my go to method now for such troops and just when your French are finished!
    Lee.

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    1. It gives me a lot of pleasure to include the paintwork of friends in my armies, and you have supplied some excellent figures for me over the years. It all adds to the pride and affection I feel for the troops!

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  5. Nice to see some more units making their appearance. You can never have enough French

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    1. Thanks Graham - this French army has come together very quickly, which has been greatly helped by the efforts of others, so I do appreciate that.

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  6. Very nice indeed Tony…
    The grey uniforms go well with the grey weather we are having…

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Thanks Aly - the grey skies (and, today, mist and drizzle) have actually been a welcome relief for me, and I really enjoyed being able to breathe freely for a change (is it possible to get a negative pollen count?).

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  7. Wonderful as always! Great to see my flags with such splendid troops. :-)

    Do send some of that grey and drizzly weather south, please; here in the Midlands it is still horribly dry and muggy at night. I am really looking forward to the autumn...

    Cheers,

    David.

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    1. Hi David - these chaps are proud to serve under such flags, and will defend them to the last. Thanks again for permission to use them. The laser printing has been a great success. So much so that for a while I considered getting my cavalry flags lasered as well, but since they are 9mm high it doesn't actually make much difference - you can't read them anyway!

      One thing for sure is that my Bavarians are getting very self-concious about the comparison with their flags - in consequence, my Franco-Bavarian Alliance is creaking a little. I think I may have to take a serious look at them.

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    2. Thanks. I do make them for use and all the better if they are with splendidly elegant figures! :-) Yes, laser printing is definitely the way to go, if possible. Nothing else comes close.

      I've thought of doing Bavarian flags and (at the risk of spreading myself even thinner!) I could probably rustle up a few of the simpler type of Bavarian infantry flag - the mid-blue and white checky, for instance. That style is useful as it seems to have been used for a very long period. (If you need the Horse Grenadier guidon, I did that one ages ago and can let you it if you'd like it.)

      Cheers,

      David.

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    3. Apart from giving me seizures, the checkered Bavarian flags have been a hard thing for me to get right. I made satisfactory Napoleonic flags by editing the Warflag ones - I removed the black lines (made them blue!) and cleaned them up a bit - even added some shading. The Holy Virgin Leibfahne (?) were less straightforward, but OK. I admit that, since I was in a rush to get my bought-in WSS Bavarians ready for duty, this time I fitted Warflag flags without really changing them - that is starting to grate just a little now I've had some months of the dreaded Creeping Elegance with the French!

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    4. David - I forgot to mention! - I recall you created the Toulouse flag after a discussion with me, so thanks again for that. It took me a while, but I get there in the end!

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    5. Thanks. Yes, the Toulouse flag and troops look great. :-) So that is a Yes to a few Bavarian flags, then? We must keep the attack of Creeping Elegance going, mustn't we? ;-)

      Cheers,

      David.

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    6. David - I'm all in favour of Creeping Elegance, but I am shackled by my inherited Northern Retiscence - my grannie told me, "Them as ask don't get, and them as don't ask don't want!".

      I'd be thrilled to bits to see some Bavarian flags but (since I am now looking for jam with it) my interest is in Max Emmanuel period flags. I read somewhere that the Spanish Succession Bavarian flags remained pretty much unchanged until the 1740s, but had probably altered a bit by the SYW, so I don't know how that would fit with your plans. I am, of course, very interested.

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    7. Your grannie was a bit of a pessimist, I see. ;-) OK - I'll see what I can do. No rush, I hope!

      Cheers,

      David.

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    8. I've just posted some roughs of Bavarian WSS flags; let me know your thoughts, please. https://nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.com/2022/08/roughs-of-bavarian-war-of-spanish.html

      Cheers,

      David.

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  8. A wonderful display of French, David's flags make the units pop.
    Thanks for sharing.


    Willz.

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    1. Hi Willz - thank you - all the best to you.

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    1. Thank you Ray - I am well pleased with them!

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  10. These look grand Tony. For what it is worth (i.e. nothing), I prefer the tones of the darker image of the 'real thing' to the catalogue photos—I can see more of the detail in the latter!
    Looking forward to the parade :)
    Regards, James

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    1. Thanks James. I've been talking about building, or purchasing, or borrowing a proper little light-box for my photographs, but I only remember when the Summer starts to fade and I can't get out in the garden for pictures. This year I'll try to actually do something about it.

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  11. They are very nice figures and the flags certainly finish them off beautifully.

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    1. Thanks Keith - I'm pleased with them, and with overall progress. [This is the second time I"ve replied to this comment, by the way - Blogger seems to be suffering from a hangover this morning...]

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