A similar story, as again I can find lots of Uniform and general information about the Saxon Napoleonic Army (mainly for the Osprey book by the venreable Otto Von Pivka), but nom specific information about the 7th Lancers.
Unfortunately I have not been able to find much unit history on these, other than they were another unit that were converted from Dragoons, the 6th Lancers from the 29th Dragoon Regiment.
This is a great action figure of a Dragoon firing his pistol.
Napoleon had trouble finding horses to mount his Dragoons especially before the successful campaign in 1809 against Austria.
Many of the Dragoons were therfore converted to Foot Dragoons.
“The assignement was sensible, but troopers caught up in the shuffle remembered that veteran dragoons, who hadn’t walked farther in years than the distance from their barracks to the nearest bar, ended up in the dismounted units, while their mounts were assigned to raw recruits. The results were rough on everybody: hospitals filled up with spavined veterans, recruits got saddle sores. Also, J.A. Oyon wrote gleefully, matters turned ugly when mounted and dismounted elements of several regiments bivouaced together. The limping veterans crowded over to check on their old horses and found them neglected, sore-backed, and lame. Blood flowed freely, if only from rookies’ noses.”
From: http://napoleonistyka.atspace.com/French_Cavalry.html
“There was no shortage of French cavalrymen who were eager to demonstrate their bravery and martial prowess in combat. During the bloody battle of Heilsberg in 1807 a colonel with his saber “dripping with blood” asked Marshal Murat to review his regiment. The colonel assured him that “you will see that that there is no soldier whose saber is not like mine.” (ibid)
“Another colonel had received 56 sabre cuts and recovered! It was not a rare sight to see a light cavalryman in a forefront of a hack-and-slash melee, gripping his reins with his teeth,
a pistol in one hand and saber in the other.” (ibid)
Gaming is at my place this Wednesday and we have planned a game of Dark Age Strongsword using my Dark Age/Pirate village. The problem was that a lot of the accessories that I needed like objective markers, braziers to use as a light source for long range night shooting, and trap and tunnel doors to sneak through tunnels were not completed.
Most of the resin bits and bobs were sourced from Baudea Wargames and the resin and mdf bases from back2base-ix. The grey felt cobblestone the models are photographed on is from a $2.00 bargain shop – I bought the lot in both grey and brown!
The models (each amphora, basket, chest or barrel is an individual piece) were all glued to their base and undercoated in a matt black.
The Trap and tunnel doors:
These were just dry brushed over the undercoat and the base scenics added.
The treasure and booty objectives:
The “grail” is from a Christmas crackerjack – the joke was woeful but the plastic toy could be used.
The Braziers:
The food and “health” objectives:
So there you have it. I have all of the bits I need now done, so all I have to do is organize the scenario, layout the terrain, choose the armies, and then we are “Ready to Rumble”.
Whilst depicted in 1791 this is strictly not a Napoleonic regiment, but the unit has an interesting history and is worth inclusion. Again the only information I have been able to gleen is from the Knotel print.
I am not sure what manufacturer these come from but they are obviouisly quite old. Despite this they definitely have some character and interesting poses.
During the revolution the Lorient National Dragoons were led by Jean-Michel Beysser when he was made major, rising to lieutenant colonel in 1790.
Organised in 1790 by volunteers, who provided their own horses weapons and equipment, from the Lorient area in North-west France, this unit saw two years of dangerous actions against the insurgents in the Vendee and Britanny.
While so engaged one of their member was pursued by the Local Revolutionary Committee because the pattern on the tiled roof on his ancestral family home included a fleur-de-lis, which had become the Royalist symbol.
In June 1793 most of the Regiment went into the 22nd Regiment of Chasseurs de Cheval, also called the Coastal Chasseurs, and were later redesignated the 15th regiment.
The complicated arrangement of white cords, or augilettes, on the dragoon’s left shoulder was merely ornamental and are not well defined on the figures.
The legs of the “soft” boots specified in the regiment’s uniform regulations were held up by a tab, which was fitted over a button at the knee of the breeches. Helmets at this time had no visors.
As I touched on in a recent blog one of my “to do” projects is a 20mm “Musketeers” game based on the usual tavern brawl. Unfortunately I am of an age that whenever the word Musketeers appears I cannot help but think of the Mickey Mouse Club and Mouseketeer Annette Funicello – ahhhh the heart still skips a beat. She was my first love, and my first bedroom poster girl at the grand old age of six.
Anyway I digress. After writing the blog I decided to “dig out” the figures and have a look at them, and I was really surprised by the quality.
Now I do not want to write a complete review of these as the Plastic Soldier review does a more than adequate job of this:
Musketeers of the King of France
Mounted Musketeers of the King of France
Mounted Guards of Cardinal Richelieu
By the way if you do not have this site on your list favourites already I suggest you do as it is a wonderful source of figure information. I am jealous of the modern 1/72nd gamer when I think of how we had to “butcher” Airfix plasics and put them back together with the head of this a torso of that, and the legs of another, like Dr Frankenstein just to make an Austrian Hussar. I remember using the Ancient British Wounded figure and the US Cavalry to make Ancient British Light Horse. Not today as the range today is just superb.
Red Box now have an excellent range of figures and the historical accuracy and figure quality is now superb. With two boxes of 44 Kings Musketeers and 2 Boxes of 12 Mounted Musketeers this means that I can field 12 more than the one hundred that King Lois XIII could!
The Kings Musketeers:
King Louis the XIII
The Cardinal’s Guard:
It was not unusual for Officials to require bodyguards and Cardinal Richelieu received Royal permission. Whilst there was a strong rivalry often street and tavern altercations between the King’s and the Cardinal’s Guards the animosity often depicted in Hollywood does not appear to have existed.
There are some issues with the tabarded figures as instead of the white cross of the Cardinal they have the emblem of the king. I will just paint this white and ignore the error.
I am sure that these will come up well and I am looking forward to modelling the tavern comnplete with rooms and furniture to game over.
All I know of this regiment is from Knötel’s series of prints on the German States Armies of the Napoleonic Wars, prints n umber GSN-4-9 Grand Duke of Wurzburg’s Troops 1807, Dragoon, Fusilier Officer, Grenadier. This clearly shows the uniform depited below, but of their history during the Napoleonic period I can find little.
The Third Chevaulegere Lancers were created in 1811, from the Eight Regiment de Dragons.
The regiment fought at Ligny and Waterloo (among others) under Colonel Charles Fracois Martique, and was awarded battle honours at Polotsk 1812, Bautzen 1813, Dresde 1813 and Champaubert 1814.
Following on from Tiny Painted Heroes’ “Kongzilla” Post I was wondering what type of gaming projects people have on their list that may be a bit way out there?
For our crazy little group of PIGS and PIGLETS it is amazing how some of our way out there ideas have become mainstream, such as:
These were really way out there when we started, but are now considered mainstream. The upside is that we now appear not that crazy, just ahead of the game! At least that’s my spin on it.
Taking a look at my potential future projects ( and these I am limiting to ones that I have at least purchased some stuff for) those of you who know me will be surprised that there are no really crazy ideas. These include:
Nothing in the League of Kongzilla!!
Although my Pulp Eqyptian Campaign based on the river city of Nokandoo goes close:
https://wordpress.com/post/phillipislandgamingsociety392176732.wordpress.com/3506
Gaming genres appear now only to be limited by gamers wierd and crazy imaginations.
The Viking (BvS10) Amphibous Armoured All- Terrain Vehicle that is!
Viking (BvS10) is a fully-amphibious armoured all-terrain vehicle consisting of two tracked vehicle units linked by a steering mechanism. The UK Ministry of Defence ordered 108 Vikings from BAE Systems, Land Systems Hagglunds (formerly Alvis Hagglunds), in three variants of troop carrier (TCV), command vehicle (CV) and repair recovery vehicle (RCV).
The Viking, fitted with a more powerful engine, is larger and faster than the Swedish Bv206S from which it was developed, and has greater load capacity.
These resin 1/48th scale Vikings from the Honourable Boiler Suit Company look impressive on the table. The Airfix WIMIK Landrover was the subject of yesterday’s blog.
The UK’s Royal Marine Commandos took delivery of the first batch of production Viking all-terrain (protected) vehicles in July 2003.
Initial operating capability was achieved in 2005 and final deliveries were in early-2006. The Viking entered service with the UK Army in April 2006.
In October 2006, the Viking was first operationally deployed with the Royal Marine Commandos in southern Afghanistan. A total of 33 vehicles were deployed at that time.
As you can see from these pics the 1/48th scale Honourable Boiler Suit Company Vikings fit in well with the 1/48th scale Airfix quad bike and the 28mm (1/56th) scale Eureka miniatures British soldiers.
I don’t know about you but I find the amount of 4 wheel drive vehicles that turn up for school drop off and pick up quite comical. The closest that these vehicles and their soccer mums will ever see to off-roading is when they run over the kerb when trying to parallel park!
The Landrover I wanted to talk about today, the WMIK (Weapons Mounted Installation Kit), is as far removed from the everyday 4 wheel drive of the “soccer mums” as possible.
The heavily armed WMIK continues to serve in this, its most recent incarnation, the R+, as an effective Special Forces and reconnaissance vehicle.
The vehicles have become a symbol of British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In keeping with their hearts and minds philosophy they were chosen for patrol duties instead of armoured fighting vehicles such as the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle. Following a spate of incidents, there has been concern that the unarmoured nature of the WIMIC exposes the crews to excessive danger, and they are being supplemented by more heavily armoured vehicles such as the Jackal.
In Afghanistan “an average of one of these vehicles a week” was lost to enemy action, and with replacements often arriving late a “fifth of the fleet” of WMIKs was currently “damaged or has been destroyed by enemy fire”.
I still have an 1/48th scale Airfix Jackal and a BAE Warrior to glue together but as these are not even started they will not be done as part of my April “get the bastards finished” campaign. Hanging around somewhere are some 28mm Empress Miniatures vehicle crews which I may add at some stage to the WIMIC and the Vikings, but you know what the Aladdins cave is like – lot’s of shiny stuff but you cannot find what you are really after.
