Back to French cavalry

Cavalry can be a chore to prep and paint, so I tend to try and discipline myself to produce a regiment on a regular basis. My French army is still under strength in cavalry and as the regiments tend to be smaller they are less of a task to produce. For some time I have mulled over my next French regiment, and today I have started prepping up the Gentleman regiment of the Duc de Noailles.
This regiment ticks all the boxes for me. It has a pretty red jacket (which I wanted as a contrast), blue horse blanket, which also contrasts nicely, and buff waistcoat and pants.
My airline pilot friend from Argentina, Daniel recently posted the image below on a Seven Years War group page. For those of you who do not know him, Daniel has a wonderful collection of Trident 40mm French army figures. He is a superb painter and converter. Trident now operate from NZ. The quality is fabulous, but the scale is slightly too large for my collection, and would fit with Perry 40mm or Front Rank. Daniel's work features on the 40mm Facebook group and other 7YW groups and is well worth a look.

The illustration below is taken from Kronoscaf and shows a slightly different lapel colour which I will go with.

My other main reason for choosing Regiment Noailles, is because of the actions that it fought in.
Hastenbeck, Krefeld and Minden amongst others. This is important to me, as I like to make regiments that saw action and featured historically, rather than just looked pretty. Hastenbeck was the most enjoyable 7YW western battlefield that I have visited, with Warburg a close second. Both battlefields are well preserved, and have convenient hills/high points to allow the visitor to get a panorama view of the whole site. Hamelin itself was a slight disappointment. This was to be one of the highlights for my wife with its "Pied Piper" connection, but the town itself, although interesting in parts was not as quaint or appealing as many other German walled towns... Just my view... Our accomodation was very pleasant, central in the old town, but the bedroom had a rat theme running through it which was not really to our taste !!
Regiment Noailles presents a dilema, because in 1756 it consisted of 2 squadrons, but after Minden where it took heavy losses it was down to a single squadron. I normally reflect the smaller French regiments by painting 12 figures on 6 bases. For this regiment I may reduce the number to 10.
If I continue with my French army in 2020, by the end of the year it will outnumber my Prussians.
But do not fear, as the Prussians will be revisited. I currently have 15 full infantry regiments, not counting grenadiers, so there are plenty of gaps to fill. I have never been happy with the sculpting of my Prussians. They are chunky and the leggings are too thick and resemble boots. I will attempt to remodel my infantry figures at some point and introduce them to the existing collection. I have already converted an Austrian figurebut my Austrian collection is nearly complete, however the figure will be useful for the Reicharmee.
Enough of my rambling.... Back to prepping and Saxon infantry.

A mixed bag

A mixed bag of figure painting in the last few days.
I have finished my 30mm Phoenix Scots Guards unit by finishing the band, although still some pipers to do.

The pipers in particular show up the detail very well. I have used the later version of the Scots Guards   Pipers which wears the bonnet, rather than the earlier version with glengarry.

The “western front” is currently on furlough, and I have gone back to my Saxon army and I am currently working on IR6 Prinz Maximilian.

This unit will eventually have 7 bases of musketeers and 2 grenadier bases.

Finally I still have concerns with the new blogger, and in particular losing the link with the AMG blog. John did mention considering bringing back his wonderful forum, which has become part of wargaming folklore for 18th century buffs. It took a lot of work to run, but possibly it could be revived on a part time basis, say only open at weekends or limited membership. Anyway, we will see.

Another book ordered for lock down

Just ordered this book from Helion. A bargain at £14.95 post paid. Good on Helion for keeping production going at this difficult time. They have some very tasty 18th century publications in the pipeline. Particularly looking forward to the Rossbach book, and the second Christopher Duffy book on the Austrian army.
I have a soft spot for Spain/Portugal, probably because of my frequent stays in the Canaries and my visits to the wonderful Military museum and library at Santa Cruz.. At some point a Spanish army will appear with those wonderful Spanish flags.

I am a bit concerned about the future of Blogger, and I fear that my blog will come to an end if the current format cannot be continued. I did have a look at the new version, but was less than inspired.
I get a great deal of pleasure and inspiration from other blogs, and it helps to know that there are other like minded people out in the world, who have the same aims and objectives in modelling and collecting. Sharing your hobby is one of its main pleasures. If we do see the demise of Blogger, then hopefully we can find a new solution. I don't think emails are the answer.

Update

Not much to report this week, but the painting continues. With lock down it can be difficult to be creative and too much hobby time can lead to “burn out”. The author of the “A Military Gentleman” blog where I acquire much of my inspiration, is feeling much the same, but I do hope he continues with his blog. One worry is that blogger are changing the format shortly and I do not like the new setup. Unless I can continue with my existing blog in the same format, I also fear that it may come to an end.
So some progress made with my first base of Saxons.

My main diversification is an “upscale” to 54mm, where I have revisited my first love and repainted some old lead Britains in Matt style. I think they are very nostalgic, and they remind me of the wonderful artwork of  Simkin and Harry Payne who painted uniforms of the British army in the period 1890 to 1914. I love old photographs of regiments on manoeuvres wearing full dress before the  Boer War, even the guards regiments on route marches with their bearskin hats in high summer.
Remarkable that the Great War was only a decade ahead !

Scots and Coldstream guards on exercise.

IR 6 Saxony, Karl Maximilian

Production of 40mm has dropped of late. so I have decided to revisit my partially complete Saxon army and add Regiment IR6 Karl Maximilian, one of the regiments which surrendered at Pirna having failed to link up with Browne,s Austrians who were making their way up the opposite side of the Elbe and who had reached Bad Schandau. This is within a few miles of the Saxons who were starving by this time and could not cross the rough hilly terrain with the weather worsening. A real ”what if “ situation, if the Saxons and Austrians had linked before Lobositz, Fred may well have been sent packing. Bad Schandau is now a lovely little holiday spa. We stayed for 2 days in 2019 in a little hotel looking on to the Elbe.

This NCO of IR 6 has been in solitary confinement for over a year after dismally failing in his recruiting drive.

The dark green waistcoat and facings make a nice contrast to the white jacket.

Mark A. kindly gave me these flags with an order he painted for me some time ago.
I will finally get a regiment painted up for them.   Watch this space.
I need a completed Saxon army before I can really fight a proper campaign based on the situation in 1756, so this is a chance to make some progress.

A bit of a diversion

Hanoverian recruitment has been held back of late by a new distraction, a 30mm unit of Scots Guards circa 1910. This period, particularly the British army in full dress, has always been a major of interest  of mine, and I was brought up in the 1960’s when Britains lead soldiers were being phased out and plastic 54mm and Airfix was all the rage with young boys.  I always hankered after a lead soldier collection but they were way out of my price range and became the domain of serious collectors.
So this seems a good compromise. 30mm is now the industry standard, they have plenty detail if well sculpted, are affordable and look great en masse, without taking up vast self space.
So I now introduce my first completed unit of Scots Guards, 64 marching men, 4 piece colour party, 2sergeants, 1 Sergeant major, 2 officers and mounted Lt Colonel.
I will also paint up 12 line markers. Still to paint up the band, pioneer , transport mule and handler, which should give me a 1:12 representation of a British regiment circa 1910.

French ADC completed

This chap was fairly straightforward to paint and he will make a nice addition to the French staff.

 

On the table, encouraging Regiment Dillon as they move forward.