Consular Guard and Dragoons, and some comparisons.

I was having a look for specific figures for Napoleon's Consular Guard and for the French Dragoon regiments at Marengo, but there seem to be few 15/18mm figures to choose from. From what I can see the main differences in the uniforms from 1800 and the later styles are slight, with the main difference being the length of the coats.

As I had a set of Old Guard Grenadiers and a later French Dragoon regiment sitting doing nothing I've had a go at painting these for Marengo and hoping they work well enough until the correct miniatures become available - I know AB do Dragoons for this period but the cost for two 12 man and an 18 man regiment would be a little too much just now.

Consular Guard Grenadiers - Using Warmodelling Old Guard Grenadiers
For the list I am working to for Marengo I have to build a 40 figure Consular Guard Grenadier battalion. The figures I have are a mix of Warmodelling's Old Guard plus other line Grenadiers, some with green-stuff added plumes and cords. I would have preferred to get AB figures for this set, but the AB figures are standing ready whereas these figures are marching.

I've had a look at as many reference pictures as I can find and I think that apart from the shorter tails, the main difference between the Consular and Imperial uniforms is in the colour of the turnbacks, collar, and cords.

I've painted a base as a test and think they look fine.

French 9e Dragoon Regiment - Using Campaign Games Miniatures Dragoons
Again, as with the Consular Guard, the main difference I could see between the 1800 Dragoons and the later uniform is the length of the coat tails, so already having a set of Campaign Games Miniatures (CGM) Dragoons sitting unfinished I thought I could use these for the 9e Dragoons at Marengo. I've painted up a command base of three figures to see how they look, and the main change I made was to trim the eagle down to as close to the proper shape (it still needs filed down a bit as the metal is quite hard and getting it smoother without the proper tools didn't work - I need to straighten the standard as well)

 

COMPARISON PICTURES
I've been posting on this blog for over a year now and some of the most popular posts are the comparison pictures between different companies, so here are some more. I hope these are helpful...
 Cavalry Comparison - Blue Moon, Warmodelling, Campaign Games
The first picture is of three command bases, the first one from the left is Austrian Hussars from Blue Moon, next is Warmodelling Spanish Cavalry painted to represent French Heavy Cavalry, and the last is CMG's French Dragoons.
My opinion had been that the Blue Moon figures were my preferred figures, but after painting the Warmodelling figures and seeing them side by side I find the BM figures to be far too small. The CMG figures' poses are a little rigid, and a little lacking in animation, but they are solid looking figures.

Grenadier Comparison - Warmodelling, Old Glory, Blue Moon
This picture is a selection of French "grenadier" figures from various companies, and different periods, again just to show scale. The figure bases from left to right are French Old Guard (painted as Consular Guard) from Warmodelling, Old Glory's Polish Line Infantry Grenadiers in Czapka, Warmodelling Line Grenadiers, Warmodelling Line Grenadiers for 1806-15, and lastly a Blue Moon Line Grenadier company.

Light Battalion Bach

One of the things currently unavailable for an Austrian army at Marengo is the Light Infantry battalions, probably because the main differences in these at 15/18mm scale are the colour of the uniforms. But it would be nice if specific Light Infantry were made available at some point.

The two Light Battalions that I need for Marengo are Light Battalion Bach, and Light Battalion Am Ende, both of which were Italian and therefore wore German style legwear. I had a pack of Old Glory Line infantry with trail arms that I had thought to mix with the March attack and road march poses, but these weren't very compatibly posed so had been relegated to the "maybe later" drawer.

When I decided that I was just going to use Line infantry as Lights, I thought these may work. They probably should be on skirmish bases for use during most of the game, and there were only 16 and 12 figures needed for those battalions, but I based them so they can also fight as line, and I'll get others for skirmishing Lights later.

As I've gashed my hand in a work accident I haven't quite finished these yet, but will post an update with the final 8 figures when I get enough pain-free movement back in my hand to finish the painting. I also couldn't achieve a good enough "JII" cypher for the front of the helmets so left those blank.

I'm not 100% sure I like these figures, so any comments are welcome...

Vendean Rebels - a 15mm distraction

Every now and then I feel the need to distract myself from my Austrian army... first it was expanding the collection to include the French, just to avoid going white uniform crazy... and then I read a little more about the era Marengo was fought in and looked at adding some Piedmontese to the collection.

I also found the Vendee Rebellion to be a fascinating part of the Revolutionary Period and had to have a set of the Allan Toullier figures. The website for these is currently down, saying "under construction", but hopefully these figures from France will be available again soon.

I've only done one small unit of these as I don't really want to get too distracted, but I'm sure the Austrian army at Marengo would have loved to have seen a Royalist uprising happen during 1800 to distract Napoleon.

So here are the figure, all from Allan Toulliers range, with the flag artwork created by myself (and available in 15 or 28mm if anybody wants these).

 

French Prints by Ballange

A little bit of inspirational visual reference material found on a forum, art by Ballange...

1st is another Heavy Cavalry trooper, this one with pink facings and collar, so possibly the 21e Heavy Cavalry which I now have figures for in transit from Spain....

Then some other early French....

2nd Heavy Cavalry - Updated with added Plumes

As the French Heavy Cavalry had plumes on their bicornes, and the figures I had used didn't, I decided to add plumes to the next unit I'm painting, which will be the 20th - a regiment that had pink facings and pink and black plumes.

I used a little green stuff, rolled into a carrot shape and carefully added these to the existing figures, and as I was happy with the results I then added plumes to the 2nd.

I think the paint I used is a little thick looking, so it'll need a little more work, but the plumes give these figures an extra "frenchness".

Here is the 2nd Heavy Cavalry with added plumes...

I also printed off a flag for these, but as you can see from the results, it makes sense to use properly printed flags rather than inkjet printed.

And here are the 2nd with the (in progress) 20th at the rear...