Touriane Regiment Completed

These stands include the Crusader command figures, the officer pointing and NCO with half pike.  

My flu is finally on the way out and I am getting back in the painting swing, but it is another small post from me this week.  I've got the last 8 infantrymen from the Touraine Regiment to make up the full 24 man battalion.  So far production has been incremental, I think Benito's on the same track, but it's worked.  I set my bar low and use the paining as a sanity break from a very busy semester.

These figures are all Crusader, although there are a few Front Rank figures in the full battalion.

FYI I chose the Regiments that I am painting based on the Rene North book that I used as my inspiration for my SYW project - see my Childhood round post.  This picture from the book features  members of both the Touraine and Diesbach regiments - which I targeted as my main goals to have completed by the Spring Equinox.

I've painted mine to match other sources, so Tourane's facings are a deeper blue and Diesbach has a collar added after Rossbach

Next week I hope to have a larger submission, year end is winding down at the 2/3rds of my job where I do actuarial work and it's break week at the 2/3rds of my job where I teach.  Plus the nurgles invading my sinuses and lungs are being crushed and the Olympics help with the painting mojo.

Full battalion in line.

The Front Rank and Crusader figs match up better than I expected.  The attack column is ahistorical for SYW, but I can get the full battalion in view!

Strictly speaking this should be a two battalion regiment, but I am am building only one battalion per regiment so as to max out on the unit variety.

So by my math that's another 8 28mm figures this week for another whopping 40 points!  However, there's more on the production line and I hop to have larger posts over the  next couple of weeks.

AHPC Childhood Bonus Round - Return to the Lace Wars

My submission for the "childhood" round is this vignette featuring three members of the Brunswick Lieb Regiment from the SYW.  And no there's not a child among them and it does look more like a "musician"bonus post.  But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Ok, more details.  My entire work this year is my SYW project which to me is a nostalgic return to my childhood.  As a young lad (I'm guessing 8-10) my father gave a copy of this book by Rene North (I bet many grognards have the same volume).  Family circumstances being that I rarely saw my dad in my first 5 years, and not at all for another 10 years, any gift from him tended to get a lot of my attention. 

Forty five plus years later, I've still got stuck in my head snippets from the book about the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War.   The  "Messieurs les Anglais, tirez les premiers" incident from Fontenoy, the Minden roses, the Walloon dragoons in the Austrian army and the red brick walls of the Diesbach Regiment that Freddy's artillery could not breach.  So when I started a SYW project for Sharp Practice, it became a homecoming for me.  Plus I found I really, really like painting lace wars uniforms.  So much so that my SP project has expanded into a Black Powder/Honours of War project.

The figures are all Perry miniatures Hessians from their AWI line from two separate command packs (there are I believe 8 Hessian command packs in the Perry line). The Lieb regiment drummers wore a yellow coat as shown in the period folk art illustration.  

The officer has adopted some campaign mods, turning back his coat, changing to low cut soft boots and added a cloak worn bandoleer style.  I am picturing a moment of a long day's march as the troops settle into camp routine.  An officer pauses to here one drummer play a plaintive folk song on his fife as the second takes a well deserved breather.

And yes, the vignette was meant to be my music bonus round submission but I was laid low by the flu.  I could have taken any of my output (well except the Luftwaffe flight entry) or ongoing projects to represent this return to childhood.  This one happened to be the one that rolled off the assembly line at the right moment.

SYW Touraine Regiment Part 2

Note to self - bus clean up the front of the Ordonnance colour!

Forgive me Father it has been three weeks since my last confession....
Rumours of my death being slightly exaggerated I am back with a post again having missed two weeks with the flu. Continuing with my ongoing slow progress with my SYW project I have another 8 members of the French Touraine Regiment.

Three Crusader figures led by a Front Rank Officer

The rank and file members are Crusader as are the drummer and one of the two standard bearers.  I wasn't overly enamoured of the Crusader command pack so pick up some Front Rank figures to swell the ranks.  The Front Rankers are the two Grenadiers and the two officers in the front rank (appropriately enough).   The two figure companies worked better together than I had feared, with the Grenadiers looking suitably buff compared to the fusiliers without dwarfing them.

I'm quite happy with the unit labels.

During the Seven Years War French Battalions had 16 fusilier companies and one Grenadier company, so in a 24 man battalion that should be 1.4 grenadier figures, which I have of course rounded up to 2 beefy men in moustaches and spiffy bearskin hats.  There were often piquet or chasseur companies detached for counting, raiding or other Kleine Krieg activities which I hope to add later.  Unlike the Allied armies opposing them, the grenadiers were not detached into permanent composite battalions but typically remained with the parent regiment unless detached for a specific action.

I really like those Front Rank grenadiers.

Of course a big attraction of a French army of the period is the flags, the white Colonel's colour and the multicoloured Ordonnance colour.  Normally my default for flags is the excellent Warflag site, but the examples for Turaine seemed a little garish and I ventured more widely on the web and found these examples on the Not By Appointment site.  I downloaded the jpeg, resized the images and printed them off at home.  Hopefully I've not violated any copyright in the process, but these are gorgeous flags.

16 down, 8 more to go.

Here's the 16 completed members of the Touraine Regiment in line.  I've added unit labels at the back, including a small image of the Ordonance colour for added visual reference given that I'll have several French regiments in grey-white.

From the rear.  I quite like the Crusader drummer.  Being a Provincial regiment, I've given him the King's livery.

So by my count that's 8 28mm figures for 40 points.  it also means that after three weeks stuck at 196, I finally get over my modest 200 point target!