28mm - Napoleonic French 21e Legere Regiment - Perry Miniatures

This has been a serious venture! I think most of my free time of the last month has gone into painting this battalion of the 21e Legere.   I'm not complaining though - it is nice to have a project to look forward to coming home to each evening and these have been so interesting to research and paint.

The 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 21e Legere Regiment  were heavily engaged at several of the major battles of the Peninsular War.  Notably they were in the thick of it at Albuera in Gazan's Division in the main infantry attack on the British and Spanish centre. 

I decided to paint up 12 figures at a time to make this project manageable.  Doing all of them in a production line would have been intensely painful!  Progress could be measured and the 'win' of completing 12 figures was the spur to doing a further 12.  I started with the Carabiniers and Voltigeurs as they are so interesting.  

I chose to paint up the 21st Legere mainly because of the actions they were at.  On researching this regiment I discovered that they were an early recipient of bearskins for the Carabinier company.  In addition (and unexpectedly), source material showed that they wore the shako plate on the front of the bearskin.  This presented a potential issue in how best to represent this.  I decided to use my modelling blade to carve the plate into the fur and then paint it on. Much of the plate would be behind the bearskin cord anyway.

I saved the Command stand until last along with the final Chasseur stand.  I realised at this point that I had not checked to see if the correct flag was commercially available!  Thankfully it was - GMB Flags to the rescue.

My only regret with the command stand is that it looks so 'busy'  I should perhaps have reduced it by a figure, but then, which would I lose? I really liked all of the figures so did the best I could to get them all on and leave space for the flag.  I could have gone for a larger stand, but for gaming purposes I try to keep my troops in close order to give that 'look' and to maximise the use of space on the table.  In the end I stuck with 6 figures, but alas, some of the fine detail on the command set is slightly harder to see. A small sacrifice but there we are.

The voltigeurs with their tall plumes are absolutely spectacular. It was a joy to see these come into fruition.

I thought that the Chasseurs would be the least interesting being the bulk of the battalion and not being in the elite companies, but this was far from the case.  I really enjoyed seeing them develop as each colour was carefully applied and I think they have quite possibly my favourite French uniform.

I try to make the troops a little less 'parade-ground' and hint more towards campaign with showing the use of local brown cloth and different colour greatcoat/blanket rolls.

It is recorded in primary sources of the French putting on their best uniform items and plumes prior to battle, so I bear this in mind to avoid going totally ragged with uniforms and keep things looking plausible with a lean towards smartness.

It has been so interesting to read more into how the Legere were used on campaign.  It would seem that the Legere were known for their aggressive attitude.  This possibly comes from the way they were often used to spearhead assaults, rather than just skirmish, which is how they are often portrayed.

I must caveat this post on the 21st by saying that there were some things that I had to make best guesses at with uniform colours. So much seemed to be at the whim of Regimental colonels and not everything was recorded.  It is possible that towards the later campaigns, much more brown was used to create the uniforms. I have found one illustration showing them with a full brown uniform of Spanish cloth. I opted to go slightly earlier in the campaign to when the illustration was set, so hopefully having more of the blue uniform would be more accurate.  

I made a best guess with the red topping the plumes, which seemed common with many Chasseur companies of Legere, but not in all regiments.  I hope I got this one right but we might never know (I'm not changing it now!). 

More Napoleonics to follow...I'm on a roll and finally playing General d'Armee2...just solo so far but what a brilliant Napoleonic set of rules they are. Very inspiring!

15mm - American Civil War - Fire and Fury Inspiration

 

Sometimes inspiration can be unexpected, and this post was inspired by thinking about rules and especially, what makes rules fit a period of history almost uniquely.  

I have used the Warlord Games 'Black Powder' rules for a lot of periods for the last 10 years or so and, heavily modified by house rules, they work very well indeed.  At least they can do for most black powder periods.  There are only two periods so far that I just have not felt that they worked all that well for. These are Napoleonic and American Civil War.

I have the Black Powder supplements for both periods but personally speaking, and it is a personal thing, it just didn't feel like I was playing the period in either case.

So, on watching an old episode of rules reviews on 'Little Wars TV' I was struck by their review of 'Fire and Fury' 1st Edition.  The reviewers positively raved about the rules and how they still stand the test of time.  It made me think.  I loved Fire and Fury when it came out and to be honest it was really the first set of wargaming rules that made me think that the hobby was the best thing ever.  I had tried some of the 1980's fare of poor photocopy over-complex slow rules, but besides being glossy and attractive, these rules were fun and the game 'felt' like an American Civil War game.

I wondered why I had moved from Fire and Fury. Was it because of the change of wargaming fashion? The desire for the latest new thing? Had my perception of history and warfare changed?  Probably the first two of the three, I concluded.  

So I got the rules back out again. My old blue book from 1990. I was resolved to use it and give them another go...I picked them up and then the pages dropped out...

That gave me cause to think. Wasn't there a Regimental set of rules that got brought out? I already had the scenario book which I used for Black Powder.  Then I spotted the Brigade level 2nd Edition and decided to go for that instead.

I won't go through all the changes here but there is more detail and some real changes for the better. I like the extra detail - it isn't excessive but makes sensible amendments to modifiers etc. The game still plays in much the same way as before.

I play tested it, and was hooked again.  What a superb set of rules it is!  So impressive that the next month I bought the set for Regimental level too.  The rules seem to be getting expensive and hard to get hold of.  Both are definitely worth getting hold of, and the upgrade to 2nd edition for Brigade level is definitely worth it.  

These photos are from the first 2nd Edition game that I played with Ian a few weeks ago.

It was an absolute joy to get the troops and scenery on the table again and get playing with Fire and Fury.

I do not ever remember having a bad game of Fire and Fury. In addition historical encounters so often went like the real battle. Even the Pickett's Charge scenario - played by us over 20 years ago and still very memorable, ended with the Confederates just getting over the 'Angle' before being beaten back!

So, this was a lesson for me in a set of rules feeling like the history being recreated on the table top. I re-read the book 'Rally Once Again' by Paddy Griffiths and much of the action and stats seemed to follow his well researched findings.  Musket and artillery fire is generally effective at short ranges for instance.

Inspired by the game, I couldn't resist painting up some more troops...

..and artillery limbers!  I found that I was desperately short of limbers and indeed still am. This is something that I will be putting right!

One thing you might have noticed is my unconventional basing for Fire and Fury figures.  There is a reason for this.  I cannot stand the tiny bases!

I decided to make each stand the near equivalent of 3 Fire and Fury bases in width.  So a Brigade of 9 stands in the rules becomes 3 stands for me...easy.  I can still 'refuse' the line and do all the formations that I need to.  For non-multiples of 3, I have also painted up 'double' stands for 2 Fire and Fury bases.

Now I can have the brigades with any number of the stands that are required by the scenarios. I'll still have the odd single based stand for the rare occasion that a single stand might need to form a refuse of the line.

The other thing that I did was make the stands slightly deeper. This means that stands can be moved and picked up and put away without bayonets and muskets being bent and broken.  No bayonet or barrel protrudes over the base edge.  I discovered with the original basing that I simply never wanted to get the figures out of the boxes because of the fiddly nature of it and the damage caused. 

In 2016 I rebased my massive armies from card to MDF using the old sizing.  I never got the figures out of their storage box after this and realising the reason why, I resolved to rebase yet again (twice in one year!) to with this new and very successful method.  It was worth the pain!

The other great thing is the speed of movement.  No longer does an army have to be moved one tiny base at a time! What a relief!  

The figures above are almost all Old Glory 15's and the flags are by the magnificent GMB Designs.

So, what next?  I'm back on to Napoleonics - I have painted 12 x 28mm figures but it is taking an age!  I'll post more on those soon.