French 34th Line Regiment

After having completed the Spanish and Portuguese 28mm armies I thought I had better have a go at some French. I have had a pile of Foundry 28mm French I purchased in 2003 so I thought I'd start with them, and the 34th Ligne:

These are lovely figures which is not surprising as they were sculpted by the Perry twins, and the quality is certainly there to see, although they do feel on the smaller side after having painted primarily Front Rank for the past couple of years. I especially like the expression on some of the figures:

The 34th Ligne had a number of uniform variations, including the colour of the voltiguer epaulettes which had a red crescent instead of the more usual yellow, which was obviously just a matter of the paint used:

The officer shako however sported a large tricolore rosette instead of the shako plate, but rather than try to hack this around I simply went with the latter:

The 34th were engaged throughout most of the Peninsular including Albuera where 2 battalions were heavily engaged against the more than capable Reales Guardias Espanolas, and at Arroyo dos Molinos were three battalions were quite severely mauled by a force under the command of Rowland Hill. In spite of this they managed to hang on to their Eagles, in this case shown with a GMB flag for the 34th, much to Soult's relief:

My plan is to work my way through my Foundry pile first, with around two battalions to each regiment, before I move on to some Bardin-uniformed Perry and Calpe French I have waiting. I also hope to take a few detours into some allied troops along the way, so am hopeful there will be enough variety there to maintain my interest levels.