Wednesday 1 February 2017

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.

6 comments:

  1. Awesome details Lawrence, congrats!

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  2. Your painted French regiment look lovely Lawrence! sounds like you have 100's of figures to paint up for the French and her allies. Looking forward to your "on-going" projects/work during the year...

    cheers,

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  3. Cheers Phil. I have quite a few of the allied contingents to keep things interesting, so am looking forward to getting stuck in.

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  4. These Foundry figures form the core of my opwn French army... just not painted as well as you have! I would say it is the crescents of the Voltigeurs that are red here, though, and the fringes green.

    You obviously need to include some Murawskli Badeners amongst your French Allied troops! :-)

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    1. Thanks Peter, and also for picking up my error (which I have now corrected). Your French came up when I was searching for examples, and I have to say your notes were very useful as well but I chuckled to myself when I realised that they were the exact same figures I was about to embark on.

      I have two battalions of Murawski Badeners and six or seven Perry Rheinbund battalions awaiting their turn, when the novelty of the French line starts to wear off. I just hope it's not another fourteen years before I manage to get to them...

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