Thursday 1 July 2021

French 1st Chasseurs

While I await the arrival of a GMB flag order to complete the last of the dragoon regiments I remembered I have a few chasseur flags on hand, so thought I'd get stuck into the first of three chasseur regiments with the 1e Chasseurs:











Probably not the most exciting of French cavalry uniforms, but no French army would be complete without them:





















The reverse trumpeter at least adds a little bit of interest, and the GMB flags always look effective:





















That's fourteen regiments now completed since January. Not as many as I had hoped for by this stage, but at least I am over the halfway mark in terms of French cavalry:











Next up will be the dragoons. We have been subjected to a short four-day (so far, anyway) lockdown here in Brisbane during which postal deliveries have been suspended, so I am hoping  next week will see their arrival. Having said that it has now been four months since they were posted so I may end up just using one of the spare chasseur flags, if I can find one with roughly equivalent battle honours.

18 comments:

  1. These Chasseurs look great Lawrence...cavalry is one thing I am seriously deficient in fir all my Napoleonic armies ...I really should invest in some Perry plastic horsemen to rectify the situation!

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    1. Thanks Keith. I think I have gone overboard with 24 regiments for the French, but since I am the only 28mm Napoleonic player in our group it will be up to me to provide all the figures.

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  2. Wonderful collection of painted moustaches!

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    1. Thanks Codsticker. The funny thing is I really only noticed the preponderance of moustaches myself when I looked at the photos, even though I had painted them.

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  3. Lovely lookIng unit, let’s hope your 4 day lockdown is only temporary. I fear we might just be heading downhill at the moment🤔

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    1. Cheers Matt, we are hoping that it will be over by 6pm today. It actually provides a ready-made excuse to spend the day downstairs painting, especially as it looks like rain for most of today so the gardening can also be left alone with a clear conscience.

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  4. Super work, Lawrence! Fourteen regiments of cavalry YTD is no small undertaking. As of 01 Jul, our state is fully open. Hope it lasts...

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    1. The latest wave here has put pressure on the State and Federal government to step up the level of cooperation and increase the rate of the vaccine rollout which has been woefully slow. After managing the initial outbreaks and the economy very well the Commonwealth played a bit of a wait and see game as to the effectiveness of the rollout in the US and UK especially, and when it was time to act found they hadn't secured enough supply. It also hasn't been helped by conflicting messaging between State and Federal Ministers over who should be getting what vaccine.

      "Wave" is of course a relative term and it has been three cases in a state of five million which has precipitated the latest lockdown in Queensland, although NSW let theirs run longer and are now up to 100 cases per day. My wife and I got our first jab last night and are booked in for the second in three weeks' time, so will be happy to have that ticked off our list at least.

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  5. Lovely looking chasseurs, primed and on my desk too, but the more exciting hussars have pushed them back! It's still a great workmanlike uniform and you have certainly cranked a lot of cavalry out! My 18 year old daughter has had her first jab now,I'm hopeful after she gets her second we can just get on with life!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain. Workmanlike is a great word to describe them, and they are also much easier to paint than the hussars. None of our children have had the jab yet, but that is more a function of the health authorities still concentrating on the older cohort at the moment.

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  7. These are great Lawrence. I particulary like the trumpeter and that you have used the company pompoms.
    Regards, James

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    1. Thanks James. Yes, I hop I don't forget to do the company pompoms for the next chasseur unit.

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  8. Snuck these great figures in on me when I wasn't looking, I see! Foundry again, aren't they? I have 2 regiments of them myself. Needs that Compagnie d'elite for a little more color, too.
    I actually pre\fver the Sash and Sber Chasseurs. These Foundry sculpts are especially drab. Some regiments wore the Dolman until well into the Napoleonic Wars (1809) at least, and in full dress (until 1809 again at least) they have tall dark green plumes with facing colored tops, which would really add a lot to their look.

    Regardless, they were the most numerous of all French cavalry, and outnumbered the Hussars by more than 2:1.

    28 regiments,, let's see, I have 5 Cuirassier, 1 Carabinier, 4 Dragoon, 4 Chasseur, 2 Chevauleger Lanciers for the line (16), and for the Guard the 1st (Polish) and 2nd (Dutch) Lanciers, Grenadiers and Chassuers a Cheval, Empress Dragoons, Nanekukes, and the Gendarmes d'Elite (7). That's 23

    I could add another Dragoon and Chasseur (I am always borrowing their Italian counterparts) and a unit of the Perry Gardes d'Honneur... that would make 26, so I'd say that 28 is about right! :-)

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  9. Thanks Peter. Yes, more Foundry figures and especially drab (or workmanlike as Iain noted), as you say. I'll have 24 regiments when completed, and the composition will be almost exactly the same as yours except 3 line lancers and only 3 line Chasseurs. I also don't have Dutch lancers or Mamelukes, and wish I had included them now. All the horses have been done, so I just need to complete the last ten regiments' worth of figures for them, while I await some replacement flags which Grahame from GMB has said should be leaving the UK shortly.

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  10. Gringos make superb Mamelukes (mine are old Minifigs!), and I think you'll definitely need another unit of Chasseurs at some point! :-)

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    1. I've had my eye on those Gringos Mamelukes for some time, and love the kettle-drum figure. I might have to invest in half a dozen.

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    2. They're a must, Lawrence! :-)
      Not that you need them right NOW, of course. :-)

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