French 2nd Cavalry Corp - Leipzig

I couldn't resist laying out the French 2nd Cavalry Corp that I'll be using at our upcoming Leipzig refight! Even with each regiment effectively representing two regiments this will still be an enormous battle - I can't wait!  I still have a battery of two horse artillery guns to add, and hopefully some limbers if I can get them done in time. Apart from that it is complete. See everyone in Upper Hutt on the 5th October!

II Cavalry Corps: GdD Francois-Horace-Bastien Sebastiani de la Porta

2nd Light Cavalry Division: GdD Nicolas-Francois Roussel d'Hurbal

1x Lancer, 1x Chasseur, 1x Hussar

4th Light Cavalry Division: GdD Remy-Joseph-Isidore Exelmann

2x Chasseur, 1x Hussar

2nd Heavy Cavalry Division: GdD St. Germaine

1x Carabinier, 2x Cuirassier

French Generals 28mm Perry

French Generals, including Heavy Cavalry Generals in Cuirasses.  These are more metal Perry figures.  I may go back and add further layers and detail to the paintjobs at a later date, but they'll do for now. Typically I only use 1-2 layers for most colours, combined with extensive black-lining. It saves significant time and still looks ok on table. The technique is fine for rank and file, but a bit more work on generals is probably worthwhile! 

French Cuirassiers 28mm Perry

And now the Cuirassiers. More plastic Perry figures. One of the most iconic and recognisable troops of the Napoleonic period. Large men, on large horses, wearing heavy armour. The successors of the medieval knight and used in the same way. As with my Carabiniers I've left off their carbines for now, for the same reason.

I painted these last year, but thought I'd some pictures of them while I'm photographing the rest of the cavalry. I did one unit with yellow and the other with red facings. 

Yellow unit (so 7th or 9th regiment).

Red unit (so 1st or 3rd regiment).

Both regiments.

French Line Lancers 28mm Perry

Lancers of the Line, 3rd regiment. Piercing in pink!

These are (of course) more metal Perry figures. However, if there's one thing I really dislike seeing it's the wargamer "bendy spear" or "missing spear" syndrome. Therefore I discarded the lances they came with and bought some wire lances with metal pennants from Front Rank. I glued them with superglue to fix them in place, and then I used expoxy glue carefully; at the base where the lance meets the boot, at the hand, and at the top where the metal pennant is attached to the wire. Bit of work but they will last forever! The pennants do look a bit big to my eyes perhaps (it might just be the camera angle), but oh well, I'll take gaming utility over aesthetics in this case. (Edit - see a later post mentioning the size of pennants here). I also cut the lances down to about 5cm total length, which seems about right given they were 2.97 metres long historically.

Composition of the Perry command pack is unusual. The trumpeter doesn't have the usual piping, and the eagle bearer is an officer and two horses with shabraque are supplied?  Not sure why, but I shrugged my shoulders and painted them up. As with the rest of my light cavalry I decided to leave the eagle, and gave this guy another lance to add to the visual impact. 

French Chasseurs a Cheval 28mm Perry

Three regiments of Chasseur a Cheval for post number three. I'm quite fond of Chasseurs (as you may have guessed given the name of this blog!), so I painted up a good number. They're often overlooked in favour of prettier and more powerful troops by wargamers, but the humble Chasseurs were the most common subtype of French cavalry for much of the Napoleonic wars. Needless to say "humble" is the description others gave to them - the Chasseurs thought themselves equal to Hussars and I understand that quarrels between these two types of light cavalry were not uncommon. Napoleon created many regiments of Chasseurs because the less elaborate uniforms and smaller horses were comparatively inexpensive. They were used for scouting as well as for battle.

These are metal Perry miniatures. Not as much a fan of these as the Perry plastics, and arguably Chasseurs should have been one of the first plastic sets given what I just said about how common they were historically! Hard to get as much variety in pose with metals, and I've done nothing more than a few head turns. Also while painting I kept finding little bits of flash I had missed when cleaning up, so I will be more careful with cleanup on my next metal unit from Perry. Nonetheless they turned out ok I think. The castings are nice and still have some variety.  Horses and riders are slightly smaller than the Perry heavy cavalry which is excellent and appropriate. 

I chose the 16th (sky blue facings), 19th (aurore yellow facings), and  25th (madder red facings). I gave the officers matching coloured breeches to brighten them up a bit and so they won't feel so envious of the Hussars... Here's a useful link with facing colours of the various Chasseur a Cheval regiments:

http://www.histomin.com/wppaintguide/paintguidenap/pgchasseursfr.htm

The 25th.

The 16th.

The 19th.

All three regiments.

French Carabiniers 28mm Perry

Carabiniers finished. Lovely models again from Perry. Together with two regiments of Cuirassiers this will represent the Heavy Cavalry Division of 2nd Cavalry Corp at our upcoming refight of Leipzig. It's probable that many of them had light blue rather than white coats by this time, but I prefer the look of the earlier white coat. The flag is just one I printed from Napflag. I'll add some pictures of the two Cuirassier regiments when I get a chance.

Despite their name I've also left their carbines off for now, on the basis that apparently many French heavy cavalry saw them as cumbersome and cowardly weapons and discarded them or just used pistols. I may add them at a later date though. I understand the Carabiniers also resisted the idea of armour at first, regarding it as cowardly and an insult to their honour!

Next on the painting table, three regiments of Chasseurs and one of Lancers.