AWI: Lauzun's Legion

 

I still have a thing for the legions of this period, producing a brigade of horse, foot, and gun that's complete in itself. More so when it's Lauzun's Legion with their sky blue coats and yellow facings (and grey turnbacks). So I've gone for it and produced several units for Black Powder... which might be a disproportionate amount for the rest of the American allied army...

For the uniforms there were several searches on Google and a huge call out to Baccus 6mm Miniatures, Scenery, & Rules for producing their uniform guides - much used for this and many other units in this collection.

Fusiliers

There's two standard BP units of fusiliers, Volontaires-étrangers de Lauzun and Volontaires étrangers de la Marine. Its pretty hard to tell the difference at this scale as only the collar colours differ so most have either white or yellow collars per unit.

These are made up from Italeri Set 6043 French Infantry and the detail is good for 20mm. They were from the Lot 4 commission that Spiro Dotgeek completed, the final figures of that commission, and another joint effort to finish - adding shading.

The flags are the official flag from the Lauzun's reenactment group in the states, not sure if they're historically accurate though - but they look cool.

Chasseurs

I added a small BP unit of chasseurs mostly because it used the advancing figures left once all the standard fusilier units had been assigned to regiments and painted. Also from the Italeri box and Lot 4 mentioned above - but I changed my mind when shading and the original white and red Viennois chasseurs became Lauzun's 😁

Grenadiers

Probably the single biggest stretch of the imagination when using figures of a different period and nationality, to form AWI regiments from 1/72 scale figures. These are from the Revell Set 02574 

Austrian Infantry. The detail was pretty grim from the 30-year-old casting and I'm pretty sure its the wrong bearskin-covered grenadier cap. But it seems the foreign volunteers weren't covered by the 1779 uniform ordonnance so got to wear their bearskins.

Hussars

Continuing on with the craziness, a couple of units of hussars and a command element for the brigade. These are from the SYW Revell Set 02575 Prussian Hussars and are a close approximation of the uniform (pretty close except for the mirliton decoration and chaps).

First there's the 2nd Volontaires etrangers de la Marine and I'm not sure I've painted figures with so many different colours before.

Next there's 1st Volontaires etrangers de la Marine which, I'm pretty sure, only served in what was the West Indies at the time, although different pictorial sources conflict here. So, good for the collection but perhaps not once setting foot on American soil 😀

Then there's a close approximation of Lauzun himself in Hussar uniform. The mirliton is definitely incorrect as he's depicted with a giant bearskin. But a clearly identifiable command unit for a clearly identifiable BP brigade.

And of course there was this guy. This poor horse is going down. There's no other movement it can complete to recover, its front legs won't be able to take the weight of the rider and equipment, given the force of movement, and its back legs won't get underneath it in time - I've been exactly here when I missed a jump coming off another jump and tried to correct - result - eating dirt for horse and rider (and the rider goes over the top of the horse and flies - I can actually remember the wind whistling past and thinking it was going to hurt when I hit the ground, which it did)... either that or its bucking, see 'rider goes flying' comment.

So, cut the thing off the base at the grassy stump and carve a hole in the base, then insert grassy stump and cover with glue 😂, now it looks like its kicking out 👍

But that's the French completely finished. A brigade of Duc de Lauzun and a brigade of units that could feasibly be found at Yorktown. Onwards!

AWI: Regiments Touraine, Soissonois, Royal Duexponts

 

Like buses, painting BP units seems to be, one every so often and then three of them turn up at once.

With a bit of time on my hands during holidays, I was able to finish off the 3rd commission from Spiro at Pants of War, some AWI French; destined for Black Powder.

The 20 year old figures from Italeri certainly suit the French Ordnance colours from 1779, and the Warflag flags just keep on giving - but the drummers got their 'toy drums' sliced off and replaced with Italeri American drums as per the previous unit.

Regiment Touraine

The pink/apricot of the regiment's colours took some time to get 'just right' and I started to like the white uniforms offset by the royal blue of the musicians and flags.

The flutist seems to be snacking on a gold, 2-foot long, Subway sandwhich, but hey, the figures lent themselves to picking out details pretty well for 20mm figs.

Regiment Soissonois

If the Touraine colours took a while to get right, Soissonois took even longer and required a trip into our local model shop, Acorn Models, to pick up some Vallejo paints (Years ago, GW used to produce the perfect paint, which I'd bought, let dry up, and now their layering system just doesn't have the same brightness - I want a dollop of paint highlight at this scale, not hours of layering). But Scarlet Blood + Squid Pink + a small dollop of Citadel Xereus Purple for darkening, has done the trick.

Regiment Royal Duexponts

Which brings us to one of my favourite colour schemes of the AWI, the Royal Duexponts (and similarly the Lauzun's Legion troops and Brunswick Dragoons).

Unfortunately it seems the officer got a blast of gunpowder in the face, as his detail is missing, but the colouring is just superb.

I know the yellow should be 'lemon' but having highlighted this colour over Spiro's base contrast yellow, I liked the deepness of the yellow and there are three units of Lauzun's infantry to come, so they can be lemon yellow.

Including the regiment Saintonge finished before Xmas and the Bourbonnais finished back in June, that's another five BP standard units down, so enough to field the French as a separate BP brigade.

Regiment Saintonge

There is a real risk here that a wargamer will actually finish his lead/plastic mountain for a given period. 

Regiment Bourbonnais

Will have to wait until January to pick up the last of the French from Spiro and in the meantime, I've prepped up the last three units of Germans for the collection.

Forwards!

AWI: Regiment Saintonge

 

Another BP unit down for the AWI BP collection, this time a French regiment Saintonge.

Actually got these finished in the lead up to xmas but the weather was not conducive to varnishing so couldn't snap some shots.

Standard BP unit, 'firing by company'

This is the first unit from the 3rd commission lot from Spiro at Pants of War.

These white units are more of a pain to get looking right than the more colourful units, so Spiro essentially block painted them with contrast and normal paints and I've gone through and shaded them, and done the finishing bits and bobs.

Despite being almost 20 years old (and long OOP) these Italeri figures paint up well; although I've sliced off the 'toy drum' that the drummer is molded with (see the PSR comments) and replaced it with a slightly oversized drum from the American Italeri box of the same period (which comes loose) - and now I see I've glued it on upside-down 😆.

The other 'problem' at this scale is that the French - due to 1779 regulations - mostly have the regimental colour only on their cuffs, which is hard to see (and piping around other parts which I'm not going to attempt at this scale). But hopefully the excellent flags from warflag.com help to distinguish units amongst the 'sea of white' that I'm sure will ensue. 

So next up, while I'm waiting for work to kick off next year, the regiments Touraine, Soissonois, and Royal Deux-Ponts.

PS: placing a glowing xmas decoration behind the unit seemed like a good idea at the time I was taking these photos.

AWI: Bourbonnais Regiment

 

OK so you could say its been a good long while since I did anything remotely wargamesish, including having an actual game. But the summer came and went and I started my other hobby but between work and family, I've finally been able to finish something. More cannon fodder for my AWI Black Powder, 20mm collection, the French Bourbonnais regiment.

Another standard sized unit for the Americans, spurred on by my mate Spiro, who's taken some other AWI commission work for me. But why I chose an all white unit with black cuffs to do first, is beyond me - not very exciting.

But its done and the Italerai figures certainly paint up nice and I admit these started life as Soissonois but realised there was a better figure pose to show the 1779 uniform at Yorktown and its pretty pink facings up the front of the coat.

But the detail is there for figures this size, even if Italerai decided to make every figure in the pack a Grenadier or Chasseur and gave all the figures double cross straps.

The flags are again from warflag.com, which never fails to produce, especially as I got the local printer (physical not LTP) to print them, with much better brightness of colour than my own desktop printer.

 

Forwards! 

PS. excuse the webs on some of the shots, at this time of year, around here you can't put anything outside for two minutes without it being covered in fine, silky strings.