Arquebusiers De Grassin

Five or six years ago I was looking for some unusual miniatures to use as a minor ally to my ImagiNation army, the Electorate of Lustigzollern-Großgesaß.  I stumbled upon the Eureka miniatures Arquebusier de Grassin line, and decided to use them.  When I began looking at painting them about a year ago, I looked up pictures of the actual French unit from the war of Austrian Succession. As per usual this lead my down a bit of a rabbit hole, as things often do.

First, I discovered that the Arquebusier de Grassin, a light French unit of  infantry and cavalry, were quite a colourful bunch.  I decided to use their historical colours.  My research lead me first to another WAS unit called the Fusiliers de Moliere.  the two units would be merged in 1749 into the Volontaires de Flandre. this unit served in the seven years war.   

when I started looking into SYW volunteer light infantry units I stumbled upon Cran Terra Miniatures Fantastic line of miniatures representing both the Fusiliers de Moliere and  a good number of these light units from the Seven Years War.  They have specific lines for the Volontaires Etrangers de Clairmont, Chasseurs de Fischer, as well as opposing light formations of Hanover, such as the Freytag Jagers, Scheithers Freikorps, and the Von Luckner Hussars.

At first I though creating an imagination army from these volunteer units combined with the fusiliers de Moliere and Arquebusiers de Grassin would be pretty cool.  but also, the more I researched these units, the more I thought it would also be cool to do a skirmish project of  SYW light infantry formations.

And as usual I also pieced together some Flags from these units.

Arquebusiers de Grassin Ordonnance Flag

Arquebusiers de Grassin Colonels Flag

Fusiliers de Moliere Ordonnance Flag

Fusiliers de Moliere Colonel's Flag

Volontaires Etrangers de Clairmont Prince 
Ordonnance Flag

Volontaires Etrangers de Clairmont Prince 
Colonel's Flag

Alas, I have finally painted up the Arquebusiers de Grassin miniatures I bought from EurekaUSA, which started this whole rabbit hole. there was very little cleanup on these and they were lovely to paint.

Both units of 12 Arquebusier de Grassin

First unit, loading and ready to fire poses

Second unit, all firing poses.

this isn't the final unit composition. I intend to get 3 units of 12. split up into Firing/At the Ready, Firing/Loading, and kneeling firing/Kneeling At the Ready, as pictured below. I'll also be buying 8 mounted figures from the same line, plus command.

the 3 sets of poses which I intend to make a unit of 12 of each.

It may be a while until I have the funds available to get the rest of the project moving, but it has very much piqued my interest of late.  I've never seen the Cran Tera miniatures in person, but they look lovely on hte website. I've ordered Fife and Drum miniatures from them before as shipping is cheaper from the UK to Canada then from the USA in general, so I know they are reasonable to deal with.

A Prussian Conundrum.

lately I've not been painting much, but what i have been painting has been mostly sci fi. But last night's Lasalle game( battle report is in the works), got my Napoleonic juices flowing again.

I was hit by another bout of insomnia last night, so i decided to pull out some Perry Prussians to paint.  I completed half a battalion(including the command) and realized I had no flags to use for them. so I set about looking for suitable bits to make my flags.

the research is a little sketchy. i was mostly relying on pictures on warflag with a few places cross referenced.

1st east Prussian infantry, 2nd battalion?

The first 2 flags I've done are teh 2nd battalion of the 1st  and 2nd East Prussian Regiments( 1st and 3rd infantry regiments, respectively), i think. The 1st battalion flags(Avancier fahne?) seem to be essentially inverted colours. so the 1st east Prussian 1st battalion flag would be white field instead of black,  teh eagle would be gold, with the white around it black.

2nd East Prussian Regiment, 2nd battalion?

the order of battle I'm using for the force i chose is the from the Battle of Leipzig.  Army of Silesia, Prussian I corps, 2nd Brigade. under the command of General-Major Prinz Karl Von Mechlembourg-Strelitz.  depending on the source there are 2 or 3 battalions each of the 1st and 2nd East Prussian regiments.  but in my research on flags I've only seen mention of the 1st and 2nd battalion. so which flags would the 3rd battalion use?

Unfortunately I'm currently unemployed so my sources are a little lacking at the moment. any help anyone can give would be greatly appreciated.

Flag Day!

Today I spent about an hour converting all my Napoleonic  Russian flags using my new flag texture. I had previously spent many hours cobbling these together form pictures in books, and scans of the centre crests. I could not find all the flags commercially so i decided to make them myself(mostly). this is the precursor to my returning to painting my 28mm perry Russians.

The force I chose to build this time was the Rievski's 7th Corps(Kolubakin's 12th and Paskievitch's 26th Divisions) at Borodino . I also chose 2 grenadier regiments to build from the Prince of Mecklenburg's Grenadier division. also, for the battle, the Ahktyrka Hussar regiment was detached from Sievers 4th Reserve Cavalry Corps, along with the 8th light(horse) artillery Company.

The regiments are listed in order of seniority inside the division.  This is important because the epaulettes on Russian uniforms were colored different colours for the seniority in the divisions: red for 1st, white for second, yellow for 3rd and light green lined red for 4th. each division also includes 2 Jager regiments, but they were never issued standards.  Jager epaulettes were pale yellow or light blue, based on seniority again. All grenadier epaulettes were red.

Paskievitch's 26th Infantry Division

Jagers: 5th and 42nd Regiments

 Artillery: 26th Heavy , 47th & 48th Light Companies

Nigegorod Infantry Regiment

Lodoga Infantry Regiment

Poltava Infantry Regiment

Orel Infantry Regiment

Kolubakin's 12th Infantry Division

Jagers: 6th and 42s Regiments 

 Artillery: 12th Heavy , 22nd & 23rd Light Companies

Smolensk Infantry Regiment

Narva Infantry Regiment

Alexopol Infantry Regiment

New Ingermand / New Ingria Infantry Regiment

Random Grenadiers from Mecklenburg's Grenadier Division

Fangoria Grenadier Regiment

 

Moscow Grenadier Regiment

I'll be working on the 26th Division first.

I still have Sievers 4th cavalry Corps from  alst time i build (and then sold) a Russian army. i picked the infantry corps before i started researching so i had not yet realized teh obvious(hussar) connection between these 2 corps(they also were on the same part of the battlefield at Borodino).

I also Still have 3 battalions of a the Preobrajanski Guard Regiment, Guard Artillery, Guard Jagers, and the Emperor's(guard) Curiassier Regiment.  Also have 5 battalions of Foundry Opelchinie(3 painted, 2 in the queue), 2 of which are pike armed.