French 2nd Hussars

Here's that other cavalry unit I mentioned in my last post: French 2nd Regiment of Hussars. Hussars in general are one of the most iconic military units of the 18th and 19th centuries and the Napoleonic Wars are no exception. With their brilliant uniforms and (oft exaggerated) feats of daring do, the hussars leave a striking image in peoples' minds. Thankfully Italeri produce an excellent set, worthy of the hussars' glamorous reputation.

The 2nd are the hussar regiment that fought at Talavera. Since that's the smaller of the two battles I'm focusing on, it only made sense to take care of it first. The 2nd won't be the only regiment of hussars I paint up, though it will probably be the only one for a while. The 3rd Regiment will be needed for Salamanca at some point down the track, but for now the 2nd will fight alone.

The two elite company figures don't actually come from the Italeri French Hussars set. Instead they come from their French Imperial General Staff set, and are intended to be bodyguards drawn from the Imperial Guard Chasseurs a Cheval. The structure of the uniform is (to my understanding) virtually identical, so it was an easy stand-in. The sculpting style also matches between the two sets, so they fit together just about seamlessly.

I wasn't sure how well the colour scheme of the 2nd would work on the tabletop. Brown dolman and pelisse seemed to me at first to be a rather dull choice. In reality it compliments the bright blue and silver very well and I'm superbly happy with how the unit came out. I'm itching to send these men careening into some vainglorious charge, but there's still a little more to do before I can try for a proper game (though I am, at long last, getting close).

That's all for today, hope you liked it.

Cheers!

French 20th and 25th Dragoons

While cuirassiers are certainly the most iconic French heavy cavalry, during the Peninsular War it was the dragoon regiments that shouldered the bulk of that role. I've had six bases of dragoons in yellow and orange facings for many years now, since I was quite young. They were given to me by my dad, who was the also the one who painted them. 

These little units of three bases each, though well painted, were too small for the regimental scale I want for my cavalry units. So I've added three more bases to each, with the figures coming from Italeri's French Dragoons set.

The first of these two units has orange facings. Orange was worn by the 25th-30th regiments, with the 26th and 29th both having green collars. The 27th and 30th also had green cuffs, but since these figures are modelled wearing their long gloves that feature isn't terribly relevant to me.

The 25th is in my list for the Battle of Salamanca, one of the two large battles I'm aiming to model my collection around. This unit is also likely to stand in for their green collared cousins, the 26th, who were at Talavera. Neither Talavera or Salamanca feature more than one "orange regiment", so I can hardly justify doing two units just to have their collars be different colours! This is especially true considering that Talavera features six different dragoon regiments, so there will be plenty more to do either way.

The elite company figures for both units were painted by my dad. They are from HaT's French Horse Grenadiers set.

The 20th Dragoon Regiment was technically present at Talavera, being part of the 2nd Cavalry Division in the Reserve. But from what I understand they were not engaged in the battle itself and are not in my list for Salamanca either. However, the regiment did serve during the Peninsular War and I am not above swapping the 1st regiment out for the 20th.

At the beginning of this year I took some time to assess exactly what I wanted to do with my Napoleonic collection. I may have to make a post at some point going into the specifics, but for now suffice to say that I've worked up a list of all the units I want to complete in the long term. With that list in mind, I probably won't be coming back to the French cavalry arm again for a while. Turns out a proper army needs a lot of infantry; who'd have thought, eh?

There is one other unit of cavalry that will need a post written for them, but after that it should be all foot sloggers for me for the foreseeable future. That and the occasional cannon and command base. The last month or so has actually been very busy for me in terms of figures painted (5 units so far, with another 3 or 4 in the pipeline!). Those should all wander their way onto the blog at some point, sooner rather than later I hope.

That's all for now though.

Cheers!