United Irishmen

It is the Spring of 1813 and the Irish Legion are marching to join a newly forming division in Southern Germany.

As they're a bit early for their rendezvous, Colonel Lawless decides to put them through their paces.

The Emperor and the rest of the division arrive. 

The figures are:

Der Kreigspielers Napoleoniques:

Set #19: Young Guard Voltigeurs, engaging, x 21;
Set #20: Young Guard Command, marching officer x 1, and eagle bearer x 1; and

Hinton Hunt:

FN 6: (French Infantry of the Line, 1812-15) Drummer (Recast and Converted), x 1

I think I'm going to have to call this the Traffic Light Division.

Have a great weekend everyone

WM

Irlande en Ligne

Just a quick post to show where I am with the Irish Legion.

This is not as far as I'd wished, but the centre company chasseurs are all done, plus a carabiner and a voltigeur. Although when I started these I was dimly aware that painting Der Kriegspielers is generally a bit harder than painting Hinton Hunts (its been a few years since I painted any), I definitely underestimated how much harder. The detail, where it exists at all, is absolutely miniscule.

Never mind. Only ten more to go.

Happy New Year everyone.

WM

Éirinn go Brách

I'm supposed to be catching up on my backlog of generals at the moment, but while I was aboout it I rediscovered the unopened Der Krieigspielers blister pack that I bought about nine years ago. The figures therein were 20mm Napoleoniques set #19: Young Guard Voltigeurs, engaging.

I remember being very excited about getting my mits on them, but was less than pleased when they arrived. As you can see below, Duke Siefried's idea of the YGV was to convert a Hinton Hunt FN 82: French Light Infantry Voltigeur, charging by sticking a YGV head onto it and then bending its legs in a really weird way.

I'd more or less decided they were a write off, but when I got them out to have another look at them I discovered that they're really rather maleable and all they needed was a firm thumb press to get them to stand up properly.

The obvious thing to do would've been to paint them as regular French light infantry, but I decided to go for something a bit more exotic. Presented below are my test carabinier, chasseur and voltigeur of the 1e Bataillon de La Légion Irlandaise, painted more or less as they're reputed to have appeared between about 1809 and 1812.

Why the Irish? There are lots of reasons, but I think the clincher was this picture of the Legion's 2nd Battalion by the late Richard Tennant, sent to me several years ago by Richard himself:

These exquisite soldiers live in the States these days with my good friend David C. I don't think I could ever match them, but I thought it'd be a fun way to round off the close-order infantry of my Phase 2 French Army.

More to come over the next few weeks.

WM

Edit [30/10/2023]

Following David's comment below, herewith are all the French Guard infantry according to the Der Kriegspielers/Custom Cast Napoleoniques catalogue of 1976:

This is a screenshot from the catalogue which was very kindly published by Chuck Gibke here: Custom Cast Catalog (1976) (vintagewargamingfigures.info)