Christmas Crackers

My Chasseurs are complete.

The Emperor has despatched his finest regiment
to reconnoitre the road to Berlin.

The Chasseurs deploy onto the far bank unopposed.

But at that very moment, the enemy appears.
 It is the dreaded Leib Hussars.

Without a moment's hesitation, Prince Eugene
wheels his squadrons to face the foe.

The Leib Hussars also prepare to attack.

Essex Hussar: Chasseurs, the eyes of the Emperor are upon us.

Pamela, Sound the charge!

In the blink of an eye, the charging squadrons are upon each other,

sabres flashing in the clear morning light...

...and in an instant the Leib Hussars are overthrown.

Napoleon: That's more like it!

The figures are:

Vintage Hinton Hunt:
FN 48: French Imperial Guard Cavalry, Chasseur a Cheval charging x 9;

Der Kriegspielers Napoleoniques:
Set # 47: Guard Chasseurs a Cheval x 1;
Set # 47: Guard Chasseurs a Cheval x 1, converted into a trumpeter; and

The Essex Hussar.

Special thanks to Don W and MS Foy, without whom I could never have assembled this regiment. Please accept my apologies, chaps, for the ridiculous amount of time its taken me to complete them.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and the very best for the New Year.

WM

Bay Watch

The first squadron of Chasseurs à Cheval de la Garde Impériale is ready for its photo shoot. 

No prizes for guessing which one is Pamela Anderson.

They were devilishly difficult to paint. This had more do with the impossibly high expectations I'd set for myself rather than anything intrinsically difficult about them. This wasn't helped by them being the sort of regiment which looks terrible while it is being painted until more or less the last moment.

The figures are:

Hinton Hunt FN 48: French Chasseur a Cheval of the Guard, in busby and Hussar style uniform (mounted) charging x 3;
Der Kriegspielers Napoleoniques # 47: Guard Chasseurs-a-Cheval x 1;
Der Kriegspielers Napoleoniques # 47: Guard Chasseurs-a-Cheval, converted to a trumpeter; and
The Essex Hussar.

There will probably be another flag and a few more conversions in the next post, all being done as commissions.

Toodle pip,

WM

A Vintage Viceroy

It's been more than two weeks, I'm ashamed to say, since I promised to post my first battle report about the Prussian Expeditionary Force, and it's still not ready. The main reason I haven't done it is that I've been far too busy painting. There's nothing like photo editing, it seems, to drive one back to the painting table.

Presented below is what I've been up to. He is a vintage Hinton Hunt FN 352: Eugène de Beauharnais, uniformed as a Colonel of the Chasseurs a Cheval, on horse FN 11.

The regiment he will command, of course, is to be the Chasseurs à Cheval of the Imperial Guard. It was high time, I thought, that the Essex Hussar ceased his photobombing and got a proper job; and besides, the Emperor need's a regiment with at least a ghost of chance of defeating the Leib Hussars.

The only Chasseur I've got to show so far is the trumpeter, who is a converted Der Kriegspieler from set # 47: Guard Chasseurs a Cheval.

He's a little more My Little Pony-ish than I'd intended, but I decided to  keep him as he is because he's actually not too far off the pastel shade of pink depicted in the famous Martinet print.

  

The rest of the regiment is going to take a while, so the next post will definitely be about the PEF!

WM

Essex Hussar: Gadzooks!