Le Regiment de Champagne Marche!

“By the left… (wait for it, wait for it!)… quick march!”

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been very happily painting more Strelets French infantry figures from the War of the Spanish Succession. Being mostly a shade of white, it might be thought that these could become a little dull to paint. On the contrary, with a number of different poses to choose from, and being so nicely sculpted, I’ve been very content to keep on painting these.

I’ve previously painted two firing lines for the following regiments:

• The Regiment de Montfort (red cuffs and breeches, white hat lace)
• The Regiment de Poitou (blue cuffs, yellow hat lace)

Crack open the bubbly for my latest addition to the Sun King’s steadily growing army – the Regiment de Champagne. The uniform is virtually all white (or more particularly a white-grey) even including the hat lace (which I now realise my source book informs me is yellow but, hey….) The only concession to any colour is a small glimpse of their red waistcoat.

Another key difference is that these men are all marching rather than firing. What’s more, they’re marching in step, which was apparently not a practice that had been adopted by the French army by this time. Nevertheless, I’ve used the same pose to give them that extra visual cue of being a single regiment.

The pose is a well-animated one by Strelets and I like it. Rather than stiffly marching forth, these Champagne soldiers have something of a swagger about them suggesting either an easy confidence or a bone-tired weariness, or even both.

As with the previous regiment, I’ve settled on Vallejo Sky Grey for the coat’s base colour. It contrasts nicely, I think, with the more wholly white looking stockings (actually Vallejo’s off-white).

Les Beatles, “Route de l’abbaye”, non?

I’ve painted an officer for the regiment to also join the march. It’s another very nicely sculpted officer by Strelets and I like him!

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The regiment’s sergeant:

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Strelets have been issuing / developing a number of new boxes of French WSS infantry in recent weeks including;

• “French Grenadiers”
• “French Musketeers on the march” (which strangely only partially includes marching figures)
• “French Pikemen” (another odd one given the generally accepted notion that pikes were virtually abandoned as a weapon by this time).
• “French Musketeers Firing”

Both the “firing” and “march” sets have been the subject of pretty intensive criticism over the markedly short muskets, virtually musketoons. I’m keeping well out of this particular nerd’s bun fight, but basically it seems Strelets believes that French musketeers had these short muskets but many others do not. The “firing” set also features the old ‘matchlock’ musket rather than the newer ‘flintlock’, the former (like the pike) all but abandoned by the time of the WSS. Controversy aside, the sculpting is remains top notch and the pike and matchlock figures could at least stand for some earlier conflicts.

For me, it’s back to the War of the Spanish Succession and I’ll just conclude with some more views of my ‘Champagne’ boys.

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