A short post this to announce that my final infantry regiment in my Lace Wars Saxon Army by Mars is complete. A smaller group, Hayn’s Grenadier Battalion has red facings and mitres.
The usual flag bearer and officers accompany 9 grenadiers.
With all six of my regiments now complete, I’ll very shortly be posting the whole infantry brigade together which I think comes to over 90 figures.
Another report on progress for the Neglected but not Forgotten challenge, I’ve produced two more examples of Saxon Great Northern War regiments to add to the Kurprinz and Martinière’s Grenadier Regiments. Figures are once more from Mars Saxon Infantry box.
Zeitz’ Regiment was numbered 8 in the list of Saxon infantry regiments and is distinguished by green facings. Hat lace and stockings are white and the buttons are brass. This regiment later became known as Schulenburg’s Regiment and was apparently disbanded in 1705 just prior to the Saxon army’s heavy defeat by the Swedes at the Battle of Fraustadt the following year at which both the Kurprinz and Martinière’s regiments were (unfortunately for them) present.
This is the other exclusively grenadier formation in the Saxon army. Hayn’s Grenadiers sport an all-red coat with white breeches and stockings.
Their grenadier caps are red with brass plates. The rear colours are my own invention being red with yellow piping. I certainly won’t worry too much about that as key source Daniel Schorr wrote that it was unknown whether the battalion even wore grenadier caps.
I’ve three more regiments that I’d like to do, in addition to the officers and musicians which also come with the Mars Saxon Infantry box, but the deadline for Ann’s challenge is approaching fast! Though I doubt I’ll be able to submit any more in time my intention is to press on regardless with this surprisingly enjoyable set of figures, so expect some more!
I’ve properly got stuck into Ann’s “Neglected but not Forgotten” painting challenge with two examples of Saxon regiments from the manufacturer Mars now already painted. It only amounts to 10 soldiers, but it feels great to be back in my comfort zone of painting 20mm high plastic figures in colourful uniforms.
Five men in each regiment, sharing the same pose, representing two regiments of the Saxon army during the Great Northern War; these are the Kurprinz Regiment and Martinière’s Grenadier Regiment.
The Kurprinz Regiment is numbered the 5th and has ‘Lemon Yellow’ facings. I’ve painted the collars on these figures in Lemon Yellow although according to the Tacitus website, “the collar was usually reserved for the coats of officers, NCOs and drummers, but possibly the guard regiments had it as well”. The hat lace is white, a colour typical for the Saxon infantry with red being reserved for very high status regiments.
The figure is sculpted quite effectively albeit the long coat looks a little unnaturally wide at the base. I quite like the somewhat shifty look of the faces. As with all my Great Northern War / War of the Spanish Succession figures, I’m keeping the bases deliberately very simple and uniform indeed.
Using the numerous grenadier figures in Mars’ box to the full, I’ve replicated one of the two dedicated grenadier formations in the Saxon army – Martinière’s Grenadier Regiment. As with many early 18th century uniforms, details are scarce about this regiment but Tacitus relies on information in Lars-Eric Höglund’s book “Stora nordiska kriget 1700-1721, III” and an article from a defunkt website by Daniel Schorr; “Notes on the Saxon Army 1700-1716″.
Höglund’ had no information on this regiment but Schorr had “a speculative illustration of the uniform” which showed a blue grenadier cap with a gold plate, with blue breeches, stockings and cuffs. It all makes for a pleasingly exotic and colourful regiment!
There are more figures on the painting desk from this box and I’ll see how many more I can get done by the end of the challenge on the 2nd April. Currently, there are two more regiments going under the brush and they are well advanced already!
Presenting my project’s third regiment from the Duke of Marlborough’s British army; the 1st Foot Guards!
Lovely figures, once again by Strelets, if not entirely historically accurate. They are mostly all from their new “Firing Line” box of British Infantry figures. Blue breeches, cuffs and collars are a distinctive element in this regiment’s uniform.
For the grenadiers, I’ve used a couple of figures from their “In Attack” box instead, simply because the ‘firing line’ grenadiers looked so good that I’m thinking of keeping them back for a special purpose.The grenadiers have blue fronted caps, piped with yellow, examples of which I’ve attempted to reproduce (see 1st Guards grenadiers crossing the River Nebel below):
The musketeers I’ve shown with yellow hat lace.
The Strelets Firing Line box comes with various firing and loading poses. For the 1st Guards, I’ve concentrated all the firing figures together within this single battalion. Strelets supplied two poses standing to fire their muskets.
But there were only a limited four figures in a kneeling pose across the box.
The NCO was a pleasing figure to paint, suitably adopting a shouting and pointing pose:
This commissioned officer appears to be wearing gaiters and is holding his pair of white gloves.
More ‘fun with flags’… Would you believe that I actually quite enjoy the tinkering challenge of not-quite-getting-it-right, until I eventually admit defeat and accept whatever outcome. With this one, I realised I had foolishly put the red device in completely the wrong corner! Oh well, never mind…
I’m now thinking that I’m ready to tackle something else in the WSS project which perhaps isn’t British infantry. I’m not sure what exactly yet and anyway the FEMbruary challenge will now take precedence for a little while. Furthermore, I’ve recently come into possession some more WSS figures – but more on this in another post.
Strelets, meanwhile, recently announced on their forum that they are committed to also producing both cavalry and artillery sets for this series, in addition to the French Fusiliers slated for production – so much more to look forward to there! 🙂
Two regiments (and 1 box) already completed in my War of the Spanish Succession project, I’m still happily painting the lovely Strelets British infantry. For the latest figures, I’m making use of Strelets other very newly released WSS sets;
After a couple of line regiments, I felt it was time to include an elite formation and so I’ve started work on the most prestigious infantry in the British Army; the 1st Foot Guards.
My C.S. Grant book on the uniforms of the WSS informs me that the 1st Guards wore a red coat with facings of “Royal blue” and breeches of blue. Depictions of the regiment from this time seem to show a mid-light coloured blue, including this 1st Foot Guards re-enactor wearing a grenadier’s uniform:
I have Vallejo paint called “Royal Blue” but I’ve instead opted for their “Flat Blue” which seemed a more satisfactory shade.
Impatient for Strelets to produce other sets (presuming of course that they do), at the wise suggestion of John at Just Needs Varnish blog, I’ve been exploring other potential sources of 20mm scale WSS troops. As a first toe in the water some figures have arrived today from metal 20mm manufacturer Irregular Miniatures. These are some infantry officers to make up my shortfall from the Strelets boxes and a regiment of British Horse consisting of an officer, a trumpeter, a flag bearer and five troopers:
I think they’re very impressive! 🙂 Size comparison shows the figures to be slightly smaller than the Strelets figures. This is because these Irregular Miniatures figures are ‘true’ 20mm which is to say 1/76 scale rather than 1/72.
Anyway, there’s an awful lot going on on the Suburban Militarism painting desk at the moment, and those Foot Guards won’t paint themselves!
Whilst making good process of putting together my Victorian artillery battery, I’ve had the wind taken out of my sails by a mild seasonal cold. Somewhat enervated, I felt unable to pick up the brush and do justice to any figures, so instead thought I might give some exposure to some finished figures hitherto overlooked on the blog.
In 2014, I spent the better part of six months painting figures from HaT’s then newly released Prussian Infantry range. I did post at the conclusion of this project in November 2014, but the photos were inadequate and I kept meaning to produce better ones. The HaT figures came with a choice of headgear: tall grenadier caps, fusilier mitres or musketeer tricornes. Naturally, I thought I’d paint all three! In fact, making use of five boxes, I created four regiments of nearly fifty figures each.
Some trivia: Never mind those lofty grenadier caps, Frederick the Great’s father was obsessed by having the tallest grenadiers, apparently cherry-picking the very tallest soldiers from other regiments for his Grenadier Guard, regardless of their soldierly qualities…
Next post in this series of Frederick the Great’s 7 Years War infantry regiments – The Munchow Fusiliers.
But here is the first regiment, the prestigious Grenadier Guards with their spectacular gold caps.
I mentioned in a previous post that I’d share some pics on my Napoleonic Swedish army project and, as good as my word, here they are! As stated before, I found the box when retrieving some Christmas decorations. They were purchased for me (at my cheeky suggestion) by Mrs Lentonist as a 2013 Christmas present from a brilliant local model shop that was (tragically after 20 years) closing down and selling stock cheaply. The sculpting certainly isn’t HaT’s best, but they are easy to paint and look good – I like to think – with paint on them.
What I like about this issued from HaT are the range of types of infantry available; from guards, to infantry of the line, to jager. Furthermore the Swedes were an eccentric lot when it came to Napoleonic military fashion, a consequence of necessity (they were not a wealthy at the time and held on to old stock) and eccentricity (on the part of their then ruling monarch). For a man that does painting for display and not for wargaming, the wide range in the box is a boon. Often unfairly overlooked for their military involvement during the Napoleonic period, the Swedes were nonethelesss still active participants. They faught the Russians, the Danes, the Norwegians and the French themselves during this era, most notably at Leipzig in 1813 under their new king Charles XIV, formerly known as one of Napoleon’s ex-marshalls; Bernadotte! Bernadotte began a dynasty that remains on the Swedish throne even today and his military adventures with the Swedish army were to herald the end of warfare for his country; a nobly proud record that continues up to the present day.
Anyway…first off – the line infantry:
The Guard Grenadiers feature next. Note the perculiar crest coming over the tall helmet, a feature that moves about at various angles to the helmet in the Swedish army.
Next up, the Life Guard. There are only about 12 of these in total in the box. I’ve painted them with the ceremonial white gaitors rather than campaign black. Note the curious crest that seems to feature at a 45 degree angle to the front rather than the straight-over versions of the Guard Grenadiers.
Now for the first of the two sharpshooter units; the Varmland Sharpshooters. These were the only Swedish Jager unit apparently and feature their crest at right angles to the front of the helmet:
And next up, the Finnish variety of sharpshooters. Finland was a part of Sweden during the Napoleonic period and I understand their troops tended to feature grey uniforms. They have a dark green busby with upturned peak (and yes I painted the required ‘dark green appearing as almost black’ headgear, actually using dark green mixed with black paint…)
And finally, one of the two artillery units that I’ve made. I’ll add a pic of the other howitzer unit as soon as I’ve added a finishing touch (i.e. a bucket!).
And that’s it for now. I’m about half way through the 100 strong infantry box and the artillery box too. There are four cavalrymen primed and awaiting the first lick of paint. Oh, but I got a little distracted the other week by painting up a few more of my Crimean war Sardinian Infantrymen – which I might show off on this blog soon too as the next ‘Featured Figures’! And then there’s my contribution to the group build project to start work on…
It’s a productive start to 2015 here at Suburban Militarism. My very best to everyone.
Suburban Militarism 