Regiment of the Day
Today we have a look at an iconic French 'Old Guard Grenadier' regiment, as present at pretty much every major battle of the Napoleonic era.
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| 4 bases of Guard Grenadier, advancing. Figures by warrior miniatures. |
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| The grenadier figures sport longer coat tails at the back of the jacket, and different sword/bayonet equipment. |
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| Guard uniforms are slightly different to the regular line units - blue colors instead of red, red turnbacks instead of white (with a small dab of white paint on the turnback to represent the letter 'N'), and finally red cuffs with a white tab instead of a blue tab. There were of course an infinite variety of smaller differences in uniform, down to the type of materials used, piping, metallic thread, buttons, etc, etc. Be warned though, that that path leads to certain madness ! For wargaming purposes at this scale, the general differences noted above are just fine for tabletop use. |
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| I have further distinguished all of my French Guard units by issuing them with white gaiters. The regular line units will all have black gaiters .. so the guard will always be easy to see from across the tabletop ... and most importantly, each base of guard will be easy to pick from the non guard when it comes time to pack up the game and put them all back in their appropriate boxes. |
I like the idea of using the different gaiters to help them stand out on the table, but... seriously, you're not going to obsess about the fact that the sergeants should have cords of mixed yellow and gold? Aiyeee! Sacrilege! Break out the torches, so that this festering wound on the purity of Uniformology can be cauterized before it spreads any further!
ReplyDeletePeter
(tongue firmly in cheek, of course)
(uh, that should be cords of mixed *red* and gold).
ReplyDeleteI don't have a problem with obsessive attention to meaningless details, nope, not me. No, seriously, I don't!
Heh!
Yes, very true ... but then again, its not a bad idea is it ?
ReplyDeleteI hope one day to put together a company of French Guard, in 1:1 scale and have every little detail exactly spot on right. And do it with 6mm figures as well :)
Seriously though, some of the new Perry 28s, Eureka 28s, and various 40mm offerings look really appetizing. Will have to dabble in that eventually.
I have been following this build for a while as well, and love what he is doing with von Mackensen :
http://jimsfigs.blogspot.com/2011/11/von-mackensen-progress-report-3.html