Quarantine Challenge: 28mm Louis XIV French Infantry Regiment - Late 17th Century

I am so pleased to have gotten this regiment done! They seem to have been on my work bench for weeks, waiting for me to get time to paint and finish them off.

As such, I realised how much I enjoy having time to paint miniatures and when that time gets squeezed, even when it is for very good reasons, it soon gets frustrating.

The full, 28 figure, regiment, in line of battle

Anyway I have done a number of similar french regiments in the past but during these lock down times I was scrambling to be able to pull together enough figures to enable me to field this unit.

This group of models represent Regiment Plessis-Prasin, which was formed in 1616 and was thus named in 1650, after August 1682 this the regiment was known as Regiment Poitou. As with most regiments of this period, and as with every country, they were named after their Colonel.

All the figures are from the North Star 1672 range, except for a single Dixon Miniature's pike man. At first I thought that its no good, I can't possibly have one figure taking a knee to receive cavalry whilst everyone else is standing at the ready.

Pike men on 2 x Half Bases, I'm guessing you can see the odd man out mentioned above!

Typically Dixon figures are a quite a lot shorter than the North Star figures,

this pose however, is the exception they are very comparable.

Then I remembered a story told to me by a couple of friends, Mike & Phil, who participated in English Civil War re-enactments, they'd dragged another mutual friend, John, along as a 'birthday treat'. During the height of the re-enactment, John and the guys were standing at the ready with their pikes, looking about and John spied a troop of enemy horse approaching them at a good pace.

He tried to tell the guys around him what was happening but as he was a 'newbie' they all ignored him, they were looking the other way, within moments the troop of horse were on them!

So my explanation for this one figure being at the ready to receive horse is that he has either misheard an order or he has seen what is coming and decided to protect himself.....

One wing of the regiment with musketeers, pike & command

And the other wing

So these figures were undercoated white and then given a grey base coat. Leggings, cuffs and linings were all blue so that made things relatively simple. I did add in a few guys with grey stockings to break-up the uniformity a little.

Hats were also grey - either light or dark grey and a few have black hats, again to reduce uniformity, all had blue hat ribbons.

Shaded using Army Painter Dark one Dip and then matt varnished with Windsor Newton's Acrylic Medium.

Command elements, each on a half stand,

enabling mix and match of command elements when fielding different regiments of the period,

flags can also be swapped in case I want to redeploy the regiment as another one

Officers, as was their want at the time, wore pretty much what the liked, so a variety of colours here with a few nods to the grey and blue uniforms of the rank and file. Drummers either wore reverse colours or wore the King's livery, I could not find reference to how this was done in the historical regiment so have gone for reverse colours.

The Kings livery was blue coat and red leggings, cuffs and linings so if my guess proves to be wrong - it can easily be changed

Frontal view of musketeer base, 4 figures on a 40x40mm base

Another frontal view, highlighting the business end of the muskets

Rear view of a musketeer base

I decided to do all the pole-arms with this regiment as painted, parade ground items, obviously on campaign as shafts get broken and repaired they would be a natural wood colour. Not so here...

Two more half bases of pikemen - all at the ready.

A quick plug for the SYW Templates Blog site, they provide free to use flags for the SYW period - luckily for my purposes the french used the same flags in this earlier period as well.

Free to use standards, click for link

AHPC X - From MIkeW, 22 x 17th Century Balkan Infantry (115 Points)

So into the last week of the Challenge and although the deadline has been extended - I have a 'hard stop' the 19th March, as the following day we're away to attend a family wedding.

Undercoated figures

That said I'm hoping to finish on a high with this the first of two batches of figures that I have got ready and here's hoping I can get a third batch done in time for the big stop!

Unit's Left Flank, with drummer in right of picture

Anyway this post is regarding a second batch of 17th Century Balkan Infantry that I have been able to complete this weekend. First batch was posted as part of this challenge <here>.

Centre of unit, to left of picture is the unit's Officer

This batch of figures consisted of 22 x 28mm Perry plastic ACW Zouaves, converted much the same way as the first batch, substituting heads from Gripping Beasts' Arab Light Cavalry and Infantry packs and converting a couple of the figures into a Turkish musicians, one with drum and the other with a  horn

Focus on the command stand, flag is home made

A third figure was converted into an officer and an officer to lead the unit, he ha a shield and sword arm added from the Gripping Beast Arab Light Cavalry box and a feather from the Warlord Games Landsknecht box.

Typically I would do a unit of 20 or 24, but with only 22 figures renaming from the pack I allowed each flank stand to be of only three figures, giving the front rank, 12 figures and the rear rank just 10

Unit's Right Flank

POINTS
22 x 28mm Infantry Figures @ 5 Points ea = 110 Points

AHPC X - From MikeW - Onto the Snowlord's Peak with 17th Century Saxon Infantry (155 Points)

 

It was with some trepidation that I awaited the challenge to be thrown down at my door by the Snowlord after I dared to say I was ready to climb his snowy peak! After deliberation he got back to me to say I had to pick one of the following...

1) Another unit for your spiffing Siege of Vienna collection;
2) Something for your VBCW project you dabbled with a year or so back;
3) or, some more Bretons to be poor cousins to the Normans.

What a choice I had to make, as I said to the Snowlord - 'Its like having to pick my favourite child' - but secretly I knew it would be another unit for the Siege of Vienna!

The unit awaiting preparation and undercoating,

they came so close to getting a Primrose Yellow finish!

I have been wanting to complete my Saxon Infantry Brigade by adding a third unit....

White Gloss Skirting Boards, Window & Door Frame

and a Primrose Yellow Emulsion on the walls...

... However, before I could start this challenge item - I had to overcome a home challenge that we'd been putting off for too long, which delayed me even getting to base camp for this AHPC final summit attempt. I had to do another painting - arguably the wrong kind of painting - that's right I had to paint the spare room, this took most of last weekend!

Back to painting figures...

The whole unit

The vision was to represent a hastily recruited Saxon unit, who had been issued some coats and equipment but maybe not quite enough of each to go around for everyone. Hence you'll spot that some of the little fellas are still wearing civilian coats and most wear their own hats. What ties the unit together is the all red coats on most the figures - no contrasting cuffs and linings to emphasis the hasty issue of these coats, plus red hat bands and knee ties for their breeches.

Close-up of unit's left flank, pikemen stands are aligned behind command elements

Close-up of unit's right flank

The unit is 24 x 28mm figures, with one prone, wounded musketeer - it is based upon 4, 40mm x 40mm bases for the musketeers plus 4, 40mm x 20mm bases for the pikemen and command figures.

Two Pikemen Stands

Figures are by Front Rank and I will not bore you all with how I painted these - as it is the same as with all others that I have submitted to the challenge. Flags are from Warfare Miniatures, bases have electrostatic  grass added and lashings of grass and wild flower tufts..

The Command Stand split into two - to help with storage of units

when not in use - you can lie them down better!

Only exception to the above is the prone figure - a lone Ebor figure, that was left over from another unit in the collection, I picked this one as it is moulded somewhat flatter than the Front Rank figures and thus would look more convincing lying down.

Musketeer Stand with casualty

The 4 x Musketeer Stands

I cut off his musket and tricorne, replacing his hat with a floppy hat from the Warlord Games ECW plastics box and added a new musket from the Warlord Games WSS Infantry box, lying across the body. I reworked his hands to look like he was clutching a rag or cloth to his wound, the results seem OK to me.

The Completed Unit

AHPC X - From MikeW - 17th Century Landing Craft! (40 Points)

Having meandered around Challenge Island, I found my-self at Douglas' Shallows and needing to do something faintly nautical...

... being a land lubber that posed a bit of a problem - until I realised that one of the Scenarios that I have been hoping to put on as a game at the SAS Wargames Club  was a 17th Century Amphibious Landing - and I need some suitable barges to offload the invading forces.

As an aside - the SAS in the club name does not refer to the famous British Special Ops Regiment, rather it originally stood for Sussex Association of Simulators and later Southern Association of Simulators, in more recent times it has stood for Sussex and Surrey!

Thus reflecting English counties our members are from... we also have a member who lives in Somerset, but as that begins with a 'S' as well he's still allowed in!

Back to Douglas' Shallows, next I had to source an appropriate number of barges, I did briefly consider scratch building them but after a browse on eBay I found a set of barges from AnyScaleModels.com that would do just nicely and they were really good value for money.

5 x 28mm Landing Barges

The models duly arrived and I proceeded to undercoat the resin models with a Grey Primer spray, once dry I painted the outside of the boats / barges brown and then highlighted and applied washes to give a natural wooden feel, before varnishing.

The inside of the boats were painted grey, then again highlighted and washed to give the models a more 3D visual when on the table top.

Close-up view of Barge - which could equally be used as a ferry

The resin models were well cast and had very little flash that needed to be cleaned-up, in a couple spots near the water line I left some of the flash in place and painted this blue with white highlights to give a hint of water.

Another view, highlighting grey interior

As to the scenario I plan to use, it is based on one by Barry Hilton and is the Battle of Camaret Bay, 18th June 1694, when a British and Allied force landed outside Brest, France only to find their mission compromised and they were thrown back into the sea....

And finally in action, transporting a regiment of

English Foot, spread across two barges!

Not sure on how to score the Barges, they are approx 14.5cm (6") x 5cm (2") so have assumed that they are equivalent to a 28mm mounted figure so 10 Points each. Treating them as 28mm vehicles @ 20 Points each, seems a little over generous...

POINTS
5 x 28mm Barges @ 5 Points each = 50 Points
Douglas' Shallows Bonus  30 Points
Total Points 50 + 30 = 80 Points

AHPC X - From MikeW - 32 x 28mm Late 17th Century Figures (160 Points)

This submission is in two parts, the first and biggest part is the representation of the Spanish Tercio 'Los Blancos', officially known as the 'Tercio Provincial de Segovia'. The second part of the post is a follow on from my earlier post where I did 8 x French Dragoons of  'La Bretesche Regiment', see original post <here>.

The 'Los Blancos'

I originally got these figures from North Star Miniatures sometime in the late summer last year, I have already painted-up one 24 figure Tercio of little guys but wanted to complete a second Tercio, to join my other Spanish tabletop forces.

Spanish Tercio in waiting, figures based, awaiting undercoat

For, anyone that is interested, these are relatively new additions to the North Star 1672 range, they replace similar figures that North Star were stocking up to about 18 months ago, that were based upon the original Copplestone Casting figures that are the basis of this range. As such some are a little smaller than the old range, which makes up the majority of my Spanish Army.

Pike stands formed up around the central with

Command stand, OCD at work here!

As you may know Spanish Tercios of the period tended to adopt distinctive colours to distinguish them selves form other Tercio units. This was the beginnings of the move towards regimental uniforms - in the Spanish world each unit picked a coat and facing colour. It wasn't until the early 1700s that coat colours became standardised and the distinguishing feature was the facings colour!


So for the challenge I decided to do a unit based primarily in white with red facings. I had seen pictures on the internet of a couple of Tercios that had these colours - the 'Los Blancos' and an enigmatic 'Tercio Alemana' or German Tercio, for which I could only find an illustration of an officer. I opted for the former with the option of changing unit flags to allow for the later if scenarios required.

Another view of the Pike Block

Well I have always struggled with White uniforms - especially getting the shading right, and this unit was no different!

As usual I undercoated in white, before doing a top coat in white, then adding in deep red facing colours. I then built up the other required colours - browns for musket and darker brown for shoes and scabbard. Tan leather was added for the straps, gloves and boot laces and then flesh, steel etc.

4 x Musketeer Stands

I then went to fix all the mistakes and in doing so ran into the challenge with white - most colours show through it - and with reds the colour seems to bleed into the white paint and stain it pink. I had to leave the figures to dry for a couple days, when I returned to them the bleeding issue was solved!

In the meantime I started work on the French dragoons - see below...

When ready I used Army Painter dip to add shading, I deliberately left the tin unshaken so that the level of pigment in the dip was as low as possible, nevertheless for a number of the figures the white uniforms ended up being over-stained and looking rather grey and dull.

The command stands, featuring the speculative flags I made

So after applying matt varnish, I over painted the white coats with white paint again - using a semi-dry-brush method, really just to emphasise the highlights and lightening up the coat colours.

Completed Tecio lined up just as I like them!

I based the figures as per other units, on 40 x 40mm bases, Pikemen and command stands on 40 x 20mm half-stands to enable my OCD tastes in figure placement within the units - i.e. A central block of 8 Pikemen, surrounding the command stand , flanked by two musketeer stands on each side....

Final touch was to make two speculative flags for the unit, if finding info about uniforms is hard for the period it's even harder finding info on Tercio flags - plenty of pictures but no one seems to know which units they belonged to!

So I kept it simple a couple of Burgundy crosses on white backgrounds, they came out a little small for my liking so may have to redo them a bit bigger!

The 'La Bretesche' Dragons

These four guys were painted to add to the 8 other Dragoons that I recently painted - enabling me to bring the unit up to two dismounted squadrons of 6 figures each. I still need to do the mounted versions at some point!

Completed - Additional French Dragoons before integrated with existing figures

These also enabled me to continue being productive whilst pulling out what little hair I have left waiting for the Spanish figures to thoroughly dry!

And the figures integrated into the existing unit.

I have also re-worked the bases of the original 8 figures to integrate the new figures into the stands.

POINTS
28 x 28mm Spanish Infantry @ 5 Points ea = 140 Points
4 x 28mm French Infantry @ 5 Points ea = 20 Points
Total Points 140 + 20 = 160 Points

AHPC X - From Mike W - 17th Century French Dragoons (40 Points)

For this post I have also dug into the recesses of my workbench and pulled out 8 x Front Rank Late 17th Century French Dismounted Dragoons.

Raw figures awaiting painting

I had these waiting to be painted so opted to do these as members of the La Bretesche Regiment that was raised in 1675 by Joussaume the Marquis de La Breesche.

As can be seen - I need to find some Command figures for this Regiment - ideally an Officer, Standard Bearer and a Drummer, as well as another Dragoon, so I can expand the unit to 2 x Squadrons each of 6 figures. Then I'll need to get the mounted version - but I'll cross that bridge later!

Finished Dismounted Dragoons

The figures are straight forward to paint, a white undercoat followed by the yellow hats, breaches, fs and coat linings, followed by red coats.

I base Dragoons in 'Half-Stands' to allow for a

Skirmish line to be created if required

Details were added including white shirts and neckties, dark brown boots and scabbards, muskets and metal work etc.

A bit more of a close-up

Again I used Army Painter Dark Tone dip to add shading and when dry I based and varnished.

AHPC X- From MikeW - Rousell's Sandhill - 20 x 28mm Vienna Militia, Siege of Vienna 1683. (133 Points)

My Grand Tour of the island has brought me to Rousell's Sandhill, where I can go into 'Floppy Hat' mode again - I have some more Floppy Hatted silliness in the pipeline but this is the first instalment! Sorry no badgers or sandbags...

These guys will go towards my Siege of Vienna project but I wanted to make sure that they could also be used as generic militia for any nation through-out the period.

As such I have ensured that the rank and file have plain grey coats and a variety of trouser and hat colours to give the look of the period where uniforms were only just coming into fashion. They represent citizen volunteers who joined the colours to help defend their city.

20 x 28mm Vienna Militia Unit

The figures are from the 'North Star' 1672 range and I have painted up a command stand and four musketeer bases. At some point I really need to add another 8, possibly 12 pikemen to give other options to configure such a generic militia unit, by varing proportion of pike to musket.

 I realised after starting this group I did not have sufficient pikemen in my lead mountain to cover this at this time.

Focus on the Command team and their colourful dress code!

The figures were undercoated in white and then I painted flesh first - really, only because it was a sunny morning and I wanted to do something bright!

I moved on to the gun stocks - done with a faithful old pot of Bestial Brown, followed by the musketeer's coats using an even more faithful and even older pot of Army Painter 'Ash Grey' which expired on me as I was completing this unit. I will have to get some more.

Ash Grey is one of those shades that I find can be used for many armies and when used with 'dip', shading, the effect works really well. Hats, breaches, socks and hair were all done in a variety of colours before the steel work was painted in.

I used Army Painter 'Dark Tone' dip and then varnished with my current favourite matt varnish, available in the UK as part of the Windsor and Newton range - 'Galeria Matt Varnish'. See right.

So much for the men and NCOs, the officers are much more flamboyant and this is where the silliness kicks in...


Another close-up on the officers
As per the period, officers were not obligated to where uniforms and they supplied their own wardrobe for field service.

As you can see these guys have various interpretations of what is practical wear for on the field.

Another view - flags are swap-able,

so unit can be used for other nationalities

Fashion for the period was lead by the French and although these officers could represent any nationality, I have tried to show that they are followers (or victims) the current French fashions!


To tie the unit together I have given all the figures yellow ribbons on their hats, yellow ties on their socks and where appropriate yellow sashes and boot laces.

I constructed the flags myself using Microsoft Paint Software, and share here. It seems that Vienna region had a simple red over white flag - similar to today's Polish flag (albeit upside down) the city its-self had a coat of arms consisting of a white cross on a red shield.

So I have incorporated these to make two speculative flags that can be used for the period, see below - feel free to use - as I made them from scratch - there is no copyright etc on the flags!

Free to use, speculative Vienna Militia Flags

POINTS
20 x 28mm Infantry Figures @ 5 Points each = 100 Points
Rousell's Sandhill = 30 Points
TOTAL  100 + 30 = 130 Points

AHPCX - MikeW - 8 x 17th Century Armoured Cossacks plus 3 x Polish Commanders (110 Points)

Unpainted but mostly constructed figures!

So at the risk of a close repeat of an earlier submission in this year's challenge - I have (maybe) completed my Pancerni units of Polish Armoured Cossacks, plus their commanding officers!

Finished unit of 8 Armoured Cossacks

So this batch of 8 x Pancerni are a mixture of models that I got from eBay in the last couple months, some are Wargames Foundry and others are (I believe) either Redoubt Miniatures or Assault Group minis. Anyway the Wargames Foundry figures are noticeably smaller than the others in the units...

Front on view of Pancerni unit

Mixing the figures together helps disguise some of that size difference - as does swapping horses and bases around to put slightly smaller figures on larger horses. But some do just look smaller - I'll live with that and explain it by saying that these may be young sons and siblings of older warriors in the unit! After all in the 17th Century you could end up in the army at 14 or 15 years old or even younger.

Close-up of the Pancerni Armoured Cossacks

Can't remember if I've talked about how I paint my horses, the method has developed over the past few years and whilst I make no claims for them to be masterpieces - I'm happy with the overall results.

Typically I paint mounted units in batches of 6 figures at a time, I undercoat the horse with white acrylic paint, allow to dry. Then about 4 or 5 of the horses are painted in various shades of brown with the option to do the remainder as either a black horse or a grey.

Black horses are initially painted in a slate grey colour, whilst 'greys' I paint in a mid or light grey.

I then paint on black manes, tails and fetlocks (hoof up to mid shin or 'knees') on each horse - except for greys.

Close up of Officer, Musician and Banner bearer

Potentially for 1 or 2 horses in each batch I will paint the tail & mane of a lighter brown horse in a sandy yellow colour for variety but still do the fetlocks in black.

For greys, I will dry brush the whole horse in light grey and then white - depending on exact tone I'm looking for and then will do the main and tail in a darker grey or white, according to choice.

For black horses, water down some black paint into a 'strong wash' and then paint over the slate grey - this will give a good tonal variance and shading over the horses' body.

Pancerni Commander, on horse

with arguably outdated armour!

Another Pancerni Commander

When all dry I add white socks to the horses, most have some form of white hair around each hoof, even if a thin line, be sparing on this. I also add various sized 'blazes' to horses' heads, again most horses have some sort of 'blaze'.

If you do a large 'blaze' that extends to the horses' muzzle then you should dry brush the muzzle with flesh colour.


Once all done use Army Painter washes or Dips to add shading and tone and shading to the horses.

Horses completed - then add the riders and they're done.

Overall Pancerni Commander

For the commanders I have two on smaller round bases and one on a large round base - you can guess where this is going - I have a total of 5 Pancerni 'Banners' (30 figures) that will be split 2 and 3 between the lesser commanders with the overall Pancerni commander on the large 'winged' horse.

Actually I now have 2 spare Pancerni figures, after doing this batch of eight, I can see my-self doing another 4 figures to give each commander 3 'banners' each!


On the tabletop opponents (and allies) can get confused as to which units are Pancerni and which are Winged Hussars (I now have 4 banners of these) - I like to add to that confusion by using the wings as a badge of rank for Polish commanders.

Another view, note attempt at

leopard skin saddle cloth

Given that no-one really knows how or why  the Winged Hussars used their wings, or how they were attached etc - I'm claiming that they represent a noble rank or office...