1813-15 battles in 20mm and for AoE and V&F - (part 22) Chasseurs à Cheval and Lancers of the French Guard

 

This another useful group to have for Napoleonic wargaming. The uniform didn´t change for years and all of them can be used up to the Waterloo campaign. You just have to be careful with the Polish lancers which started to carry the lance at the end of 1809 and the Dutch lancers in 1810. Even so you can use all the three units along the Russian campaign, the 1813 campaigns and the 100 days campaign, without change in uniform. The Polish Guard lancers were just a squadron at Waterloo but making 5 squadrons allows for the other campaigns. 

The Chasseurs à Cheval are Revell from  a nice and rich box that includes 17 mounted figures plus a dismouted one. 

The only conversion of the group was the making of a standard bearer from the figure with the sword at the front.

The Polish and Dutch Guard lancers are Esci from their 1985 box but even so a very nice box with very detailed figures as usual with Esci. 

The problem with these Esci figures was some memory problems of the designer who forgot to place reigns on the horses and saved on the lenght of the lance. Here you can see plastic (you can also use wire) pieces for the reigns and an alongated lance of 4cm when the original is only 3 cm. The trick is to cut 0,5cm from the original, glue the shaft to the hand and then to glue a 1,5cm piece of plastic to the back of the hand, making 4cm lances. It´s always better to try to sit the rear of the lance on the horse for sturdiness. 

The flag bearer is a conversion from the figure with a sword. 

The trumpeteer of the Dutch lancers is Zvezda while the other is Esci. The Zvezda box is a far superior product but with the two tricks of the reigns and alongated lances you can always improve the Esci figures. Regarding Esci, don´t forget to glue all horse´s legs to the base as they tend to be unbalanced. 

Finally I painted General Michel of the Foot Chasseurs guard division, a Waterloo 1815 figure that I got half painted from TC. There is still a debate around who said the famous sentence "La garde meurt mais ne se rend pas" between Cambronne and Michel. The known truth is that Michel was killed leading the charge of the 3e Chasseurs and his body is most probably in the big mass grave at Mont-Saint-Jean. 

Next: a return to Vietnam

1813-15 battles in 20mm and for AoE and V&F - (part 21) Bauduin´s Brigade and the French Guard Horse Artillery

 

These two were not that much close at Waterloo. The 2ème Légère fought around Hougoumont mostly (part of the 6ème Division of Jerôme Bonaparte) while the several batteries Guard Horse went along the Guard Infantry in its final attack late in the afternoon. 

The artillery is made of Esci and Zvezda guns (some with Airfix barrels); Zvezda caisson and Italeri artillerymen. The driver of the caisson was later exchanged by the Zvezda one as no colpack equipped driver was used in this unit, even if it would look damn good!

In fact these figures are good enough up to the 1812 Russian campaign as after this campaign the uniform changed and left the Hussar type only keeping the colpack. The Hat uniformed officer with colpack came from the voltigeur box and enters here as a "transitional" figure. Maybe in the future I´ll make this unit again using Esci artillery bodies with Hat colpacks for a proper 1813-15 unit. 

The 2ème Légère was the biggest French regiment at Waterloo with four battalions. Like this I broke the unit into two battalions, the first (with Eagle) made of Airfix and Hat figures and the other ( 3rd battalion, red fanion) with Italeri and Hat figures. The only addition was made on the Airfix figures which got bigger pompons made of Milliput.

Next: Vietnam or more French Guard cavalry

1813-15 battles in 20mm and for AoE and V&F - (part 20) The Royal Horse Artillery

The British RHA and the HA of the KGL (same uniform and guns) were present with 11 batteries at Waterloo. They had a big impact on the battle, like the action of Mercer´s guns in front of the Brunswick squares, and also look nice on the table due to the flashy uniforms. 

Around half of these guns were already beautifully painted by TC and only the guns were repainted in a lighter color. The other half on this picture and all others thoughout the post are freshly built and painted. 

All 6 and 9 pdrs have Airfix crews with most of the guns coming from other sets like Esci and Revell. The great Airfix set has the most complete artillery set ever produced, at least until the arrival of the Zvezda French and Russian sets. Included you have figures that, when placed correctly, made my normal artillery stands (5cmX4cm) too small. So I cut the bases with an extra square of 1,5cm in order for a spongeman or a handspike man to fit while doing their task.  

Three RHA battery commanders were added. 

The Hat Congreve rockets offers four small tripods and four wheeled boxes for transport. While searching for this weapon the one firing the rockets from ladders looked the coolest of them all. In order to produce these ones you need:

- ladders (these ones were taken from a cheap Chinese fire truck);

- wheels, rockets and the central shaft from the original box;

- large tripods made from plastic tubing;

- small plastic boxes to the side of the wheels. 

The four stands here are Ok for Leipzig, which was the largest gathering of the system during the Napoleonic wars land battles, while at Waterloo only one rocket section was used. 

Even if quite cool, this ladder was not used at Waterloo, being used mostly during sieges like Copenhagen and Boulogne. At Waterloo this system was fired from the small tripod and even from a bank of dirt but the ladder system looks more imposing. 

This one from Mark Adkin´s Companion is another possibility but there is no frontal image of the thing which made me not to make it.

The howitzer battery of Major Bull is also represented here. I used a surplus Bavarian carriage as you need a double-trail carriage for the elevation of the howitzer.

All the guns and rocket systems were pulled by the same limbers. Airfix makes this old but still nice system. Some of the Airfix drivers were kept aside and replaced by Revell ones (sporting the new late coats) as they will be used for French guard horse artillery. The limber to the right has a figure converted from the vent man foot figure that is now giving orders to everybody even if having a severe back pain!

Next: more French