Thursday, August 29, 2019

Gendarmerie de France Painted Figures Update

Gendarmerie de France - Minden Miniatures



I have painted six of the new Minden Gendarmerie de France figures as the Gendarmes du Dauphin company. The regiment's organization paired two companies, each named after a prince of the realm, together to form a squadron. the du Dauphin company was paired with the Gendarmes d'Orleans. Both companies were similar in appearance, having blue crossbelts edged in silver.

There was a total of 8 squadrons in the Gendarmerie de France.

Thus in my army organization for my own Der Alte Fritz Rules, I have cavalry squadrons of 12 figures and 2 squadrons in a regiment. This isn't historical, but I want to limit my cavalry regiments to 24 figures.

I chose the Dauphin Company because it is one of the ones for which there are GMB Designs flags. The flags of all of the companies are way too complex to paint freehand. Probably Mark Allen has the talent to paint the flags, but I doubt that anyone else on the planet can hand paint the flags. Hence my choice of GMB Designs flags.



Gendarmes du Dauphin standard
(source: Kronoskaf)


Now I have a bit of a conundrum: how to base the Gendarms?

My standard cavalry base is a 2-inch square base that has two cavalry figures per stand. This would result in my having 3 stands of 2 figures for each Gendarme company. The picture below illustrates how this might look.


Gendarmerie de France - Minden Miniatures
My other idea is to mount three figures on a 3-inch wide by 2-inch deep base, thus keeping the same figure frontage and two bases of three cavalry figures per company. With the other company having the same number of figures and organization, the squadron of 2 companies would have four stands of three figures and a total of two standards in the squadron. It might work. The picture at the top of the page illustrates how this might look for a Gendarme company (noting that for the purpose of taking the picture, I placed all 6 figures onto one single 6-inch long base).


So I am going to throw the question out to my readers and get their ideas on which basing method to use for the Gendarmes. Please do so in the comment section below.

12 comments:

  1. I'd go with the 2 figures per base. I also liked the silver edges to the crossbelts as they really stand out.

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    1. Richard sculpts the edge lines which make them easier to paint.

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  2. Heavy cavalry? I'd go for the three figure bases. ALl of the horse look fantastic, but the gray is really something. You nailed it!

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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    1. I'm happy with the formula that I use for greys, now I just need to work on the blacks a bit more.

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  3. I prefer seeing cavalry mounted in threes. Beautiful brushwork.

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    1. Thank you Jon, the Gendarmerie were fun to paint. I've got a good formula for reds that works.

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  4. Two horses would provide more flexibility for sure. Also great work on the horses.

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    1. Thank you Reese, horses take more time to paint but the end result is good.

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  5. Jim, I based my gendarmes, three to a base and have two bases per company. They look pretty good but then two per base look good as well.

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