Fitzjames Horse

Fitzjames Horse in French service. Minden Miniatures figures.

I had this beautiful regiment of Minden French cavalry in bearskin hats commissioned to use as a display piece for my vendor booth at wargame conventions. The figures were painted by Michael Siwek and I think that he really did a fabulous job of painting.

They are the Fitzjames horse. The "foreign" cavalry regiments in the French army of the SYW tended to wear bearskin hats rather than tricorn hats.

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The regiment of 12 figures consists of the following Minden French figure packs:

One pack of MFC-012  French Cavalry in Bearskins Command figures (3 per pack)

Three packs of MFC-013 French Cavalry in Bearskins Troopers (3 per pack)

The cavalry packs contain three figures including horses at a price of $18.00 per pack. You can order these and other Minden French army figures by clicking on the link, below, to the Fife and Drum Miniatures web store:

Minden French figures

I use a 1:20 figure to men ratio so a 12-figure regiment equates to approximately 240 horsemen.

French Cavalry in Bearskin Hats Pictures

Royal Allemand (left) and Fitzjames Horse (right)

The other day I received pictures of painted samples of the Royal Allemand and Fitzjames Horse from one of my commission painters. The castings were added to the Minden Miniatures range earlier this year:

Royal Allemand officer and trumpeter (left) and Fitzjames Horse trumpeter and officer (right).

The pictures shown above are the MFC-012 French Cavalrie in Bearskins, Command pack.

F&D web store

The troopers' product code is MFC-013

These painted samples are truly stunning and they really bring out the best qualities of the Minden Miniatures figure range. Eventually both regiments will have ten troopers giving me two 12-figure squadrons.

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.

GMB Designs French Cavalrie Standards

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.

Painting W.I.P. on Bosniaken and French Gendarmes

New Minden Bosniaken (left to right) lancer, trumpeter and officer.

CLICK ON ALL PIX TO ENLARGE

Yesterday I spent some time painting samples of some of the new Minden figures that arrived from the caster this week. I was particularly keen to paint some Bosniaken, which are really fun to paint. I also painted one trooper from the Gendarmerie de France figures.

Here are some work in progress pictures, noting that the horses aren't finished.

Minden Bosniaken figures.

The rear view of the Bosniaken.

Gendarmerie de France trooper.

Rear view of the Gendarmerie de France trooper.

I will start working on the Gendarmerie de France command figures today. The officer figure is an absolutely gorgeous sculpt by Richard Ansell.

Later in the week I will paint samples of the Prussian Garde figures and post them here on my blog.

If you are interested in adding these figures to your Minden armies, then click on the link to the Fife and Drum Miniatures web store.

Fife and Drum Miniatures Webstore

More to come...

Gendarmerie de France Cavalry - Greens

25th Foot stands fast against the French cavalrie at the Battle of Minden.

Richard has sent off the greens to Griffin Moulds for the French "Gendarmerie de France" cavalry. This elite regiment, consider half a step lower in the pecking order than the Maison du Roi cavalry, participated in the Battle of Minden on August 1, 1759. 

This year marks the 260th anniversary of the battle and so it seemed logical to add the Gendarmerie de France to the Minden Miniatures figure range. I don't believe that the new figures will be available prior to the anniversary this august, but they will certainly be in the inventory by late august or early september.

Please click on the Kronoskaf link, below, to read the history of this regiment. There were 10 companies of Gendarms and 6 companies of Cheveau-legers. From this lot, two companies were paired to form a squadron, so there were 8 squadrons at Minden.

Kronoskaf - Gendarmerie de France

On August 1, the regiment took part in the Battle of Minden where it was deployed in the third line of the cavalry centre under the command of the Marquis de Poyanne. Along with the Carabiniers, they attempted a third attack upon the 9 battalions (mostly British) who had already repulsed 2 cavalry charges. Their charge was more successful and they broke through the first line of Allied infantry. However, the second line received them with deadly fire and forced them to retire with heavy losses. On August 30, when the French main army took position between Bauerbach and Amöneburg, the Gendarmerie formed part of the Reserve. The Gendarmerie was so depleted that each squadron counted only some 120 men.

Officer and Trumpeter

Reverse view of the Officer and Trumpeter

Standard Bearer and cavalryman

Reverse picture of the previous picture.

The French kettle drummer in the Minden Miniatures figure range can also be used as part of your Gendarmerie de France regiment.

French Hussars Painted

French Bercheny Hussars - Minden Miniatures

I've been working on a unit of the French Bercheny Hussars lately. I painted the command set and the Hussar set so that I could take pictures and put them in the product codes in the web store. This is part of my ongoing project of having pictures of painted figures for every product code in the catalog.

French Hussar Command (MFC-005) Trumpeter and Officer.

French Hussars (MFC-006) come in two different poses.

Since this gave me a head start of four figures for a squadron of Hussars, I decided to build it up to 12 figures. I have six figures painted so far and have six more to go.

One idea that I'm mulling over is to put light cavalry onto round bases rather than square bases. I haven't gone all in yet, but I do like the look of the round bases.

Should I put light cavalry on round bases to indicate that they are not "battlefield cavalry"?

Here is how the hussars line up against another squadron when both are mounted
on 2-inch square bases. A minor amount of overlap that is not readily apparent.

This picture indicates that my round bases have a slight overlap of approximately 0ne-quarter inch.

The French hussar squadron on round bases.

I think that the overlapping bases situation when matching up round bases to square bases can be handled by just indicating that the same number of figures in the front line of the melee get to participate in that melee. This, as opposed to only allowing those figures in face to face contact fighting in the melee.

The round base idea is something that I am still mulling over. I like the look for light cavalry because it distinguishes them from the heavier battlefield cavalry of cuirassiers and dragoons. However, the Prussian hussars were trained to be battlefield cavalry so what do I do with the Prussian hussars. Where Austrian and Russian cavalry trained in the same manner? I seem to recall that the Russian Horvath Hussars played an important role in the Battle of Zorndorf in 1758.

Maybe I will just base the Bercheny Hussars on the round bases to see how the concept looks. I certainly don't want to have go back and rebase ALL of my SYW light cavalry.

What do you think? Please leave some comments with your thoughts and help me out with this idea.

French Dragoons

Minden French Dragoons painted as the Apchon dragoon regiment.

I am working my way through the French army codes in the Minden Miniatures figure range and adding pictures to the on-line catalog. So when you want to buy one of the items you will have a picture of that product code and see what the figures look like. If there are 8 figures in the  pack, then all eight figures shown in the picture will be painted.

French dragoons are now painted and added to the webstore. These are MFC-003 Dragoon Command Pack and MFC-004 Dragoon Troopers. Click on the link below to visit the Fife and Drum Miniatures webstore:

Fife and Drum webstore

The samples shown in the  pictures below are painted as the Apchon dragoon regiment. There is no information about the uniform of the mounted drummer, but Kronoskaf indicates that the musicians wore the livery of the House of Apchon, which is unknown. The regiment had a cavalry guidon with a green field and gold edging, so I speculated that green and gold (yellow) might be the colors of the Apchon livery. 

Apchon Dragoon Regiment guidon.
(source: Kronoskaf)

The drummer's coat is a very light yellow with green turnbacks and cuffs. I used green for the shabraque for the same reason, speculating on the Apchon colors, but I also used the blue and yellow border that the dragoon troopers had.

The standard bearer's staff is painted in a striped green and yellow design, barbershop pole motif, using the Apchon colors. Again, this is pure speculation and I wanted to have a little bit of fun with the samples.

MFC-003 French Dragoon Command
Minden Miniatures

French dragoon troopers (MFC-004)

The Apchon dragoons - Minden Miniatures

You can read the history of the Apchon dragoon regiment on Kronoskaf HERE

Well, now that I have six figures of the Apchon regiment painted, I might as well paint six more troopers to give me a 12-figure cavalry regiment. Because French cavalry regiments tended to be smaller (only 1 to 2 squadrons), I use 12 figures to represent a French regiment. I then usually brigade two such units to form a 24-figure cavalry unit.

Next up on the painting table, some French hussars that will be used as catalog pictures.

More New Minden Greens!

Austrian Horse Grenadiers: drummer (left) and officer (right)

CLICK ON ALL PICTURES TO ENLARGE

So here are the pictures for Part II of the announcement of the new additions to the Minden Miniatures Seven Years War figure range. The greens have been sent on to Griffin Moulds so that the master moulds and production moulds can be made. After that, we start spinning metal and getting the castings into production and ready for sale. I am going to estimate that I will have the new figures in stock in about four weeks.

First we have the Austrian Horse Grenadiers:

Reverse view of the Austrian Horse Grenadier officer (left) and drummer (right).

Austrian Horse Grenadiers: Standard Bearer (left) and Reiter (right).

Reverse view of the Austrian Horse Grenadiers: Reiter (left) and Standard Bearer (right)

Each Austrian Dragoon regiment had five squadrons of dragoons and one elite squadron of horse grenadiers. Typically, the horse grenadier squadrons from several dragoon regiments would be converged into one or more elite cavalry units prior to the start of the battle. After the battle, the horse grenadiers would return to their respective regiments.

I am really excited to see the Austrian Horse Grenadiers added to the Minden range. This fills an obvious hole that was in the Austrian cavalry lineup and I know that I will be busy painting them once the new year rolls around. I paint a regiment of Austrian dragoons and then add on a squadron of the horse grenadiers. Once I have painted several dragoon regiments, then I can hive off the grenadiers from the parent regiment and create a horse grenadier regiment comprised of the grenadiers from dragoon regiments in my own army.

Next we have the French Cavalrie wearing bearskin hats:

French Cavalrie in bearskins: Trumpeter (left) and Officer (right).

Reverse view of the previous picture above.

French Cavalrie in bearskins: Standard Bearer (left) and trooper (right).

Reverse view of the previous picture: trooper (left) and standard bearer (right)

All of the "foreign" cavalry regiments in French service during the WAS and SYW wore bearskin hats. So the Fitzjames (Scottish) and the German regiments wore bearskin hats throughout the war. Of course, the French Cuirassiers du Roi also wore bearskins, but that regiment already has figures available in the Minden range of figures.

New Minden Cuirassiers du Roi

French Cuirassiers du Roi - Minden Miniatures 

I completed a squadron of 12 of the new Minden French Cuirassiers du Roi, which are presented here for your viewing pleasure (click the picture to enlarge the view). On several of the pictures, I experimented with turning my iPad upside down so that the camera lens was at the ground level. I think that this, along with the painted back drop, creates a better looking photograph of the figures.

The Cuirassiers du Roi donned the bearskin after the War of Austrian Succession, just in time for the Seven Years War. They were the only cavalry regiment to wear front and back metal plate and they wore the cuirasse outside of the jacket, rather than underneath the jacket. The other French Cavalrie regiments wore just the front cuirasse plate under their coat.

The Minden figures are sold in packs of three figures, including the horses, for $18.00 per pack. There is a command pack MFC-007 consisting of the officer, colour bearer, and the musician. In the future, I plan to add a French Cavalrie kettle drummer.

The pack of three rank and file cuirassiers, MFC-008, is the other available pack.

To order: send an e-mail to me at: altefritz1740@yahoo.com. Paypal is accepted for all orders. 

Maurice de Saxe Coaches Have Arrived

I received the wicker coach models today so I can begin shipping pre-orders this week.

Cuirassiers du Roi - Painted Samples

Kickstarter Update:

Current Pledge Level = $5,207

Next Stretch Goal =      $6,000  (unlocks 12-pd Prussian Brummer )

Pledges Needed.       =   $793

Minden Artillery Kickstarter Link

This evening I painted the officer and trooper of the new Minden Cuirassiers du Roi as I was eager to see how they looked when painted. These may be some of Richard Ansell's best work yet ( I am admittedly biased). Both figures were a joy to paint and they painted fairly quickly. 

I am not a Francophile when it comes to the SYW, but these cavalry figures have me rethinking my stance on the French army. I have come to the conclusion that I need to start painting and building a French army if for no other reason that their cavalry look gorgeous and I've simply got to find a reason to get a unit of the Cuirassiers du Roi on the table top.

I will take some better pictures tomorrow. These were taken with my iPad and the Blogger Ap is Gawd Awful in what it will let you do with layout and editing and working with pictures .

Cuirassiers du Roi Are Here!

(L-R) trumpeter, std bearer, trooper, and officer

Two large and heavy boxes full of the new Minden French Cuirassiers du Roi, the Volontaires de Saxe, and Maurice de Saxe sitting in his wicker coach at Fontenoy  arrived today and I can start shipping orders out this week.

More later, but I wanted to post a couple pictures on my blog before turning in for the evening.