Saxon Leib Garde circa 1756

Saxon Leib Garde using Minden Miniatures Prussians. Click to enlarge.

With a long three day weekend due to the MLK Day holiday in the USA, I had a lot of extra time to paint figures and specifically, knock out nearly a battalion of Saxon Leib Garde - 24 of the eventual 36 figures. I used the Minden Miniatures SYW Prussians with Swedish (large cuffs) cuffs to serve as my Saxons. The inspiration for the regiment was my continued reading of John Ray's fine book, A Military Gentleman, in which the Saxon Leibgrenadier regiment plays a prominent role in the fictional Battle of Fulda. Besides that, what's not to like about a regiment wearing colorful red coats and yellow small clothes, all set off by white gaitors?

Now I know that many of my readers are well versed in the uniforms of the combatants during the Seven Years War, and I know that someone will mention that the Saxon Leibgrenadiers wore grenadier mitres rather than felt tricorn hats. One of my readers has a ready answer for that: the Saxons are wearing their service uniform and they have stored their mitres away for the coming campaign.

A close-up view of the grenadier company of the Garde.

The other part of the equation is the fact that this regiment will also serve as the first regiment in my fictional Army of Hesse Seewald, where they will serve as the Hertzog's personal guards. In fact, I will probably paint two 30-figure battalions: one wearing tricorns and the other wearing the mitres, in a manner similar to that of the Prussian Leib Garde IR15/II & III. That creates a little bit of conundrum with respect to placing flags on the regiment. Which flags should I use?

The Saxon flags are just on the edge of the limits of my own painting ability, so I am not sure whether or not I can paint them free hand. The other option is to find some commercially made preprinted Saxon flags. The only source that I am aware of is Vaubanner Graphics. These are OK, but they are not the quality of GMB Designs flags (and GMB does not make SYW era Saxon flags).

The other option is to use GMB Hessian flags for the AWI era and just flag each regiment with one of the GMB flags. It doesn't really matter which real flag goes with which fictional Hesse Seewald regiment. I could use any old Hessian flag and simply state that it is the flag of the Hesse Seewald Leib Garde and be done with the problem. I will probably employ the second option. I have nearly every AWI Hessian flag that GMB makes, so there is no shortage of standards to use.

UPDATE: I found this web site for Maverick Models -- the company makes Saxon flags.

Maverick Models Saxon Flags

Back to the matter at hand: there are 18 musketeers and 6 grenadiers in the unit, as pictured. I have another dozen musketeers to paint, which will bring the batallion up to 30 musketeers. Then the 6 grenadiers will provide a start for a second battalion all wearing mitres.

The line regiments of the Hesse Seewald army wear green coats with a Prussian cut to them. In otherwords, I will be using Minden Prussians with Swedish cuffs for my line regiments. I have 30 musketeers set aside to form the first regiment IR1 von Glasenap in the Hesse Seewald army. I don't know when I will get around to painting the regiment, but it will be placed in the painting queue, now that I have an urge to paint an imaginations army for myself.