It's our first release of 2021 and also a long-awaited one as the Guard have arrived! We'd had these sculpted a few years back but they were lost in the void known as 'Sculpting Drawer'... But they're here now and ready for deployment against those pesky Brits!
Two quick notes on these, obviously the Guard were present through until 1815 but we've put them in our 1809 French range for the timebeing, with their earlier descriptions. When we add an 1815 French range in the future they can be moved over to there. Also, the Young and Middle Guard wouldn't have been issued with Eagles and would have bare poles with fanions instead. As we don't currently produce those we've left the eagles on for the timebeing and folks can simply snip them off if they're going to make their own flags.
Napoleonics
French - https://pendraken.co.uk/napoleonic/1809/french/
NPF49 Young Guard Tirailleur Chasseurs/Voltigeurs (30) £5.50
NPF50 Young Guard Tirailleur Grenadiers/Tirailleurs (30) £5.50
NPF51 Middle Guard Fusilier Chasseurs (30) £5.50
NPF52 Middle Guard Fusilier Grenadiers (30) £5.50
NPF53 Young/Middle Guard mounted officers (5) £1.85
NPF54 Old Guard Chasseurs (30) £5.50
NPF55 Old Guard Grenadiers (30) £5.50
NPF56 Old Guard mounted officers (5) £1.85
And some pics!
NPF49 - Young Guard Tirailleur Chasseurs/Voltigeurs
(https://pendraken.co.uk/_img/products/5128/NPF49.jpg)
NPF52 - Middle Guard Fusilier Grenadiers
(https://pendraken.co.uk/_img/products/5131/NPF52.jpg)
NPF53 - Young/Middle Guard mounted officers
(https://pendraken.co.uk/_img/products/5132/NPF53.jpg)
NPF54 - Old Guard Chasseurs
(https://pendraken.co.uk/_img/products/5133/NPF54.jpg)
NPF56 - Old Guard mounted officers
(https://pendraken.co.uk/_img/products/5135/NPF56.jpg)
Looking good. :-bd
Very nice 8).
I can hear them grumbling !
Aha! Maybe this is the year of Napoleonics!
Oh I say, very nice work.
Very nice, I will have to "Guard" against temptation.
Orcs your posts must ciost you fortune replacing coats :-*
Quote from: ianrs54 on 07 January 2021, 02:18:30 PM
Orcs your posts must ciost you fortune replacing coats :-*
In have a method with Nobby, As he stats to chew I show him a picture of Anne Hathaway and he stops chewing, and starts drooling, then forgets what he was doing
Anne! She certainly hath a way with my heart! :x
(https://img.etimg.com/thumb/msid-44782754,width-1200,height-900,imgsize-36183,overlay-etpanache/photo.jpg)
Oh yes. Lovely guardsmen. Best pull my finger out and get those line infantry finished and get me some of these!!!!
Thank you for more New Year's cheer. Just a wee question ... what is the difference between NPF 56 Old Guard Mtd. officer and NPF 24 Mtd. Guard Grenadier officer. I assume the new addition is a Foot Chasseur?? Many thanks for these figures. :D
Quote from: whubble on 08 January 2021, 12:22:59 AM
Thank you for more New Year's cheer. Just a wee question ... what is the difference between NPF 56 Old Guard Mtd. officer and NPF 24 Mtd. Guard Grenadier officer. I assume the new addition is a Foot Chasseur?? Many thanks for these figures. :D
I think so, the original mounted officer seems to have the plate, the new one doesn't so should be a Guard Chasseur officer.
Quote from: Leon on 07 January 2021, 11:17:27 AM
It's our first release of 2021 and also a long-awaited one as the Guard have arrived! We'd had these sculpted a few years back but they were lost in the void known as 'Sculpting Drawer.....
that must be a mighty big Drawer :o ;D
Regards
Sean
Quote from: sean66 on 08 January 2021, 09:21:52 AM
that must be a mighty big Drawer :o ;D
Regards
Sean
It has been at times! There's not a great deal in there at the moment, we've been able to finally get a lot of it moulded and released during Covid. There's only some Fantasy stuff pending at the moment.
I haven't seen them sloe up but I suspect some of the Young Guard might work as proxies for many of the Confederation of the Rhine types.
The shakos of both the Young Guard Tirailleur Chasseurs/Voltigeurs and the Young Guard Tirailleur Grenadiers/Tirailleurs have lozenge plates like ordinary line infantry and the line infantry figures they are based on. The Young Guard never had these. The Young Guard had eagle plates on their shakos (as detailed in the notes I sent Leon). I won't be using these figures as they are without attempting something with the green stuff. Where's the joy in fielding a glorious Guard sporting pedestrian insignia? Of course, I would be willing to share my almost certainly meagre sculpting results with the community.
(https://pendraken.co.uk/_img/products/5128/NPF49.jpg)
Quote from: WeeWars on 09 January 2021, 01:57:45 PM
The shakos of both the Young Guard Tirailleur Chasseurs/Voltigeurs and the Young Guard Tirailleur Grenadiers/Tirailleurs have lozenge plates like ordinary line infantry and the line infantry figures they are based on. The Young Guard never had these. The Young Guard had eagle plates on their shakos (as detailed in the notes I sent Leon). I won't be using these figures as they are without attempting something with the green stuff. Where's the joy in fielding a glorious Guard sporting pedestrian insignia? Of course, I would be willing to share my almost certainly meagre sculpting results with the community.
(https://pendraken.co.uk/_img/products/5128/NPF49.jpg)
The sculptor had the reference material and we'd also checked the sculpts with two Naps guys before releasing them, which actually led to some tweaks being done by Techno. Sadly your email was on our old address and helpfully Dave managed to delete every email going back to 2008 from there... If memory serves, didn't some of the Guard have the lozenge until Napoleon returned, at which point they took them off and manually beat them into the shape of an eagle, before re-attaching to the shako?
I can dig out the reference I sent previously, meanwhile from looking at the images you've put up on the site I'd make these immediate observations.
Fusilier Grenadiers
They have pointed cuffs where they should have the same cuffs as the Grenadiers a Pied with three-pointed flaps. In fact, pack NPF55 with shakos would have been perfect - hopefully these have cuffs with three-pointed not straight flaps.
They shouldn't have common lozenge plates, they should have eagle plates.
From the 500 pixel wide image they look like they have fringed epaulettes, they should have fringed epaulettes.
Fusilier Chasseurs
From the 500 pixel wide image it doesn't look like they have fringed epaulettes, they should have fringed epaulettes.
They shouldn't have common lozenge plates, they should have eagle plates.
For 1809 where the pack is listed, the plumes are in the wrong place. The shako plumes should be on the left (of the man). It would be better to have shako cords with the plume.
The Chasseurs officer should have flat topped boots.
Pointed cuffs are correct.
The Fusiliers carried no 'Eagles'.
For sculpting purposes, the rank-and-file of the two Tirailleur regiments share the same uniform.
Tirailleur Grenadiers
Pointed cuffs are correct.
They shouldn't have common lozenge plates, they should have eagle plates.
Very good to see shako cords.
They should have gaiters to the knee with straight tops. It looks like they have.
Good to see an officer without surcoat and with one fringed epaulette. However, his cuffs are wrong. At this rank he should have the same cuffs as grenadiers.
No fringed epaulettes is correct.
Tirailleur Chasseurs
They shouldn't have common lozenge plates, they should have eagle plates.
Pointed cuffs are correct.
No fringed epaulettes is correct.
They should have gaiters to the knee with straight tops and not the light infantry one.
They have plumes so why not have shako cords to match?
However, you can substitute the rank-and-file of the Tirailleur Grenadiers for these.
All the shakos for this Guard division have side chevrons. Any help for the paint job would be appreciated. If the shakos have plumes there's no reason why they shouldn't have shako cords as well. It would be helpful for painting if there were an indication of an eagle on the cartridge pouches.
All cuffs, epaulettes, gaiters, etc were checked before release and were confirmed as correct. Fringed epaulettes are present and all cuffs are pointed except for the Fusilier Grenadiers which are straight. We've already acknowledged that the eagles wouldn't be carried but we left them in as we don't produce fanions. On the eagle plates, as I said already, I was under the impression that the lozenge was there initially and then it was removed, beaten to an eagle shape and reattached, when Napoleon returned.
I didn't check whether officer boots were flat-topped or not and I'd need to look at whether they've all got the correct shako cords.
I don't know why the picture being 500 pixels is worth noting.
It's worth noting to be clear that I'm not looking at the metal and the image is not 100% clear at that size. For example, the only obvious cuff here is a pointed one in a regiment that didn't have pointed cuffs.
(https://pendraken.co.uk/_img/products/5131/NPF52.jpg)
I'm not aware of any lozenge-beating anecdote. These regiments never had lozenge shako plates. If you mean 1815 by 'when Napoleon returned' then these regiments of the Middle Guard never even existed for the wargamer. I don't know what story your 'Naps guys' are telling you but the Young and Middle Guards in shako should have eagle plates.
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a4/20/2d/a4202de9af3f5e29b50ed546ed9560b0.jpg)
(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2e/39/1d/2e391de8051e77bf44689442e6822245--french-army-napoleonic-wars.jpg)
Just seen this. A shame about the shako plates. I hadn't noticed that. I'm afraid the Napoleonic period can be a veritable minefield.
I agree all Guard units had eagles plates of one kind or another from the outset. The lozenge plate was prescribed for the line under both the 1806 and 1810 regulations but there were plenty of non-regulation plates too. The line didn't get eagle plates until the 1812 regulations and I'm fairly confident that is what they'd have had in 1815.
Be that as it may, a quick couple of strokes with a file during the preparation of the figures will remove the lozenge plate and an eagle type can be easily painted, so it is not quite a major disaster. I'm also not too concerned about cord and plumes as these were often removed on campaign. Similarly, gaiters are not that much of an issue. Overall trousers were frequently worn on campaign. As for the Fusilier-Chasseurs and the position of the plume in 1809, primary images are few, no more than three that I'm aware of, one of which has it in the conventional position in late 1809. I'm not sure I would rely entirely on those Osprey's as tablets of stone.
You are right about the Middle Guard at Waterloo. Although it was retained by the monarchy as part of the Corps Royale in 1814, it wasn't re-raised by Napoleon in 1815 and was absorbed into the Old Guard to become 3rd and 4th Grenadiers and Chasseurs a Pied respectively. I know that some modern authors refer to these regiments as Middle Guard sometimes, but that is not really accurate and quite what they wore has been a matter of speculation.
The main thing, I suppose, is that the French army in 1815, as a whole, was quite different in appearance from that of previous years.
Quote from: WeeWars on 10 January 2021, 02:42:18 PM
I'm not aware of any lozenge-beating anecdote. These regiments never had lozenge shako plates. If you mean 1815 by 'when Napoleon returned' then these regiments of the Middle Guard never even existed for the wargamer. I don't know what story your 'Naps guys' are telling you but the Young and Middle Guards in shako should have eagle plates.
Quote from: John Cook on 12 January 2021, 11:44:01 AM
Just seen this. A shame about the shako plates. I hadn't noticed that. I'm afraid the Napoleonic period can be a veritable minefield.
I agree all Guard units had eagles plates of one kind or another from the outset. The lozenge plate was prescribed for the line under both the 1806 and 1810 regulations but there were plenty of non-regulation plates too. The line didn't get eagle plates until the 1812 regulations and I'm fairly confident that is what they'd have had in 1815.
We'll have to get them adjusted then but it'll need to wait until the summer I think, once we've got past the Peninsular project and into some clearer water.