These are the Jägers zu Pfeffernüsse, commanded by Colonel Eric von StrüdelheimI tried for a more mixed flocking than I usually do on regular line units, adding in some dry grass shades of static grass and some bits of ground foam in different patches.
Glad Yule, Happy Winter Solstice and Merry New Year to all!
14 comments:
This will probably be the last post until next year.
I hope everyone has happy holidays however you celebrate them and here's wishing for a great new year for all!
The very same back at you, sir. The very same.
-- Jeff
Great figures. Who makes them? By the way, Reich Duke Wilhelm gas invested Fitz-Badger into the Ancient and Honorable Order of the Tankard. Best wishes and happy holidays...Bill
To see you back when daylight hours start increasing again, Fitz!
Jean-Louis
Best wishes
Are these Foundry figures? (I think)
Fitz,
why did I not wrote how bold looking, business-like and eye-candy your latest unit is? Because it's always the case, and I fear to become repetitive!
Yet, an 'evergreen' unit was specially appropriate to illustrate seasons greetings!
Cheers,
Jean-Louis
A likely set of lads in green! Just the chaps to have around to make a nuisance of themselves to the enemy.
A Happy Holiday to you and yours.
And a happy holiday to you too, FB. Nice figures as well... :-)
Regards,
David
http://nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.com/
Der Alte Fritz - you are correct, sir :-)
Capt. Bill - thank you, sir, we are honored by your recognition.
Thanks for the comments, guys! I have a few more days before I take off. I hope to get a little painting in while I'm away (and plenty of blog posts to catch up on when I get back!).
I wish I could find some useful books about the SYW era in the shops. I just would like to know a bit more about things and have references when I want to lok something up (for example, is colonel the correct rank for the commander of a unit of jaegers? What is the French equivalent for jaegers? Or figuring out what a particular mini or bit on a mini represents; for example, I have this one Foundry mini with some type of weapon that makes me think "mortar", but I'm not sure, and then there's the question of how it would work in a game.)
Hi Fitz,
Great looking paint job for those stout Pfeffernusseians! I particulary liked the bases.
Since light troops were an experiment in the 18th Cent., they were considered to be "outside" the Line of Battle formed by the regulars. So they could, therefore, be commanded by officers anywhere one or two ranks below the regular establishment. I'm pretty sure the French equivalent to Jagers are the Chasseurs. The chunky "mystery" weapon may be an 18th Cent. forerunner to a Grenade Launcher. You can see one in action in the Pirate Movie, "Cutthroat Island". (Be sure you're old enough to see it, since all Pirate Movies are rated, ARRRRRGH! Ha, ha!)
Hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I look forward to your next posting.
Yours,
Martin
Zurik,
[ pedantic mode ON ]
The French equivalent of Jaeger is indeed Chasseurs – or rather, the German equivalent of Chasseurs is Jaeger : the designation appeared with the ‘Chasseurs de Fischer’ officially created on nov. 1, 1743.
But the outfit has been in existence for some time and already had some battlefield experience, since by nov. 3 it is skirmishing for De Saxe behind enemy lines, ccordinating its scattered parties with coded signals of their hunting horns. Army commanders were still allowed to raise their ‘private warband’ in the manner of Late Roman bucellarii. [Fischer himself is a mystery, officially having started as a mere, but enterprising (civilian, with servant status) *horse groom* who enjoyed, when watering horses, to come back with a few more taken from the enemy grooms who were watering their horses at the same river (a common encounter, by then). Yet in 1741 he was already quoted by Marechal de Noailles as « extremely useful for his knowledge and relations in the country», and his writings are those of an educated man, proficious equally well in elegant French and German. Seemingly, as frequently happened later in the Foreign Legion specially after both world wars, a German character of status but ‘with a past’ who entered French service under an assumed name and with a fictitious past? Inspirational for Imagi-Nation builders with a ‘role playing’ approach.]
This pontificating course to suggest the ‘Chasseurs’ predates ‘Jaeger’ by many years. If such is indeed the case, while by then many French military designations were directly used in other tongues (carabiniers, grenadiers, cuirassiers, gardes du corps…) for some reason ‘Chasseurs’ was translated (excepted in ‘Chasseurs Britanniques’).
The ‘Fisher’ were a mixed unit (‘regiment’ by then – ‘legion’ as a designation of such an outfit appeared ca. 1762), and the full ‘Chasseurs a pied’ and ‘Chasseurs a cheval’ full names, while appearing in the ordonnance creating the regiment, and a few other official texts, were not of common use before the creation, in 1776, of the squadrons of Chasseurs a cheval attached to the Dragoons regiments following 'the model of the ‘light squadrons of British cavalry (converged in independant regiments of their own in 1779) and in 1784 of the independant battalions of Chasseurs à pied. With the ‘amalgame’ of 1794 of the ‘professional’ battalions with ‘national volunteers’ ones, the Chasseurs a pied became ‘demi-brigades’ (regiments again in 1804) of ‘Infanterie Legere’. Battalions of Chasseurs reappeared in 1838 for riflemen.
Similarly, while *as a body* they were from the start mentioned as ‘Chasseurs’, common practice was at first to call them individually ‘fusiliers’ and ‘hussards’. ‘Chasseur’ as the designation of a special type of infantryman, by opposition to ‘Fusilier’, came with a *2nd type of ‘Chasseurs’*, the men of the new light companies added to line infantry battalions (on the British model met in America) in 1776. They disappeared with the ‘amalgame’ and reappeared (incl. in the infanterie Legere !) as ‘Voltigeurs’ in 1804. {interestingly at the same time the regimental pioneers = ‘charpentiers’ (carpenters) became ‘sapeurs’, a name totally inadequate for their role falling trees on the march and breaking down doors during assaults- and traditional tool, the ax: sappers were ‘those who excavated trenches under defensive musket or artillery fire to advance a besieging army's position in relation to the works of an attacked fortification’.} These ‘Chasseurs’ companies were a new type of elite subunit in infantry battalions –hence the infantry of Napoleon’s Guard was made of two ‘corps’, Grenadiers and Chasseurs. The word ‘voltigeur’ having less seniority than the old ‘chasseur’ was used for the Young Guard part of the Corps des Chasseurs (for the Grenadiers it was ‘Tirailleurs’).
In Napoleonic infantry battalions Grenadiers had red ‘epaulettes’ and Voltigeurs green ones; to-day the full-dress ‘epaulettes’ of the Foreign Legion still combine the colors of the 2 types of ‘elite infantrymen’, and the red-over-green (‘blood runs on grass’) pattern appears on all fanions and badges of the Legion. Since the parachutists of the ‘Coloniale’ (heirs of the SAS French squadron) had red berets the Legionnaires parachutistes received green ones (like the Navy commandos, heirs of the RM French commando, but these wear theirs in a different way) {parachutists of the ‘metropolitan’ land army, who initially had medium blue, black or sky blue ones, received red beret in Indochina, but the Legion is a world of its own; and anyway belongs neither to the ‘Troupes Metropolitaines’ nor to the ‘Troupes Coloniales’ but to the ‘Troupes d’Afrique du Nord’ –Algeria was not a colony but a part of French ‘mother country’ territory with a soft form of apartheid}.
End of logorrhea
] pedantic mode OFF [
As for the Foundry mini with some type of weapon that makes <> think "mortar", it firstly provides me with an oppotunity to evacuate a little bile. It’s a «but in the pain» to post a link to *within* the Foundry site. The only way I know to have a link bypassing their cookie-setting entry page is (works with Netscape, not with Firefox or Safari) to repeat ‘open in a new page’ until you can ‘copy the image address’ (another trick maybe, would be to click on the provided link after having be ‘cookied’ ?). So if the link works you may be alluding to Leonid? (the man next to him seems to be holding another unconventional weapon, a rampart musket or some kind of ‘amusette’). The weapon is indeed a grenade thrower (depicted also in Funckens’ ‘Lace Wars’). Rules-wise, for such grenade-throwing blunderbuss Bob O’Brien, author of the 1685-1835 WRG set (Phil Barker is only responsible of the final translation in Barkeriesque language) suggested me in private correspondance to use hand grenades factors (the set is one of the few H&M ones covering grenades) = with unsteady mass musket fire as a basis, x1/2 against ‘rapid’ targets, X ¾ against ‘normal’, x 2/3 against ‘dispersed (skirmishers…), x 1,5 against ‘covered’ («soft cover») and x 2 against ‘protected’ («hard cover») targets, unchanged in other cases but with a range of 50 paces instead of 25 for the hand grenades (may sound conservative at first, but cognes in riot control generally shoot their lance-patates at this range or below –probaly because they wish to use the grenades shot in direct fire as very dangerous baton rounds).
As we say in Monte-Cristo "A l’an que ven se sian pas maï, que fuguen pas mens" -roughly, ‘If the next year is not better than this one, let it be not worse’.
Jean-Louis
Martin and Jean-Louis, the lessons are much appreciated! Yes, it's the Leonid figure. The other fellow with the gun is just holding a standard issue Foundry chunky musket, I think (I will have to compare it to the arms of regular infantry).
(Chasseurs, hmm...)
Again, another nicely painted little unit. Nice uniform colour combination.
-- Allan
Gotta love those jagers,...Bleiherzlanders dig the green!
Happy Holidays
--Dave
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