Ah the much maligned French Garde Mobile, often put down as a poor substitute for the regular army of Napoleon III but rarely remembered that they kept the war going for a full 5 months after the capitulation at Sedan. What they may have lacked in training and equipment, they made up for in motivation and numbers, with the French armies of the later/republican war often putting as many if not more men in the field than their German counterparts.
These are Foundry models which as ive said before, i am not a huge fan of these days as i think they are really dated in pose etc. having said that the mixture of poses i have used in this unit, mostly because they happpened to be the models i had, give a less uniform appearance which i think suits the garde mobile look.
actually thes mobile are very well equiped with the short tunique without epaulettes (as dispensed with by the republic, probably due to cost rather than imperial connotations, as they brought them back after the war i think), most have full kit and all have chassepot rifles with bayonets. I have painted them all in the standard pre-war mobile uniform of blue tunique with grey trousers with a large red side stripe, although trousers would have varied a lot even with garance red trousers being supplied to some units. i actually painted these models some years ago but have just rebased them on my standard base sizes 40x40mm. i used to base all my models individually but ive grown up since then and multi bases are so much more useful
next up will be an emplaced ECW saker (my last artillery for the ECW), FPW French regular infantry and hopefully when they arrive i will make a start on some more 1866 austrian infantry and hussars
The Republican troops are too often ignored-even though they gave the French their only clear victory of the war. Agree with your comments about the Foundry figure poses-but a good paint job like yours makes all the difference!
ReplyDeleteMatt