12ème Cuirassiers

Well in my quest to post something new, this is another unit I finished this year. Now the 12ème Cuirassiers have a bit of a mixed history for me.

First of all I started cleaning these minis early 2010. Upon seeing this, my girlfriend asked me, if she could paint them up (she has a soft spot for painting horses). She usually does stuff using the Armypainter dip, so I told her, that she would have to do these using highlighting techniques. Which was no problem. She began by painting the horses, which went quite well if it had not been for me complaining that I wanted buglers horse a very light dappled grey, while she rather wanted it to be a steel. Since she was in no mood to paint all the detail on the buglers uniform anyway, we decided that I would paint both horse and rider there.

Bugler

And that is where things stood for the rest of the year. Work became more hectic for my better half, she did not have the time anymore to continue in due time and paint kept chipping off, since the minis were moved several times. So last December I decided to take matters in my own hands. So I repaired the damaged paint, did the leather on the horses and the riders. A GMB flag was added and everything based up.

Now Murphy´s Law struck. As I said before… I am using Republic to Empire rules. My original plan had been not to use the 1:20 ratio prescribed by the rules, but a 1:30 ratio. When I was just done with these Cuirassiers I realised, that I had painted all the other units in 1:20. After removing a stand or two from the infantry regiments to see how they would look at 1:30, I decided that I did not like that, so I scrapped that idea.

Not that a big problem… I would “only” have to buy and paint more minis for future Regiments and add to the nine minis for 12th Cuirassiers.  So I bought two more and painted those up.

Now those of you who have even a slight intuition for math will have realised that nine minis at 1:30 does not equal eleven at 1:20, but thirteen. Which means that I will still have to buy two more, to finally bring these guys to strength. Anyway… here is the regiment so far:

12éme Cuirassier Reg.

Now I really love those standing Cuirassiers from the Perry´s. They have so much character and are a break from the usual charging troops.

Colour guard

I am not 100% on the colour of the staff here. I think I might repaint it a darker shade of blue… what do you think?

The horse on the far left is facing to the rear. When I was in London for New Years 2009/2010 we were watching the changing of the horse guards. When the New Guard was waiting on the yard for the Old Guard to come out, one of the horses decided to break formation, turned round and moved to the end of the line (much to the annoyance of the rider). So I felt, if such a thing could happen with the Horse Guards on parade, it could just as well happen on the battlefield. It was a bit of an experiment, but in the end I feel it looks good and breaks up the monotony the line.

Junior officer and grumpy old trooper

Now the officer on this shot is not from one of the standing sets from the Perry´s (his horse is though). I felt he added some more character to the unit and since I bought these from left over stocks from a fellow gamer I was able to pick horse and rider separately.

Next post will be Prussian artillery.