4. Bayrisches Linien-Infanterie-Regiment “Sachsen-Hildburghausen”

Now on to something different. As most of you will realise, a regiment of Bavarian troops has nothing to do with my current Napoleonic projects. The Bavarians left the Rheinbund shortly before the Battle of Leipzig and did not take part in the fighting and neither did they take part at Waterloo. So why did I paint this Regiment up?

Well my better half hails from the Kreis (closest equivalent in English would be county) Hildburghausen in what is modern-day Thuringia, which takes up the space of the old Duchy of Sachsen-Hildburghausen. More over the village she comes from also carries a reference to the Saxons in its name. So when I stumbled about this regiment in late 2009, I decided, that this would make for a  good birthday present to her. unfortunately I was working a job some 400 klicks from home last year and spend my weeks in a hotel, which obviously cut my painting time to virtually nill, so I had to settle for something different last year. This year though I am working back in my own region and I had more time to get things done. So for her birthday in March she got this:

1. Btln., 4. Bayrisches Linien-Infanterie-Regiment "Herzog von Sachsen-Hildburghausen"

After a few comments of “But I am not Bavarian” and “I am not a Saxon, either” and a short history lesson, there was general happiness with the gift. (Women!!! 😐 )

For those who do not know… the house of Saxe-Hildburghausen, belonged to the Saxon bloodline, but was part of the kingdom of Bavaria during Napoleonic times. After the Napoleonic Wars the Kreis Hildburghausen became part of the German Empire and the house of Saxe-Hildburghausen expired. Thuringia itself was only founded in 1920 after WWI and the Duchies and counties were given the right to choose which state the wanted to belong to. Hildburghausen chose Thuringia. In fact of the old Duchies belonging to Bavaria, only Saxe-Coburg chose Bavaria.

But enough of that! The minis are all Wargames Foundry. And they are a mixed blessing. For one they are very nice minis. Good clean sculpts, nice faces and detail. The big downside is variety. You have the same infantryman over and over again. Either with trousers or overall, or with plumes for the grenadier and light companies. The officers wear either a sash and a gorget, which were not used at the same time. So technically you should not mix the officer minis in one unit, but again there is too little variety, so you have to. So when I eventually do the 2nd battalion and other Regiments, I will definitely get myself Front Rank minis to enhance the variety!

But here are a few more shots of the unit.

Command base (Flag by GMB)

Grenadiers

Foragers

Foragers

Foragers

As you can see… I was quite happy with the Foundry foragers set. Those are really nice and adds some much-needed variety to the unit as a whole.