Au service du Roi...

His Excellency, the 10th Marquis de Sangfroid, Comte de Roue and the Prince Ecclesiastical of the Bishopric of St. Vignobles.

This vignette is based on a written description of a painting by Édouard Detaille,  now believed to have been lost during the Second World War. 

M. le Marquis is portrayed on the morning of his great victory against the Imperial forces at the Battle of Chimay in 1745, where, after a bold river crossing at night with picked troops from L'armee de l'Oise, he turned the enemy's flank and forced them to abandon their attempt to reinforce the Allied army in Flanders.

The scene shows a scout from Sarkozy's Hussars, wearing the non- regulation mirliton that was becoming popular with officers of the regiment at this time, reporting the presence of the Imperial army to M. le Marquis. 

The Marquis is mounted on his famous dapple-grey steed, Seligenstadt, and is accompanied by his faithful personal escort, brigadier Jean-Claude Boulet of the Bauffremont Dragoon Regiment. 

Having saved the Marquis' life during the Battle of Dettingen, and having throughout the course of his service impressed his superiors with his temerity and resourcefulness, Boulet was duly promoted to brigadier and assigned to the Marquis' personal staff.  

He wears the uniform of his unit, but in splendid scarlet rather then cheap red broadcloth; it was awarded to him by a grateful Marquis to replace the uniform he lost while swimming the River Main in order to save his patron.

 

The Marquis himself wears the  dress uniform of the Chef of the Noble Volunteer Company of Vintners; a handsome velvet coat of deep rose, with richly embroidered gold trim.

 

Georges Debroullier had the following to say about the formation of the Noble Volunteer Company of Vintners, a company of guard cavalry serving with the King's Household. 

"This little-known but illustrious unit in the King's personal establishment was inextricably linked with the House of Bouillon-Cantinat.  Early in the reign of the Great Louis, during the troubled times of the Fronde in 1651, the young King was surprised by a patrol of enemy cavalry intent on taking him prisoner. 

Fortunately for His Majesty, Guillaume-Baptiste Bonhomie de Bouillon-Cantinat, the 7th Marquis de Sangfroid, was with the King's party.  He had been been given charge of supervising French wine production and distribution, and was with the King at the time in connection with the discharge of these duties. 

Upon seeing the threat to His Serene Highness' person, the 7th Marquis sprang into action, and immediately called upon his officials and their pages to arm themselves and to mount their horses to deal with the threat.  They then rode out at once to take on the enemy, successfully thwarting their plans to take the King captive.

A grateful monarch then created the Noble Volunteer Vintner Company of the King's Household in honour of their service, and made the  Marquis de Sangfroid hereditary Chef of the company in perpetuity, granting in addition an annual pension of 6000 Louis' d'or."

M. Georges du P. Debroullier;
"What Higher Master than Honour? A History of the House of Bouillon-Cantinat"

Pierre Declat & Cie.
St. Vignobles, 1902

*****

I haven't posted here in a long time, but I hope this one makes up for it in terms of eye candy at least.  

I spent a considerable amount of time on the miniature for the Marquis.  It is a simple casting, the  Marquis de Montcalm figure from Front Rank's French-Indian war range.  No conversions or alteration, but it represents what I feel is the pinnacle of my painting efforts in the 35 years I've been in the hobby, and I'm not embarrassed to say I'm extremely proud of him.  

I'm not happy with the photos; despite tweaking on iPhoto the reds did not come out very well.  The red of the dragoon uniform in particular appears very "washed out", and in reality is a very rich, intense red.  I may try taking pictures in better light tomorrow and see how they turn out.

But in all, not bad for an "overfed gargoyle", as some vocal critics like to dismiss Front Rank's SYW range.

Our club here has been focusing on WW2 miniatures gaming for a while, with Napoleonics in the pipeline for the future.  This means that much of my time available for wargaming has  been spent on these armies.  Unfortunately, there has not yet been much groundswell of interest in the 18th. C as far as I can ascertain.    

But even if other gamers here don't seem to have much interest in the period,  I certainly do.  And receiving this excellent book three weeks ago inspired me to take out my figures and get back to work on them, somewhere in between Soviet artillery pieces and French Napoleonic voltigeurs.

I keep reminding myself that this will be a case of "build it and they will come", so I will continue to plod away at painting up L'armee de l'Oise and its foes.   

If I am to get anywhere with this project I cannot afford to fall into the trap of trying to put as much detail into the rank and file as I have been able to on the noble Marquis, but seeing what Phil Olley has been able to achieve with his splendid collection of Front Rank miniatures as seen in Wargaming in History inspires me to keep going.

Return of the progidal?

There is an old Jewish proverb to the effect that one should be careful of what one prays for, as God may answer your prayers! 

In my case, the gift from the Gods above is that I found another gamer who has been living no more than twenty minutes walk from me these past two years, and through his contacts we now have the makings of an active club! Regular gaming is now a reality.

Of course the other side of the coin is that wargaming covers a wide variety of eras, scales and armies.  We can't do everything at once so that for the moment the members are involved in organizing 15mm DBR and 20mm WWII using Blitzkrieg Commander amongst other pursuits.

So far, wargaming 18th C. battles has been mooted, but there has been of yet no groundswell of interest.  No hurry, I will persist, and I have been working on my miniatures.  But of course priority has so far been on getting in painting for games that we are going to play.

Nonetheless, M. le Marquis is never far from my thoughts, but having been inspired by the opportunity to finally read my new copy of Savory's His Britannic Majesty's Army in Germany in the Seven Year's War,  where I was pleasantly surprised to find that many of the battles were a lot more close-run affairs than I had thought, and have once again turned to thinking about tricornes, muskets and lace.   

In fact I was inspired enough to once more take brush in hand again,  and "warmed up" by working on a fusilier of the Regt. Bigorre. 

A Front Rank figure.  Looking back on my previous attempts, on reflection I decided to go for a bolder shading style and black outlining.  While looking almost garish in a close up picture like this, it actually appears extremely effective on the tabletop- much more so than did my earlier efforts.

More to come, but in the meantime here is a clip from a Canadian TV program of a battle that was not by much of a stretch a "close-run thing" (even if the campaign itself was much more touch-and-go than is generally realized).  A British victory  over a different, more famous Marquis, the Marquis de Moncalm.  

Quebec, 1759. 

  

Quite a well done video for the numbers involved.

Nassau-Ringgworm auf dem Skree

Just click on map to enlarge

The Marquis needs an arch-nemesis to threaten his holdings on the Rhine. And after mulling over the options for a while, here it is. 

The Principality of Nassau-Ringgworm auf dem Skree, led by its ageing but wily ruler, His Excellency Matthias St. Hubertus von Loseth-Pfaffenhofen, Duke of Avenberg-Pfaffenhofen and Landgrave of Nassau Ringworm-auf-dem-Skree. 

More to follow once I work out how to introduce him into the story!

Dragooned into service...

...is this old Wargames Foundry Marlburian dragoon that I came across in the bottom of my "spares" box, and which I quickly decided would be attached to l'Armée de l'Oise.

I must have bought him back in 1987 or so, from my friend Dave Morgan who ran the late-and-lamented Sentry Box West Hobbies in Vancouver.


Now, while he was intended for Marlburian armies ca. 1709, he has his hair tied back in a queue, so that he can easily pass muster for service 35 years later.

What's more, he looks a lot like this gentleman who features on my blog header;

So seeing that M. le Marquis must of course have a mounted escort on his command stand, what better choice than brigadier Jean-Claude Boulet, battle-hardened veteran of the Bauffremont Dragoon Regiment?

Je suis revenu...

Just got back late last night from that marathon training session, and allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in this morning. Work will still occupy a lot of my time over the next few weeks, but this weekend I want to get in some hobby "quality time".

On the workbench is this monstrosity which is just about completed, so that will be my first priority. But in between working on drybrushing stone (which kills brushes like you wouldn't believe), I shall continue to work on my French infantry and on M. le Marquis himself.

Here is a close-up shot of Fusilier Pierre la Pierre, simple soldat of the Regt. de Condé.

Note the absence of "eyes". While I am perfectly capable of painting in the eyes, I usually only do this for my command figures, which tend to be the ones that people pick up to look at. This is partly to speed up painting, but also because I feel that at a distance the figures look better with the eye sockets painted in as dark shadows.

The French justeaucorps was left a natural wool colour, so was an off-white hue rather than the mid-grey that is so common in many illustrations. I was originally going to go with an very pale ivory colour shaded with a dark cream. But it somehow just didn't look right, coming out too yellowish.

So I decided to use a grey basecoat which would provide a strong shading, but highlighted with Ceramcoat's Soft Grey as it is as close to an off-white that one can get. I tend to avoid pure whites and blacks anyway, and my blacks are highlighted with the Ceramcoat Charcoal which gives a "scale black" appearance.

The result is a fair approximation of the actual coat colour, if this near-contemporary Hermand plate is anything to go by;

A fusilier of the Regt. Orleans from 1757.

From the Hermand manuscript.

Notes from the campaign carriage...

I'm writing this post from a convention centre where I'm in the middle of running a week-long training course. So no pictures to post and no progress to report, seeing as my miniatures are over 100 kilometres away.

However, I did bring my copy of Reed Browning's The War of the Austrian Succession with me to read over again, and I am once again struck by just how good a book this is.

Lots of ideas for the l'armee de l'Oise. Having placed it just south of Flanders and near the Rhine, I can have it strike at the Austrians under Prince Charles of Lorraine, come to the rescue of the hapless (and temporary!) Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII and his Bavarians in the Palatinate, or have the Marquis pull M. de Saxe's chesnuts out of the fire in the Low Countries in an attempt to wrest the Austrian Netherlands from the Queen of Hungary.

Alternatively, he can send the army south to help the Spanish and the Duc de Conti teach the devious and wily Charles-Emmanuel III of Piedmont-Savoy a lesson.

1744 is a fascinating year from a gaming standpoint, with just about every corner of Europe seeing some kind of campaigning going on. Plenty of opportunity for the Marquis to build on his fine reputation as a warrior, man of letters and bon vivant.

Finally, I sent off payment for the new Koenig Krieg rules, so when things get back to normal by the middle of next week, I'll be checking my mailbox for its arrival, along with my copy of Savory's His Britannic Majesty's Army in Germany in the Seven Years' War.

An 18th Century summer ahead, it seems!

M

M. le Marquis...

I have had a fruitful day's painting. I've been working steadily away on the Regt. de Condé, and moreover have finally begun work on painting "Our Hero" himself!

I've had the miniature for a while-the Marquis de Montcalm figure from Front Rank's French and Indian War range- but was in no hurry to get him done until I decided on a paint scheme.

Well, in the end I've decided to give him a mulberry red coat with gold lace, this being the uniform of the hereditary Princes Ecclesiastical of the Bishopric of St. Vignobles.

I was going to give him a brown horse, but in the end I thought that a dappled grey would set off the uniform better. The only hitch was that painting horseflesh has always been tricky for me, and a dappled grey doubly so, and it took me a lot of courage- and a few glasses of red wine- before I got around to checking out online articles about painting horses, and then to actually getting down to work.

It's turning out quite decently, actually. You can see the results so far below.

I've pretty well finished the horse except for the tack and hooves, and I have blocked in the Marquis' coat and face. I tend to start by painting in deeper shades, and then progressivley lighten the top coat so that the final result gives a rich, opaque finish.

The coat was given a base of Ceramcoat's mulberry, highlighted with an ancient pot of Ral Partha light reddish brown that I've had hanging around so long that the name on the label has faded away!

I really miss the Ral Partha paints; the selection was vast, and I always found them easy to work with. Iron Wind Metals in the US carries some now, but the selection is a very, very pale shadow of what was once available.

I also worked on one of the standards for the second battalion of the Regt. Condé. I made the flag myself on PowerPoint, printed it out with a laser printer, and after wrapping it around the pole and gluing the two sides together, I touched up the edges and highlights. I will slip it off the flagpole while I paint the standard bearer, and I still have to prime and paint the final with its cords and cravattes.

Photo's a bit washed out in the artificial light, but lookin' good, I think!

This last week has been pretty hectic. One of my colleagues has had to return home for as spell due to a family bereavement, and tomorrow I'll be heading up country to teach an intensive course for a pharmaceutical company all next week, so I'll be off the radar for a while.

When I get back next Friday I'll try to finish the good Marquis on the weekend, along with his escort from les Dragons du Beauffremont, and a scout from the Hussards de Sarkozy reporting on the enemy's movements. They'll all be mounted on a hexagonal base for Koenig Krieg.