Sound the "Pas de Charge"!

...and get ready for painting. Here are the boys, mounted on plastic bottle caps and ready to submit themselves (again!) to the agonies of my paintbrush. All Front Rank figures, of course.

7eme Chasseurs a Cheval- 28eme legere- skirmishers/ artillery crew

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Here's a closeup of the 7eme Chasseurs a Cheval. I did some head swapping on some to give them an "on campaign" look. Note the bugler in his poncy pink facings- including the shako!

Lots of work to do yet on this unit, but as there are only twelve of them to do, I'm cautiously optimistic that I can get them done by the deadline (Hah! famous last words...).

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Here's the 28eme legere. Actually, upon inspection these fellows don't need all that much work before they are presentable on the tabletop! Not visible is the command stand- already finished and shown earlier in this blog.

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In the front of the following picture, you can see some skirmishers for the 28eme Legere, six figures including an officer and hornist. Lots of conversions here, including colpacks, flammes and in some cases elite company epaulettes added to the greatcoats. All sculpted from Tamiya epoxy modelling putty.

Pure artistic licence on my part, I am assuming that even with the coming of the Bardin regulations, the proud colonels would be reluctant to part with those ostentatious badges of their "elite" status. Indeed, there is a contemporary print of French troops surrendering at Leipzig which shows the officers in this headgear- two years after it was officially forbidden.

Rules are, after all, meant either to broken or to be ignored.

In the back rows you can see some artillery crew and officers- not part of the "pledge", but I found them in the same box while dusting off (literally!) the cavalry. No gun yet, but I may assemble a six-pounder to go with them if time allows.