"Louisiana Tigers" Topic

Hi all

Here I post some pics of painting commission work.
Figures are from Newline Design 20mm range, with little conversion for the straw hats.

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I hope you like the pictures.

Best regards

Angel.

Those look great!

Here's a heads up, though. You're going to get some nitpickers about your brown coats.

Hi Angel

Great work especially the conversions.

I'm interested in the B&B figures you mentioned in another thread. Please email me at philiprussell at blueyonder dot co dot uk if they're still available.

Kind regards

Phil

Nice work on the trousers, they must have taken forever to paint.

Nice painting and the figs look interesting as you have based them.

Beautiful unit

Whats the nitpick on the brown coats?

The coats were origionally blue. The log dye turned brown over a period of time. Have seen arguments over how long it took. I've also read that there is no justification for the red and blue ticking on the trousers, should be blue only ? I've done figures in 54mm with both
beautiful work on the figures, though !

Paul

Don't get me wrong. I really do think he did a great job. I actually have a unit of the Tigers in brown coats with straw hats and a unit of the Tigers in blue coats with fez. They're fine either way in my opinion. I just like the way they stand out among the waves of grays and browns, when they make it on the table.

Awesome--just done some in 6mm--Not quite as detailed but still a colourful unit in a sea of grey/brown and dark blue!!

Sorry, archstanton, but I can not paint anything smaller than 10mm…my eyes are getting older.

Napoleonminiatures, I really like your painting style. Do you have other pictures?

That myth about the blue coats turning brown is a bunch of bunk! A grave of members of the Tigers was unearthed years ago,and it in was some small bits and pieces of BLUE,not brown material.
Also,the Tigers were only a COMPANY,not a full regiment or battalion.There were different uniforms within the Bn.,and the Tigers were just one of them.
For some reason,wargamers love painting odd and flamboyant uniforms when in fact,they didn't exist.

But hey,its a free Country right??

Bob C.

Also,the flag they MAY have carried is also a matter of conjecture.I knew of a BAD reenactment group who did them,brown jackets and all,who carried a FRENCH flag,with some sort of emblem on it!
Yeah,some reenactors are just as bad!

Bob C.

Anyway, do you like the miniatures or not?

They could be or they could be not dress that way, but…

They look well on the table, and get a +1 on their die rolls!

I have more pics, by the way, jawjatec, this website is full of them

napoleon@napoleon.com.es

If you mean to my comission work, let me know and I will show you other work

Thank you all for your comments!

And, Jawjatec, you can call me Angel

The figures look great. Yes, the uniforms are wrong from all research I've done. There were books published long ago that had the pictures of the brown coats and multi-color stripes, but there is no evidence that they were ever issued. But who cares, they still look great! Very good job on the painting!

Not suffiently qualified to comment on the issue of the coat colours, but that is a bloody nicely painted unit which would grace any table.

Lovely work there – more please!

I never said they were badly painted figures.Just wrong color scheme and flag.
Very nice work in spite of the above.

Bob C.

They do look very nice. What system are they based for?

Nathan

Thank you for all your kind comments. IŽll post more of this commission: I have to paint two complete armies of Newline figures, so I will post the best figures.

On the other hand, and in order to have my work as correct as I can, if you could give me some ideas about what units to paint, I would be very pleased with your help.

Tha base are not for a specific rules. They are the bases that I think that look best for Musket era, so I bases all my figures in this way. I do not like the rules with specific basing, nor the rules in which you have to use tape measurer or other measuring devices: I prefer grid movement, like in our NapoleoN rules, area movement, like in Strategos II/Lost Battles, by Phil Sabin, or locationn movement, like the magnificent rules developed by K J Warren, at Realtime Rules.

If the grave 95thRegt is referring to is the one of the 2 Tigers executed by firing squad, those coats would have only been a few months old and may not have had a chance to fade. One flag the Tigers carried but I have never seen in a drawing or painting is the one with the words "Gentle As A" with the outline of a lamb under it.

If the grave 95thRegt is referring to is the one of the 2 Tigers executed by firing squad, those coats would have only been a few months old and may not have had a chance to fade
>>>
Maybe,but I still fail to buy the fading coat theory.I've been to museums,studied existing blue coats and jackets,and not one has faded after fireld use PLUS,over 140 years.So everybody's coats faded to the exact same shade,and at the exact same time?? Sorry,I don't buy it. I look to such artists as Don Troiani for my inspiration,who does exhaustive research before even attempting a painting,and he portrays them in BLUE.
Also,the Tiger COMPANY basically dissolved after Wheat was killed at Gaines Mill in 1862.And I'm sure said flag never left N.O. for the East,as the parent battalion may have carried a color,but the companies would not have.

Not trying to rain on aybody's parade here,just trying to be historically correct.

Bob C.

Actualy the Whole Brigade was called the lousiana Tigers. The name originates with the 6th Lousiana. And only one regiment in the Brigade wore those french zouave uniforms "excuse the spelling". But that fell out of style becuase those bright uniforms made you a great target

Author and expert Terry L. Jones' classic book on the Tigers indicates the name came the Tiger Zouaves, a company in Wheat' Battalion. When Wheat was killed, his battalion was broken up. The name "Louisiana Tigers" came to be carried by both the First and Second Louisiana Brigades.

I have submitted a new manuscript to the publisher entitled, "A Spirit of Daring: Hays' Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign." It is expected to be in print very late in 2009 if all goes well.

It is just another example of some harmless artistic licence being taken by individual ACW wargamers. It does add some color, and when they are done as well as these are, some real respect must be given. The concept of a large unit, that lasted a long time might be total fantasy, just like Weeds brigade at Gettysburg being represented as ALL Zouave units (they were later), but really what does it matter in the end? I am more a "historical purist" , but I know that I have also,sometimes, gone for what looks best over what something likely really looked like back in the day!

I do not like the rules with specific basing, nor the rules in which you have to use tape measurer or other measuring devices: I prefer grid movement, like in our NapoleoN rules, area movement, like in Strategos II/Lost Battles, by Phil Sabin, or location movement, like the magnificent rules developed by K J Warren, at Realtime Rules.

Sorry, I know this is an old thread, but what is location movement? I've tried a brief search on the internet, but can't find anything.

IIRC, it's a system of movement that does not involve measurements or hexes or gridlines. Instead, you simply move from one specific geographic location to another within a specified set of conditions. I have seen it played at a convention somewhere in my distant gaming past, but don't unfortunately recall the exact mechanism.

By the way, to get back to the LA Tigers, my book mentioned above on the Tigers will be in print in October from LSU Press. It's entitled The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863 and contains the most detailed account of the Tigers' assault on the West Fort at Second Winchester on June 14, 1863. $34.95. Hardback. Printed on acid-free, archival paper from Glatfelter Paper. Maps of Second Winchester by Bradley Gottfried; campaign maps by me.

I am planning on running a Second Winchester game (for Johnny Reb 3) at Fall-In to celebrate the release of the book.

Thanks for the explanation, Scott.

Does anyone know a rule set which uses this movement system?

very nice!

Any information out there about what the battle flags of the 1st Louisiana Brigade, ANV, looked like ? I saw an example, I think it was in the MoC of the 5th LA and it was ANV plain, though I'm not inclined to think that was the definitive.

On another note, the LSU Tigers are playing in the national championship game vs. Alabama, and according to ESPN the team mascot was specifically named after the original Tigers.

ESPN, noted source of historical information! :)

I think that in this case they might actually be correct!

They may be right about the name, but I'm not so sure they'd be right about the flags :)

One rules system is Piquet, or at least some version of it. Its inthe Les Grognards book… Or maybe Command Piquet? Anyhoo, its called Horizon movement, or something like that, where movement is effectively unlimited for a unt or command unless it changes siutation during the move. So, if they crest a hill, or come under distant arty fire, or enter a woodline, then they stop. This is controlled by the other player having the ability to steal a move from the other player in some situations. I had both the above rulesets, but its been years since I played them, and I never used the horizon movement. It aeems like it would work well on very large tables. The basic idea is to speed up the game by cutting out the part where the players slowly march towards each othr, also to break up the general advance you often see in wargames…

More misc. re. the Ala from Wiki:

"Shortly after the end of the 1922 season in which he led Alabama in the victory over Penn, head coach Xen C. Scott died of cancer, and Brown University alum Wallace Wade was hired as the new head coach. Intent on building a dynasty after Wade led the team to the Rose Bowl win over Washington, the team's first national championship, and "the game that changed the South."[22] Athletics director George Denny took advantage of the team's newfound popularity and began advertising the University of Alabama in metropolitan New York City newspapers. Students, football players and fans alike from the Northeast began enrolling at Alabama at such a rate that by 1930, over one-third of the student body was from out-of-state.[23]"

The recent 'Stainless Banner at Gettysburg' thread came to a definite conclusion re the flags of Hayes' Louisiana brigade in 1863:

TMP link

Ryan Toews nailed them down as ANV Southern Cross pattern.

Jumping in late, but if they were originally issued blue coats, then they were almost certainly dyed with indigo. And indigo doesn't fade. Surviving examples of union sack coats (which were definitely dyed with indigo) show little variation in shade between areas exposed to the sun and those that weren't (such as interior seems).

Most variations found in the blue between surviving sack coats are most likely the result of how many times the original bolts of fabric were dipped in the vats of indigo, and the purity of the dye in the first place. Each 'dip' made the coats darker. For example, Federal sky blue pants and overcoats were dipped in the exact same vats of indigo, but just not as many times. There was a contractual number of times each bolt was supposed to be dipped, but there was certainly an incentive for the manufacturer to dip (and change out the dye in the vats) as few times as possible.

Anyway, I don't know what the LA Tigers wore, but the blue-fading-to-brown story isn't very plausible.

I did my Tigers in Brown and red and blue stripes on the trousers, simply because no one is 100% sure what colour the uniform really was. It faded, it was dyed, it was bleached by the sun.

The trousers I did with a red and white stripe, as it was be linen the cut up, and I have never seen just a blue stripe on a bed sheet, blue red yes just blue no?

bgb,

My understanding was that the trousers were made from bed ticking, which was what they used as mattress cover material. If they actually used linen, it wouldn't have held up long at all under active campaigning.

But I wouldn't sweat the stripe colors or even the brown vs blue issue. Nobody really knows for sure, and by 1862 they would have been dressed like everybody else anyway.

For what its worth, I recall seeing ancient mattresses in a WWII-era army barracks that my National Guard unit used back in the late 80s. The bed ticking was white with blue stripes.

There were 4 companies in the original 1st Special
Battalion, Louisiana Volunteer Infantry (2nd Louisiana
Battalion) organized by Chatham Roberdeau Wheat.

His company was the 'Old Dominion Guards,' named for
Virginia where he was born.

The third company, Capt. Alexander White, was called
the 'Tiger Rifles,' and it's from this company that
the entire battalion (and subsequently any Louisiana
infantry) were given the sobriquet 'Tigers,' as much
a testament to their apparent fighting qualities as
to their association with the original Wheat's Tigers.