"I have too many imperial guard figures" Topic

Hi all, complete newbie to napoleonics here

Decided I wanted to start a 1/72 or 20mm french army , based in battalions of 24 for infantry, 12 for cavalry etc.

Tge issue is is that I have way more than two battalions worth of guard grenadiers, and the Dutch grenadiers are the only other unit which can (sort of) be made out of these models.

I'm trying to add two figures to the line infantry grenadier companies to give it the early napoleonic effect, but I'll still have tonnes left over.

Any advice would be appreciated:)

First Swiss had grenadiers in a French style uniform, but red coats or go for something like these – Italian guard.

link

Duchy of Warsaw also had grenadiers in the bearskins, but you would need specific figures for the line companies

Westphalians? Neapolitans?

Converged battalions of line grenadiers sometimes show up in Spain far from the center companies, and sometimes still had bearskins.

See here: link

Lots of uniform info for Napoleonic armies, including those of all that small German states. For instance I painted French Garde Grenadiers for the Saxons.

As noted I would add them in as grenadier companies in your ligne regiments

Well well thank you all so much, you have just solved the problem for me :)

I think I shall get through them by continuing to use them for line grenadiers ,but the shout to use them as allied grenadiers is a fantastic one.

Thinking Westphalia Is a good shout.

Anyways thanks again this has really helped :)

Too…many…minis ??

You can have converged grenadier battalions. The line infantry grenadiers look just the same.

However, their rolled great coats are probably grey.
Have I got this right?

Cheers.

Too…many…minis ?? <\q>

I know it seems an impossible problem to have :D.

Hi Cavcmdr

I will probably have a couple of the brigade battalions of ligne grenadiers, but the fact that they do just look the same without any flavour almost puts me off of painting any battalions of the actual old guard if you see what I mean.

I'm not fretting too much about the great coat situation as I think there's only one sculpt that's wearing one anyway.

Cheers

The tramp

It's a tragic thing, Stryderg, but TMM (Too Many Miniatures) Syndrome is like OD'ing on vitamins: it can happen if you don't maintain a balanced diet of some sort. Imperial Guard in Bearskins is the second leading cause of TMM, right behind Tiger II tanks.

Very few people ever say "I have more line infantry, dragoons, 6-pd guns and medium tanks than I can possibly use." No one ever says "Help! I have too many recon and support vehicles!"

Wurttemberg also had a guard grenadier battalion.

I once did some hat swaps with those annoying "uselessly posed" line infantry figures to make some middle guard Fusilier Grenadiers and Fusilier Chasseurs.

Once painted they looked ok.

That's a nice idea La Fleche, didn't know the line infantry uniform was particularly distinctive from the ig apart from the bearskin.

Hard to do headswaps in 1/72 anyway tho.

Hard to do headswaps in 1/72 anyway tho.

Yes a bit hard to swap the whole head but slicing off just the hats is manageable and. in addition to glue. can be pinned for added durability.

The one plus side of 1/72 boxed figures is that there are always spares to experiment with.

Back in the day when there were only ESCI plastics where I lived I did hat swaps to make:
French hussars from British Light Dragoons and French Line Infantry Shakos;
French Line Foot Artillery from French Guard Foot Artillery and some old Airfix French Artillery shakos;
French Horse Artillery from British Horse Artillery and French Line Infantry Shakos;
French Foot Gendarmes from French Imperial Guard Grenadiers and Prussian Infantry bicornes.
Prussian Gardes du Corps from British Scots Greys and Prussian Infantry bicornes.

Sure, they had the wrong buttons but they fought and died as well as the most expensive lead castings.

Fair play I suppose, I must give it a go :)

Fair play I suppose, I must give it a go :)

Nothing ventured and all that…

Back then (crumbs, 30-odd years ago!) I could only dream about having the range of 1/72 Napoleonic plastics that are available today.

Oftentimes it was frustrating but neccessity is the mother of invention and I suppose I was proud of my "customised" figures – especially when catching peoples' double-takes when they appeared on the table.

To labour the point:
French Gardes d'Honneur from ESCI British Light Dragoons and French Line Infantry plumed officers' shakos; and Austrian Infantry helmets turned French Cuirassiers into Carabiniers and Polish Lancers into French Line Lancers too.

I'd reccommend you give it a try. It can be rewarding and will at least give you a taste of the things we had to do to our wee men to get some variety onto the table.

Oh, and as a postscript: Cleve-Berg Greadiers paint conversion.

That seems a really lovely thing to do actually, once I've made a foreign contingent of various allied abd italian grenadiers, I may see if I can make some young garde.

Thanks for your help :)

You could also consider the Italian Guard (see for example Eugene's IV corps in the 1812 Russian campaign. They might require some bearskin modifications if you want that level of detail but the essential uniform is the same (but green rather than blue).

Paris Municipal Guard perhaps?

Not a bad shout let's party with cossacks, I think especially the detail is so marginal it'll be easy.

Did the Paris municipal guard wear Bearskins?

The grenadier companies at least did, Poetic. It's been so long since I've seen them on a tabletop I couldn't vouch for the center companies. (They actually saw service--Spain, and I think Germany.)

One other element to consider is how the French guard was deployed. You rarely get a couple of battalions of guard to be proportional to the rest of your force present. It's either all there (however much in any given year) or none of it. Largely the same with Cuirassiers. They generally kept the big hammer all together.
Phil

Ah well cheers Robert that's certainly one to consider.

And thank you Phil, perhaps I won't even use any as actual guard then, maybe just having a foreign contingent of grenadiers is the answer.

What is the subtitle of the fourth black figure to the right? I cannot read it. What is he carrying? Is that a standard?

link

Link was posted above.

After some squinting, guessing games and google translate it says "Haitian black musician." Now to figure out what he is holding, it is quite interesting. My first guess is a giant over the top flute, but that seems as equally likely as silly.

What is he carrying?

It's called a "Jingling Johnny", basically a stick with bells on it.

Here is Warlord's French Imperrial Guard Grenadiers' Band to illustrate (though not exhaustively) the variety of instruments in military bands of the period:

I think I ended up with too many cuirassiers. I know I got too many Scots Greys (which with some art can be repurposed.)

Going the other way, I forgot to get more Polish lancers when I had opportunity.

I picked up a lot of Russian grenadiers in the old miter cap, to convert by replacing their heads with heads from Airfix French. In my experience, full-head swaps have worked out better than transferring headgear.

I was glad to replace the Airfix in my French units with any of the better looking alternatives that became available.

@ porthos "I painted French Garde Grenadiers for the Saxons". Obviously it depends on scale, but everything I've seen shows you need Austrian bearskins for Saxons with the extra floppy bit of the bag trimmed off, French bearskins are too tall.

Gosh, this all takes me back 50 years or more!
I recall we repainted Airfix AWI British Grenadiers as old-fashioned Saxon grenadiers