"Shako Feathers at Battalion Level Question" Topic

Hello! I am brand new to Napoleonics. Having been playing 28mm fantasy and sci fi skirmish for my whole life, some of this is quite new to me, some of it isnt. Something about 10mm and corps level rules bit me very hard last month and has not let go. I have plans already and have researched non stop. Love it.

Anyway. That said there is one detail I still cant figure out before I get rolling on Devouts 3rd corps at Wagram to start. I cant really figure out or decide how to color the fusilier feathers. From my research that detail was at the company level, not battalion.

What do YOU do? Unless I am mistaken this is pretty much left to personal taste. Do you use it to denote regiment? Brigade? Do you make them ALL blue?

Side note I am doing 4x2 on 30x20. I think I will represent the Grenadier and Volts front rank with sarge and standard in between. Anyone else do this? It goes all in on making potential company level play with the same stands too strange, but eagles on every stand already does that, so I am going for broke.

Thank you all.

Not sure what you mean by feathers, but if you are talking about the Pom poms, there are 4 different colors, one for each fusilier company in a battalion. Light blue, orange, violet, and green. Of course the grenadier company has red and the voltiguers have yellow. So you will see all of those colors in my battalions.

Thanks Speculus

Yes, the pom poms. I was under the impression they were made from feathers, but I digress just my reason for using the word.

I understood the difference in the companies, my question was how do people address this differently when representing a battalion in a stand of 6-8 figures. Are you saying you make each fusilier on the stand a different color pom pom? That is an interesting solution. In my case I could do the grenadiers and volts on each side in a figure, plus command, and the back rank of four (I am doing 8x2) four different colors.

PS I realize now that "on battalion stands" would have been less confusing wording than "at battalion level" and I apologize.

That sounds like a workable solution.

Jim

It gets worse. The second and subsequent battalions had the same colour scheme as the first but the pompoms were now white discs edged in the company colour.

By Wagram French battalions had six companies, four fusilier, one grenadier and one voltigeur. Light battalions similar except the troops were called chasseurs and carabiniers rather than fusiliers and grenadiers. FWIW the elite companies were quite often slightly smaller than the others, so if your figures per battalion doesn't divide neatly by 6, that may be useful to know.

Oh, and cavalry had elite companies too…

Currently I do 24 fusiliers, 6 of each pompon colour. This gives me the potential for a battalion with added grenadiers and voltigeurs, but it's a compromise because at the moment I use them for generic battalions without being very precise about lining them up in the right order. I guess you have to do what feels OK for you. I don't think one of each colour on a stand would work for me – just *too* unlike real life …

Grenadiers and voltigeurs also have slightly different uniforms. So if I were building battalions of just 6-8 figures, I would go with units of all fusiliers, all grenadiers and all voltigeurs. Then I could combine them for other rules sets to form big battalions. I would omit command figures entirely. For flags I'd just glue a rod to one base and add the flag to that. For the pom poms I'd go with a solid color.

I also do units of 24 mounted 2/base so I can represent the different companies.

My Battalions have 12 figures, so I have 2 figure companies, neatly fits for the Pom Pom colors. And maybe someone will correct me, but I think the pom poms were made of wool.

Thank you all for the thoughts. This is just what I was after – different opinions and solutions to weigh against my little vacuum of ideas.

Extra Crispy – This crossed my mind as well. I COULD certainly forgo being precise on the Eagles, 1 per battalion, and make the collection itself interchangeable between divisional and battalion play. Do one eagle per Division at Wagram, then some side units of G and V stands if I ever want to play *company* rules.

To be fair, I am not a huge fan of command. I like 4x2 for the added visual weight, but playing around with 3x2 that is just half your base as command and it feels off to me for every unit. In terms of scale it would be abstracted away as well. I guess it is just wargamer habits from 28mm that every command should be there, but none will free up more gaming possibilities.

Speculus – 12 was an idea too, my rational thought was if you blur your minds eye you have 4 line companies in 8 still.

VESG
LLLL

V- volt G- Grenadier E- eagle S- Sarge L – Line

So it works in my head as a blurry either 4 or 6 line depending on period.

No clear solution just yet, but you have all given me something to stew on. Thank you.

I use 1 stand = 1 brigade, so there's no chance or point trying to represent pompon colors at company level.

So I just use the same color for the whole unit, as a way of telling them apart.

I have 8 figures in a battalion, so what I do is:
1st battalion – 4 Grenadiers, + 1st companies fusiliers
2nd battalion – 2nd and 3rd companies fusiliers
3rd battalion – 4th company fusiliers.

Voltigeurs as a separate skirmishing base.

Obviously I have to improvise for regiments with different numbers of battalions.

It means my second and third battalions don't have the white in the pompom but I can combine them into a single battalion for different rules where I want 24 figures in a battalion.

I think there are lots of different ways to deal with this. My bigger issue is how to do Austrian combined Grenadier battalions, where there are three sets of facing colours and eight isn't divisible by three . . .

Cheers,
John

In 1809 some regiments may still have had grenadiers in bearskin with red plumes, if not then shakos with red pom pom and plume. Voltigeurs may have had plumes in various configurations featuring yellow and green. Examples: yellow pom pom and plume, green pom pom and plume, yellow pom pom green plume tipped yellow etc. These configurations are regiment-specific, so each regiment in 3ème Corps will have to be researched in this regard.
Light regiments similar.