"My first ever painted French line infantry" Topic

My first ever painted unit of French infantry a mix of Victrix and Perry plastics. these chaps were painted up to join my French dragoons in my latest battle but sadly I didn't get them finished in time. It turns out painting French uniforms is a time consuming business.

In my chosen 1809 Bohemian theatre of operations the French presence wasn't massive and basically consisted of some scattered garrison units in Northern Germany and a small reserve corps under GD Junot. The Reserve corps consisted of six battalions of French infantry, all of which were newly raised 4th battalions, two provisional dragoon regiments made up of depot squadrons and two artillery batteries manned by a mix of horse artillery men and infantry men.

This then is the first battalion of six. I think I've managed to get the general details right but I'm sure there are some mistakes (someone on Facebook has already pointed out to me the flag is large for example). With regards to the flag as these units were 4th battalions, raised around the time French units were told to return all but one of their eagles, I'm assuming these units would have had the new regulation battalion fanion instead. From what information I can find these battalion flags were put in to the regulations in 1808 but it wasn't until 1812 that colours for these flags were made regulation at which point 4th battalions were supposed to have a plain blue flag. Between 1808 and 1812 the flag design seems to have been left to the battalion commanders desecration. I've plumped for the blue flag in line with the post 1812 regulations with little bit of non regulation numbering.

First line infantry but can tell you are skilled with a paint brush.

They look very good.
Be proud of them.

Have fun.

I doubt any 'first ever' unit has ever looked better than this one. Congratulations on a superb job.

Thanks chaps. Yes it's not my first ever painted unit I've been slapping paint on miniatures for almost 40 years. Until last year I hadn't ever painted anything Napoleonic. I started with some Austrians and Bavarians so this is my first ever attempt at French infantry (I did paint some French Dragoons a while back)

Valeur et discipline!

Look great – thanks for sharing

Nice

Beautifully done.

Nice – well done!

You do great work.

Beautiful figures. You are right, the French infantry uniform is more difficult than it looks. I've painted a lot of them and NONE ever looked as nice as yours.

Thanks chaps.