Last Fall Murawski Miniatures released the first part of our new range; the Army of the Grand Duchy of Baden. I had been annoying Roger for a while, lamenting the absence of a proper Baden range in 28mm. Of all the Confederation of the Rhine contingents, it was my favourite and the army saw substantial action in my favourite campaign of 1809 in Austria.
Eventually Roger gave in and put me in charge of most of the historical research, and I did a lot of the work creating the range along with sculptor Christian Ame, as Paul Hicks was unavailable to start working on a complete and extensive new Napoleonic range. I learned a lot, I must say, in this process. It's not easy working on a Napoleonic force, especially a small one like Baden. Conflictual sources abound, and there are so many details to get right. In the end I'm quite happy with our work, if not for a very small issue with the helmet's (raupenhelm) comb. But we did include details I've never seen before in a Baden range, like the small cartridge pouch worn on the belly suspended to the waistbelt of the Schützen (voltigeurs).
I received the figure in October but to my chagrin couldn't start work on them until 2016, completely swamped with real life issues. The Badeners had a very distinctive but great look, and I think we made them justice. Christian did a very good job.
So I finally finished my first battalion just yesterday. It was supposed to be my last and most glorious entry in the Analogue painting Challenge but house visits screwed up my plan.
I decided to start with the 2nd regiment, as I'm always a sucker for yellow facings. The 1808 facings were as follow :
No.
|
Title/Inhaber
|
Facings
|
Buttons, etc
|
1
|
Leib Regt Grossherzog
|
Scarlet w/ white lace
|
White
|
2
|
Erbgrossherzog
|
Deep Yellow
|
Yellow
|
3
|
von Harrant
|
Deep Red
|
White
|
4
|
von Porbeck*
|
White
|
Yellow
|
So here it is, the first battalion of the 2nd regiment, obviously set in 1809, proudly waving the white Leibfahne.
The Grenadiers had red epaulets but white plumes, while the Schützen had both green epaulets and plumes; notice their belly cartridge pounch.
The collar, lapels, and cuffs were of the regimental facing colour but turnbacks for all regiments were scarlet.
Each of the 4 regiments received two flags, a Leibfahne which was given to the 1st Battalion and a Regimenterfahne which was carried by the 2nd Battalion. The flags were of a common design and differed only by the colour for each regiment. This did not necessarily equate to the regimental facing colours as the original flags were retain by their battalions when the regiments moved in the line seniority: 1st Regiment – Scarlet; 2nd Regiment – Scarlet; 3rd Regiment – Dark Blue, and 4th Regiment - Yellow. Obviously it was originally intended that each regiment carried flags matching their facing colours. Peter, over at Blunders on the Danube, decided to go with the intended logic and gave each of his regiment the flag matching it's facings. I almost followed in his footstep, as it indeed looks better. But since my battalions are going to be used extensively on our website and advertising, I thought it better to go with historical accuracy in this case. No matter the colour, those were rather superb flags!
The officers wore a Bicorne until the shako was adopted; they never wore the helmets. Gold or silver rank epaulets depending on the regiment. The front of the coat was made so that the lapels could be unbuttoned and closed over the breast; the right lapel folding inside the left which was then fastened using the buttons on the right of the coat. This gave the appearance of a double breasted coat with two rows of buttons down the front; the expensive colour faced lapels were thus protected during everyday wear or when on campaign. The officer on the left has thus closed it's lapels.
Drummers had scarlet swallow nest trimmed by a livery lace in white with scarlet and yellow piping. On both sleeves, six chevrons of livery lace, seams covered with same lace. I didn't do the yellow piping, as it really was too much and didn't look good on such small figures.
One of the great thing about this little army is that you can build the whole thing at the tactical scale. In 1809, the army consisted of :
1 Battalion of Leib Garde of
1 Squadron of Guard du Corps
4 Line Infantry Regiments of 2 battalions
1 Jager Battalion Von Lingg
1 Light Dragoon Regiment
1 Hussar Regiment
1 6 lbr Horse Artillery Battery
2 6 lbr Foot Artillery Batteries (one in Spain)
A Napoleonic army you can actually finish, isn't it awesome!?
I strongly recommend to anyone interested in the Duchy of Baden to have a read over at Blunders on the Danube : Peter has written the definitive blog post on the army. I thought of writing something similar on this blog but what's the point, as Peter covers everything, and writes a better english than I!
Right now Murawski Miniatures offers everything you need to build a line infantry regiment in full dress. Infantry in campaign dress, mounted officers, as well as artillery and cavalry are in the plans. Anyone who knows Roger and the way he does things knows you can expect a complete range in due time. But we do need your help to fund the rest of the range range! Buy people, buy!
