My first Duchy of Warsaw Poles

Well, I finally found the time to base and photograph my very first unit of Poles, from Murawski Miniatures. They are meant to represent the 1st battalion of the 1st Infantry Regiment of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. As with almost all of my Napoleonic collection, the uniforms used are those of the 1809 campaign, which suits me well as I prefer the Polish uniforms of the 1807-1810 era. The Polish uniforms of 1807-1810 had varied facings and lapels based on the Division the Regiment was from :

Regiment	facing(1)	lapels	buttons
1 to 4 (1st division)	scarlet	yellow	yellow
5 to 8 (2nd division)	crimson	crimson	white
9 to 12 (3rd division)	white	white	yellow
(1) worn on collar, cuffs and turnbacks.

This can make for a colourful order of battle, and just great looking units. My force will be based on the OOB from the battle of Raszyn, an ideal battle for someone with a sizable Austrian army like yours truly. 

I painted these using my newest technique of a grey undercoat, 3 layers technique and a final coat of army painter. This method was used for my biblical army and some of my FIW, but it was the first time I was using it with Napoleonics. Before, I was mostly using a technique of black undercoat and black lining. I think it came out great, and the colours looks very realistic to me. I also tried a new way of painting yellow using mostly ochre colours instead of actual yellow. Again, I find it looks more realistic. 

I also painted 2 skimishers to go with the unit, however I'm still unsure of what basing I will use for my skirmishers stands from now on so I have yet to base them. I ordered some bases style from Litko to do a few tests.

Those damn Poles have more stuff on them than christmas trees! ;-) Looks great, but they are a bit more work than your usual Austrian soldier. But that's just me being lazy, I'm very pleased of the figures and my painting. 

So here it is, le 1er Bataillon du 1er Régiment d'infanterie du Grand Duché de Varsovie. As usual, flags by GMB, bases from Litko.

 
The 1st Regiment was part of the 1st Division and as such had yellow lapels and scarlet facings. The drummers and Sappeur's uniforms are conjectural and a bit of artistic license from my part, but from my readings we can safely assume the Poles were quite extravagant in their uniforms. It seems they would even vary from one battalion to the next! Which is always something that makes a miniature painter happy...

The figures were as advertised; lots of character, crisp details and just a joy to paint. I especially enjoyed painting the faces, and it seems all the figures have a personality of their own. And I decided to mix both full and campaign dress in the same unit to create a lot of diversity.