Variation on PP Series 10 musketeers

[Lluis of Minairons]

Hi,

Only recently I noticed that Martin had his Range 10-011 Musket troops remodeled. I had used some of his former soldiers sculpts before, as dismounted cavalry troopers mainly. But when I saw the new sculpts with fixed bayonets I felt the impulse to give them a try, so this is the result.



I've arranged them as a 18-figure Regiment of the Line, for my War of Spanish Succession pro-allied Catalan army, using 13 of PP's figures, complemented by a rear line sergeant from Roundway, as well as the command group and a grenadier that are from Dixon. I must say that all three brands' sculpts do combine quite well, IMHO.



This one particular unit is Busquets' Regiment, the only one in the Catalan army whose uniform is still unknown to-day. As for contemporary hospital registers, where a few of its men were taken care for, their coats seemingly were brown or musk, so I've painted the figures in three different colours (brown, musk and neutral grey), randomly assigning to them red, blue or khaki trousers and stockings, as well as mostly black hats with no border but with a yellow lace for all. Red facings are obviously uncertain, but likely in any case.



As for the flag, it is known that Busquets' Regiment was assigned no regulation flags, due to the unit being created outside Barcelona at a moment when the city was already under siege; so with cut off communications with the High Command and institutions. As unlikely as it seems to me that the unit's colonel-owner would resign to this, I assume he did improvise flags for his regiment. The catalonian folk-lore uses to attribute black flags to countryside's anti-Bourbon guerrillas, so I've used one of its known variants for my regiment: plain black, with a skull and crossed bones painted white on obverse, along with the motto "VIUREM LLIURES O MORIREM" --a catalan language sentence meaning "Shall we live free, or shall we die".



All my WSS units are based the same way, on 3 x 1.5 cm stands with three figures each. This is due to my armies migration process from Principles of War (that required 3 of such stands for a regiment) to Beneath the Lily Banners, that states 18 figure regiments in three 6-figure stands. Rather than rebasing, I just doubled my regiments' size keeping the original bases --in the end, a PoW stand could be considered as a BLB "half stand". Also, I started using Gale Force 9 trays to help making movement easier.



Keeping such basing schema has allowed me to realize how easily one given regiment could be transformed into another, just by replacing the original command stand by another one with the appropriate identifying flag... I shall show you some pictures on the swapping effect later this week.

I'm quite happy with this unit - it somehow manages to keep some 'regular' look despite the actual uniformity lack.

Lluís
www.minairons.eu

[martin goddard]

Thanks for using them!   A 15mm article?

[Lluis of Minairons]

Thanks for using them!   A 15mm article?

Thanks, Martin 
An article? Yes it might be useful as an idea for units id swapping. Please allow me a few days to write a second thread showing the swapping result.
Er... I assume *someone* would later revise and/or redo the text, because my english language knowledge is close to that of a primary school kid 

[Radar]

Lluis - your English is excellent, knocks many native English speakers for six. (Cricketing analogy, all the rage at the moment, can't think why?)
Figures are jolly nice too.

[Leslie BT]

Figures look great Lluis.
Just get an article out, your english is fine. Someone will check to see that you have not made any major errors.

[shedman]

Lovely unit - well done

[Leman (Andy)]

They look very good.

[Lluis of Minairons]

Well, this is the thing in the end. An entire regiment can be transformed into another one, just by replacing its command group. Quite a silly solution, admittedly --but a really convenient one if unwilling to double your collection and hobby expense! 

That new command group consists of Essex figures --that do combine pretty well too with the rest, I'd say. They've been assigned a rather generic Imperial flag --a design by Minairons to be released yet, BTW. This is one of the rare privileges of owning a miniatures brand! 



The operation can be justified here because the new regiment built shares some key features with the original one: uncertain uniform and unknown flags. Besides, these two units never met to each other in the battlefield, because the first one (Busquets' IR) fought inside Catalonia only, while this new one (whose name was Llorach's IR) garrisoned Sardinia permanently between 1708 and 1717.



At the time of its raising in Catalonia, Llorach's regiment got a hard core of Catalan officers and soldiers - being later completed, once in Sardinia, with former Two Crowns soldiers and native islanders.



As silly as such a trick can be, I hope it can help someone anyway!
Lluís