The Regiment of Horse of the Duc de Luxembourg, 1688

“Never allow them to move unthreatened. Always watch their lines of approach. Deny them a direct line to the flanks of your foot, My Lord.  Force them to stand.  Place them under fire at every opportunity if at all possible.  Above all, never lose your sight of their location in the Field. The regiments of Horse of the Sun King are the thin, sharp knife of His army and, unchecked, will cause the shipwreck of all our hopes.”

From the journal of Don Fernando de Torrescusa, Marquess de Girona, Envoy of His Most Catholic Majesty, Carlos the Second, King of Spain, to the Flemish Free City of Laarden in 1688.

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This has, dear readers and friends, turned out to be an unusual year.  I’ve not blogged here as much as I thought I would have done.  It’s time to redress that omission, with some of the things I’ve been painting and doing during the first quarter of 2020.

So, here is the French regiment of Horse, from 1688 of the Duc de Luxembourg. I first blogged these in February as part of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge X – and yes, given the events of this year, that does seem a long time ago!  The details of the uniforms are taken from Robert Hall’s book on the armies of the Sun King: "Standards and Uniforms of the French Cavalry Under Louis XIV, 1688-1714" (published by “The Pike & Shot Society”).   The extract from the journal of Don Fernando de Torrescusa, Marquess de Girona, is (of course) fictional - but does go some way to reflect how nervous his historical contemporaries may have felt when the French horse took the field in number.

The figures are 28mm from the older Wargames Foundry range - this is not quite a venerable range of figures, having first come out in 1989, but with a little bit of care I still feel they can still look very fine on the table. They are perhaps more “big 25mm” than "true 28mm", and are a perfect match for Perry Miniatures and 1st Corps and Old Glory figures. They also fit very well with 28mm miniatures from The Assault Group, although the TAG horses are a little larger than the Foundry ones. They each come with a couple of arms so you can chose the pose of the arm, hand and sword. This adds a nice flexibility to the figure but does require a little fiddling with. 

I swapped out the Officer’s arm for a sword - which is more martial than his original hand which seemed to be completing a ducal wave. I also changed a couple of horses around from the ones supplied.  As with other French figures I've been painting, I added liberal amounts of green-stuff for feathers, knots of ribbons on shoulders, cravats and some extra hat lace. The French troops were known (like earlier Spanish Tercios) to be fancifully equipped with such non-martial additions to their uniform.

No doubt this was to help distinguish regiments of different combatants, or maybe to engender pride in a unit formation. Whatever the reason, I think it looks fun. And, also, there is a certain black amusement in being confronted by a six foot angry French cavalier on a ferocious horse charging at you while being festooned in more ribbons, bows and spectacular Pom-Poms than would be stitched onto any Texan cheerleader’s costume.

The standard finial is from Bicorne and the very fine flag is from GMB Designs.

I undercoated all the figures in Halfords 'car primer' - sprayed on in a couple of smooth actions.  I have no idea why I had such problems with the spray priming about a year ago.  These (and other) figures which I primed over Christmas and New Year seemed to prime very easily.

The paints I used were Vallejo, with the grey coats on the figures being painted with a base of Vallejo VMC Light Grey and washed with a mix of Vallejo inks (Grey mixed with Umber and diluted with some Vallejo Glaze Medium).  I tried to keep the horses as simple as possible.  I feel I have some work to do in that regard, particularly on the chestnut/roan horses.  I might experiment later during this year with horses which are much more basic, ideally to make the mounted figures’ uniforms “pop” a bit more.  I’ll let you know how that works out.

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