News

June 12, 2011 On the way! French Light Infantry for the Wars of the Revolution Just in case you were starting to think we had gone a little quiet concerning our 28mm Wars of the French Revolution project (we have not had a new release since February) we thought we should give you a quick up-date and a few pictures. Forthcoming 28mm French Light Infantry Carabiniers, march-attack and skirmishing, wearing helmet or bicorne Work steadily continues to conclude all the remaining basic French Line Infantry codes - covering both regulation and ragged campaign uniforms; helmets, bicornes, and bearskins; grenadiers and fusiliers. All the march-attack figures are finished with just a few advancing and firing & loading grenadier conversations to complete. Meanwhile we have been quietly working away at the French Light Infantry to accompany the Line, and we are pleased to report these are also just about ready, covering the Revolutionary Wars from 1792 up to around c.1800. A selection of the forthcoming French Light Infantry 28mm figures are pictured here. Forthcoming 28mm French Light Infantry Chasseurs, march-attack, wearing helmet or bicorne For the Light Infantry we have of course made both chasseurs and carabiniers, but the ever changing and evolving appearance of the French infantryman during this period presented us with a few decisions to make as to how to organise them. The range will therefore be broken down into three parts. The first part will deal with the Light Infantry at the outbreak of the wars when they wore a coat identical to that of the Line Infantry, with long tails and squared off lapels, together with the almost universally worn casque crested helmet. (The principal thing setting the Lights apart from the Line and National Guard battalions at this time being the Lights' green uniforms). By the end of 1793 the green coat was starting to be replaced by the habit national in blue, but with the bottom of the lapels now pointed and a growing tendency towards shorter coat tails - a fashion not prescribed in the official regulations but popular within the Light Infantry. The second part of the list covers this development (roughly 1793 - 1796). The helmet, although unpopular, continued to be worn, but bicorne hats were increasingly preferred from 1793 and these had all but superseded the helmet by approximately 1796, so the third part of range offers Lights sporting bicornes. This is as far as we have taken the range for now, but at a later date we intend to add a fourth section to the list to represent the early shako (with side plume) introduced at the end of the wars (c.1800) and worn into the Napoleonic Wars. Forthcoming 28mm French Light Infantry Chasseurs, skirmishing, wearing helmet or bicorne In the third part of the range all figures wear the bicorne hat (carabiniers and chasseurs), but we have given the carabineer elites their bearskins in the earlier sections of the list. As it was (apart from their head gear) there was little to differentiate between chasseurs and carabiniers once the pointed lapel / short tailed coat appeared. Items normally preserved for elite companies such as sword side arms and fringed epaulettes were worn by just about everyone! Another feature peculiar to the Lights are the shorter gaiters, designed to mimic the light cavalry boot. As well as forming your Light Infantry regiments, these figures can also be recruited to represent some of the numerous volunteer battalions and peoples' "Legions" that sprung up all over France in answer to the call "La Patrie en danger!" in the opening years of the wars. Many of these units preferred the more dashing Light Infantry style uniforms. Forthcoming 28mm French Light Infantry Command: officers, drummers and standard bearers, wearing helmet or bicorne We will be explaining all this in a little more detail around the time of the release in one of our free PDF "Quick Guides to the Armies of the Wars of the French Revolution" (There are a couple for the Russians of 1799 already available for download in the "Ideas" section of this website). The official release date for our new Light Infantry will be confirmed soon, and visitors to the mighty Historicon Convention in the USA (July 7th-10th) will be able to purchase them from our Eureka trade stand. We have lots more in the pipeline, including French Infantry Character sets, French and Austrian Generals, Austrian Jägers, and we will soon have some information for you about our lovely French Horse artillery sets. Cheers - The Eureka Mob

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