Well I finally waved the Swedes goodbye on Friday and in their place in part-exchange arrived these pristine castings of FN308 Eclaireur Lancer of the Guard (on horse FNH/3). The figures are all vintage ones with flash intact that have never been painted before – a real treat.
Now I have to confess that until these lads turned up I had thought that an Eclaireur was a pastry filled with cream. For some reason the existence of these units of Imperial Guard cavalry had passed me by. A little bit of quick research revealed that they were formed after the campaign in Russia to counter the effect of Cossacks and to act as scouts/skirmishers for the Guard cavalry.
In practice the Regiments of Eclaireurs were split up and assigned to the various other Guard units. In my army a squadron of them will eventually be combined with my Polish Lancers and Horse Grenadiers to form a composite Guard cavalry unit.
PS - in case you missed it we've just started a new ACW game over on Brother Against Brother.
Mmmm, Eclaireurs
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to see such a large unit of pristine castings, very unusual, enjoy painting them.
John
'Super trouper
ReplyDeletebeams are gonna blind me...'
I can hear still the Abba's song...
Regards
Rafa
John - they do look splendid and I'm really looking forward to painting them.
ReplyDeleteRafa - the title is a tribute to my departing swedes. I could have chosen Waterloo I guess...
They look rather dashing - must admit I had never heard of them either.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to seeing these chocolate eclairs painted. One of the finer unit types of the last campaigns those éclaireurs, and such a choice of uniforms between the three units too. The second is my favourite, and is what these fine fellows will become?
ReplyDeleteJames