Sunday 1 September 2013

Super Trouper

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.

5 comments:

johnpreece said...

Mmmm, Eclaireurs

It is nice to see such a large unit of pristine castings, very unusual, enjoy painting them.

John

Rafael Pardo said...

'Super trouper
beams are gonna blind me...'

I can hear still the Abba's song...
Regards
Rafa

Stryker said...

John - they do look splendid and I'm really looking forward to painting them.

Rafa - the title is a tribute to my departing swedes. I could have chosen Waterloo I guess...

Anonymous said...

They look rather dashing - must admit I had never heard of them either.

James Fisher said...

Looking 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?
James