Grenadier-Battalion Grun Loudon

Sometimes known as Loudon's Frei-Corps. This is a unit I have quickly knocked up in the 10 days since I posted those Hussar pictures. And if you believe that you will believe anything. I actually started work on these figures in November last year, and have just finished the last base. The frightening thing is, some people actually would produce a unit like this (only better) in a few days. Ho hum.

The figures are of course RSM 95 Austrian musketeers, with the pom-poms removed as these were not present on the originals. The standard bearer is an exception: he is one of the Spanish infantry figures RSM now stock - I just happened to have him lying around from a small order of sample figures. Whether the unit actually had a flag I could not find out, but I thought they deserved one. The flag itself was printed free from an online source.

Although called grenadiers, as you can see there is not a mitre or busby in sight. General Loudon apparently thought calling the unit 'grenadiers' might improve recruitment. The unit was to be formed mainly from foreign recruits, including enemy deserters, and was intended to support Austrian light infantry by providing them with formed infantry back up. They seem to have been reasonably successful, so I will class them as standard line infantry.

Despite the shine, these figures are finished with a coat of Windsor and Newton matt acrylic varnish. If I had bought the product to get a nice matt finish I would have taken it back to the shop: what you actually get a is a nice subdued slightly-gloss effect. Luckily, I find this just right. 

I like this unit. It makes a change from the usual Austrian white and is likely to enhance the look of my games. My next move is going to be to order some more hussars, but this time from Minden Miniatures. Meanwhile, I have some Prussian grenadiers lying around unpainted, and I have decided to create IR6, the Garde-Grenadier battalion. This will be fun as the unit was an elite one, all grenadiers, and was derived from the battalion of giants recruited by Frederick's father, sometimes known as the Potsdam Grenadiers. Not being a converged unit, one gets the advantage of a grenadier battalion which has a flag. And according to the Kronoskaf SYW Project, the flagpoles were yellow. Nice.