French Chasseurs d'Afrique - 1859

With thoughts of getting the 1859 project onto the gaming table coming to the fore, painting returns to that project even if only momentarily.  Off the painting desk are nine Old Glory French Chasseurs d'Afrique.  The French deployed three Chasseurs d'Afrique regiments in the Northern Italian campaign and I now can field all three regiments.  Having only nine figures remaining in The Lead Pile, only three squadrons of the 3rd Cd'A Regiment will be mustered at present.

While I have been very pleased with Old Glory's FPW/FAW range of 15mm infantry, as noted in previous posts, I am not so enamored with their cavalry.  Overall, the sculpts are good but the swords are too thin and are not likely to hold up to the rigors of campaigning.  Nevertheless, as new recruits, these troopers will be welcomed into the growing French force.

An earlier post mentioned the Battles of Montebello as a possible candidate to use for getting both the 1799 and 1859 projects out onto the gaming table.  After a little research, Montebello would make an interesting exercise for working through both battles.  Looking at OBs, the 1800 Montebello will require a few more units to be fielded unless I want to use some existing figures from my "main" Napoleonic project.  The plan for the 1799/1800 project was to build up forces from all combatants using primarily AB figures.  With that still a goal, Austrian light infantry need to get into the painting queue before the 1800 version of Montebello can be undertaken.

In the meantime, figures are present for the 1859 battle and work has begun on researching the scenario.  Laying out a map is one of the first steps.  A preliminary layout is being set up now.  More details on that later.

Finally, the Great Game planned for Saturday was cancelled due to scheduling challenges but Scott and I met at Kevin's for a half day of Commands & Colors: Ancients and lunch.  The Battle of Zama was refought four times using my 6mm collection with Hannibal and Scipio splitting the decisions two games apiece.  Great games, great lunch, and great camaraderie; a great day!  The Great Game game will be rescheduled to later this fall.  This delay provides additional time to field another Russian infantry battalion.