2e Regiment de Tirailleurs

For Christmas this year I received two boxes of perry miniatures ACW (American civil war) Zouaves, one box of perry miniatures ACW cavalry, a french HMG from Gallipoli (made by Gripping beast) and an Airfix allied Biplane (I also got 30 wallachian peasants and they'll be up soon with the rest of Sveneslav's horde). Those of you who have been concentrating will probably have realised that I am really not interested in wargaming ACW (its all those dull blues and grey, even interspersed with the odd fez it gets monotonous) so I thought about what to do with these models and I remembered the studio campaign coming up. If you've seen it yet you will know that our "men fight for what they lack" campaign (taken from a french retort to an englishman) has its own blog (but all the battle reports will also be on Renegade or tale of two gamers) and is based in 1912 China. As the British and Japanese were taken I had volunteered to be French and these models suited themselves pefectly to the army. I created the 2e Regiment de Tirailleurs (see Unifoms below)

 They're regiment was founded during the French conquest of Algeria (1830/40s) and soon I had assembled 72 Tirailleurs (divided into 6 sections of 12), 12 Spahi (French/Algerian cavalry based on Turkish uniforms), a French biplane with machine gun, a hotchkiss machine gun with Tirailleurs crew, 8 casualty markers (for black powder) and 3 commanders. I have included the pictures below...

 I use this model as either Colonel Charles Ney the elder or Major Louis Ney wether i'm playing before or after the Boxer rebellion. Either way this model is always my army general. I converted the model to be holding a cane rather than a sword and i painted a monocle in the eye (click to have a closer look.)

I use this model as Captain Charles Ney the younger (with his Sergeant), he is one of my brigadiers. The pistol arm is a conversion using the same left arm as the Colonel, with a simple hand swap using one of the cavalry pistols.

I use this model as Lieutenant Balliard (with his lackey). In my background history Lieutenant Balliard is the Colonels adopted son (his father was killed by Bulgarians before the crimean war, defending the colonel and his wife). I did a similar hand swap for him as well but using a different arm. His sword and his lackey's pistol are directly taken from the cavalry.

 This is my Hotchkiss MG. It came without any heads for the crew so i simply game them fez heads to tie them in with the rest of the army. I am one of those generals who would fall under captain Square rather than captain Mainwering (that is to say cavalry over HMGs), but the temptation to have one ratteling away was to great.

 This is my Spahi detachment, there are infact twelve of them making this unit my only "Large" unit when playing blackpowder. I simply used the ACW cavaly and did a head swap (the phorography is rather bad i'm afraid). The Spahis never saw much action after the Crimean war upuntil the 1st word war but today they are still in teh french army.

This is a stndard section in my army and it is made up of six of these. When playing blackpowder I give all the units tough fighters (the tirailleurs are reputed to always have fought to the last and to have been the best combat troops in the french army) and, if they have a standard, Stubborn

 Here are my casualty markers in all their gory glory. The Zoauve kit is fairly easy to convert such markers out of and they look very effective.

 Tirailleurs actually means skirmishers, so when playing black powder my first order is always "Form Skirmish and advance". However once within danger range I form attack colum, advance and form square.

 The blood effect is done with citadl paints. First mechrite red around the owund, then blood red on the actual wound, then a heavy wash of baal red which runs off the wound and finally gloss varnish on the blood red.

 This is my most gory marker and depicts a standard bearer who has either had a shell through his head or a volley at eye level. Either way he has lost the top of his head!

 Here the machine gun mows down the unruley algerians/turks

This is my Biplane. The model is actually a RE8 but i'm using it as a Bleriot for the campaign.

 The model was one of the better kits that airfix makes and was quite easy to assemble in a morning

 It will only feature in games after 1912, but as the Tirailleurs uniform was used from 1830-1918 it will appear frequently.

We've created our own rules for Biplanes and based them on the rules for Artillery, with the exception that they can only be shot down and have stamina 4

 With the ability to fly behind enemy lines and pepper their artillery or damaged units with MG fire biplanes are lethal

 The 2e Compagnie de 2e Regiment de Tirailleurs de Indochinois "Turcos"