ROMANIAN CHASSEURS: RTW

          Romanian Chasseurs: Outpost Wargames Service Russo Turkish War Figures. 

Greetings, fellow shut-ins.  The momentum from the recently completed Dorobanti, carried me through the completion of two more special units of Romanians: Chasseurs.  Although produced by Outpost Wargames Service, these figures are available in the US via Badger Games LLC (shout out to both).  In this post, as usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX.

 Romanian Army of the Russo-Turkish War Era: Chasseur in the center.

I won't reiterate the brief history of the Romanian Army that I did in my last post. For more on that, I would refer you to the excellent Balkan Military History Blog. However, I will say that it is an elegantly outfitted force (adopting uniforms along French lines, I believe).

The chasseurs are particularly interesting, with the universal green distinctions for light troops and headgear reminiscent of contemporary light troops like Bersaligere and Austrian Jagers. Reaching back to the Hungarian Revolt (1848/49), the headgear is reminiscent of that worn by the Hungarian/Hoved rifles--perhaps indicating a local, Eastern European tradition as well. Here is my study of how I approached these figures:

I embellished the musicians by painting in the wings (which aren't part of the sculpt) and doing their plumes in white.

 Inspiration for handling the trumpeters (above).

Three piles of equipment topped off by hats...

Here, I have to add a bit of a rant. Although wonderful sculpts, I hated painting these figures. As I might have mentioned before, I run hot and cold on painting being a chore. In this case, these figures were definitely in the "chore" category. I was put off because these figures conform to the trend that I find most annoying in figures nowadays. That is, putting every damn piece of equipment that anyone can think of on them. Now, it is true that soldiers are depicted in combat wearing their gear, and it is also true that the French infantryman of the era, in particular, are famous for being weighted down under their equipment. And it is also true that they did go into combat with their gear.  But it is also equally true that soldiers stripped down for combat as well. It's called "combat order."

You will note the complete absence of equipment in the above illustration of the Romanians storming the Grivitza Redoubt at Plevna.

There is something called "marching order": that is when infantry are loaded down like mules to carry all their equipment. That is what these figures (and all the others like them) are actually portraying.  Now I get that you can't satisfy everyone, and that failing to depict equipment slung all over figures would probably fail to meet the expectations of some other sector of gamers: fair enough and fine for them.  I happen to have other preferences.  All I'm saying is that it would be refreshing if there were at least a few figures out there that were less encumbered in to order to balance out this trend. Not only would seeing the uniform peeking out from under the equipment every now and then be refreshing, but given the time that it takes me to paint figures, it is extremely vexing when the majority of it is spent on household detritus: pans, cups, blankets, bags, pouches, cases, shovels, sticks, etc. I can deal with a reasonable amount of it (sort of like doing horses: you get it done as a necessity), but if I wanted this sort of thing to be the main effort, then I would be doing doll houses rather than toy soldiers: end of rant.  

Back to more pleasant thoughts: I included this shot just because it captures how dynamic these sculpts are (when you're not staring at their equipment). Despite my rant, I would still highly recommend these figures.  They are lovely. 

As usual, I did a few on individual bases: always handy for light troops just in case you have a rule set that needs to represent screens or pickets. 

Excelsior!