From BenitoM: French Tête de Colonne (10 points)

A very small submission this week but still within the Napoleonic theme I chose for the Challenge this year and fulfilling my objective of painting something every week. This time is not Austrian but French forces, an officer and 2nde Porte-Aigle which are expected to join a "tête de colonne" of one of my battalions with a drummer, a porte-aigle and and a 3eme porte-aigle.

The second porte-aigle usually came form the Grenadier company (or the Carabinier in the Light Infantry Regiments) of the battalion and carried a red fanion and two pistols as main armament. They have the duty to defend the aigle (carried by the Premier Porte-Aigle) and eventually replace him if falling in combat.

The models are a couple of superbly sculpted 28mm Perry metal. Note the officer with a bandage around his left eye, probably wounded by enemy musketry or may be by the sword while defending from a cavalry charge.

A small addition of 10 points to my overall challenge scoring, almost reaching now the 600 mark.

You may wonder the reason for such a poor output: I had a major game this Sunday taking almost all day. As some of you may know, I've been playing with another 3 friend to Commands and Colors Napoleonics since early 2017 and we decided to try one of the "Grande Battles" this weekend.

These are quite large games (doubling the size of a standard scenario) and it took me some time to read the instructions and to prepare the counters (I spent a good part of the Saturday afternoon and evening "playing" with stickers).

We played Austerlitz on Sunday and took us from 10AM to 5PM including a good two hours enjoying lunch with my friends.

I played the French side and was a highly contested game: winner was the side gaining 22 flags (victory points) and the final score was 22 to the French vs 21 to the Austrian-Russian army.

Of course, time invested in the game is time lost for painting, which in this case I think was more than justified.

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Wonderful work, Benito!  You've brought these two, marvellous sculpts to life - the painting is really fine, and they'll grace any tabletop battlefield.  I live the way you've picked out the Officer's details, and detailed his lace.  And the groundwork colouring is, again, perfect (and has been, as you know, 'stolen' by me!!)

They're lovely, and more than worthy of their 10 points. 

And it is great to see you and your friends tackling one of the truly iconic battles of European History.  And it looks to have been a brilliantly close-run thing - 22 playing 21 points.  I'd love to know of the changes of fortune and fate in the field with that score - almost as much as I would enjoy seeing the wonders of a Madrid wargaming lunch with friends ;)

Great work again, Sir!