From SidneyR: The Last Stand of the Regiment de Louvigny for "The Altar of the Snowlord" (66 points)

 

"Sound trumpets!  Let our Bloody colours wave!

And either victory, or else a grave!"

Henry VI, Part 3 (Act 2, scene 2)

And so, after three months, I've finally arrived at the Snowlord's Altar, bearing - as requested by Curt - a submission featuring casualties and a dramatic final stand for Challenge XI.  

To meet that challenge, I've painted the valiant last stand of the French Regiment be Louvigny, from 1688 - a suitably terminal, but hopefully honourable, end to a great Challenge.

Challenge accepted and - I hope - completed, dear Snowlord!

I have to admit, that when I planned out what I wanted to do, I did wonder if it would work.  What I had in mind was a centrepiece for a large skirmish in which the "shipwrack" of a French battalion could (possibly) be rescued from Flemish and Spanish enemy forces by a relieving French brigade.  It would suit an evening's wargaming, or perhaps be a smaller table in a day's gaming.

The small "slots" for two micro-dice are there to record casualties and cohesion.  As the regiment in its battered state is not really functioning as a working formation, there's no need to identify the pike and shot separately in any normal basing formation.  That's the plan, anyway.  

So, rather than just a 'casualty base', I could use the Last Stand as a half-way house between functioning battalion and a mere marker for routed troops.

After deciding on the type of base I wanted, it was really just a case of deciding which figures I wanted.  I chose a blend of of pike and shot, officers and soldiers, a drummer, and a blend of dead, wounded and still-healthy troops.  

I perhaps could have done better in painting the standard, which looks a little too pristine for any 'last stand'.  And maybe the casualties could have been a bit more numerous.  But, on the whole, given a day or so to prepare it, I thought it should hopefully pass muster on most tabletops.  

The perfect is, of course dear friends, the enemy of the tabletop-standard.

The Regiment de Louvingy is for my late seventeenth century 1688 Flanders collection, so I tried to make the figures fit with the other units and formations by adding green-stuff feathers, lace, ribbons and swapping the Officer's right arm from carrying a standard to more nobly raising his sword towards the Flemish and Spanish enemies-of-his-blood.  

I took the uniform of the Regiment de Louvigny from Mark Allen's fine book "Armies & Enemies of Louis XIV: Volume 1 - Western Europe 1688-1714" (published by Helion).  The real Regiment de Louvigny is a rather forgotten, anonymous regiment - so I felt it was time to bring its soldiers back to the grand stage of European warfare on the wargames table.

The figures are a mix of Dixon Miniatures and Wargames Foundry, with a Colonel Bill's casualty figure added at the front.  The splendid, and very versatile, gabions are from Frontline Wargaming.  The base is  a terrain base from Warbases, who also made the micro-dice slots.  The tufts are from WSS Scenics.

No one makes the standard for the Regiment de Louvigny - so I painted it myself.  I wish I had battered it about a little more - ah well, next time, I'll know better!

So for the points - there are eight standing and two prone figures on the base, with the standing being 5 points each (totally 40 points) and the prone figures being half-points (total of 5 points) - totalling 45 points for the figures (and can I maybe add an extra one point for the hand-painted flag?), bringing that to 46 Points.  With adding the 20 for the final "Altar of the Snowlord", that's a total of 66 Points.

And because this is a submission featuring the ludicrousness of my fictional campaign for the Free-City of Laarden, in 1688, here's the Challenge XI Collectible Card for the "Last Stand of the Regiment de Louvigny" - the last of the eleven cards for Challenge XI.  

Did you collect the full set, dear Challengers?

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