Savoia Starts

 Many moons ago, in fact, frighteningly now over 30 years ago, I was an undergraduate student at the University of Aberdeen, and on cold winter days (and it does get cold in Aberdeen!), I used to head to the library for some warm and a seat in a comfy quiet spot. Formal studies over, I'd look for something interesting to read from the History section and one day I stumbled across a copy of an old book titled "The Defence of Piedmont 1742-48" by Spenser Wilkinson. It was a book published in the late 1920's, largely I suspect for an academic audience, by Spenser, who was a Fellow and Don at Oxford at the time. I have to say that I had no knowledge of the subject matter at all, but the dates looked interesting so I lifted the book from the shelf and started reading ......

It was, quite frankly, fantastic and I was hooked. Yes, it's an academic style history book of it's period, but for those with an intertest of military history of the period it's a gold mine. It features lots and lots of campaign detail, gorgeous maps and covers a period that is so little known, but actually so important in European History of that time. It's a great period, see-sawing in successes and failure from one side to the other. Most English speaking folk, tend to focus on Frederick et al in Northern Europe, but in many ways his theatre and contemporary period offers just as much, if not more, but it's virtually forgotten.

Being a limited run academic book of the 1920's it's very hard to come by and in those pre internet days, and with student poverty in full grasp of me, there was no way I could secure an actual copy for myself. So in the weeks before my final graduation I spent several days, photocopying every single page of it and put it away in a box file for my future reference......

Fast forward more than 20 years later and suddenly I was starting to make figures for this time period, and I thought "what the hell, nobody else is ever going to make these figures, let's give it a go"

So I did!

My first ever Savoia figure, a pose that I've grown to value as time has passed, it combines a static pose, but with just enough "movement" in it to suggest it could be a moving figure as well. This was the first "sample figure" that I painted once it had been cast for production. It now resides in John Ray's collection as a small token of my admiration for his skill and the kindness he's shown me with his time and tips and guidance on figure making over the years.

 Next came some NCO types (two sculpts) made openhanded  to allow for modification and conversion.

And some Musicians

And I did also tweak one of the NCO's to make a bandmaster (never production cast though, sorry Graham)

And finally, I did some basic conversions on the coats etc of the existing French Officers from the Crann Tara Jacobite Range to make some suitable command for the first unit. This was the end product

John

Gardes Francaises first figures

 Having done the FdM (actually, from memory, I did the foot figures first and then a few months later did the mounted figures and then finally the Grenadier), I then started thinking about what I might try next. At about that time, Graham and I started going up to see Charles from time to time for a weekend of gaming (often battles which later appeared in Charles's excellent "Refighting History" series). Great discussions, running well into the evening, were often had about potential future figures and directions for the range, generally lubricated with the odd fine beverage from Charles's cellar! (I only made a fool of myself once! 😀) Happy days and great memories.

As some of you may be aware, Charles father wrote a great book on the Battle of Fontenoy, within which features this image (Copyright Charles Grant):

I happened to notice this picture on display at Charles's and it served as inspiration for my next foray at more figures. I made an attempt to recreate (with mixed success) the two prominent figures in the image (the ensign and the Garde) plus a more generic standing Garde figure as a substitute for the chap hidden behind the flag. The result was these:

Again, it was a poor choice of figure to attempt, yet more fiddly lace and lots of fine detail. On balance I think the attempt to replicate the Garde on the right of the image was pretty decent, the others more moderate in success. At this point I didn't progress with any more Garde figures, although later I did and I'll show those in due course. Two interesting observations from a "makers" point of view, I've never seen these figures actually used in the configuration/pose they were actually designed for, most folk used them as multiple figures in wider units (you can't control what folk do with stuff once you let it out into wider circulation). Secondly no painted images, because, as of yet, I've never actually got round to painting any of the Garde figures I made, definitely still on the "to do" list. Next time, the start of the Savoia figures ....

John