2mm Preview: French and Indian War

A sneak peek now, at some troops that will be making an appearance during a special week of posts to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759; the victory of Wolfe over Montcalm, and the fall of Quebec.

The French and Indian War, given the terrain and relatively small numbers of troops involved, normally appears on the wargaming table top in the form of larger scale figures; woodland skirmishes, Iroquois and Rogers' Rangers et al.

I, however, in typically contrary fashion, having had a yen to make use of the Mass potential of 2mm figures to do a Seven Years War project, hit upon the idea of moving the focus to North America and Canada, and employing small minis to do a truly large scale rendition of the major engagements.

In this I was ably served by the support and services available from Tony Hughes over at Tiny Tin Troops, who was kind enough to work on the realisation of the project with me, and paint the vast majority of the troops involved, it being my first major use of 2mm figures since a couple of smaller scale efforts.

I will be looking in detail at the conception, planning and organisation of the task in forthcoming posts, as well as looking at the background to the battle at Quebec, hopefully culminating in a photographic essay on the day of the event itself. In the meantime, though, here are some views of part of the regiments of New France that will have a starring role!

Below we see the 2nd Battalion, Regiment De La Reine, which served at Oswego, Ticonderoga, Fort William Henry, Fort Carillon and finally at Isle-aux Noix at the time of the surrender:

Next we have the 2nd Battalion, Regiment De Bearn, which was in the centre of Montcalm's line at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, before retreating to Montreal:

They are followed by the 2nd Battalion, Regiment De La Sarre, who suffered great losses at the battle, including their commander, M. de Senezergue:

Moving focus slightly, we have the 2nd Battalion, Regiment Artois, which was present at the siege of Louisbourg in 1758, and comprising 466 all ranks, surrendered with the city upon its capitulation.

An interesting unit, also present at the fall of Louisbourg, was the Volontaires d'Etrangers, commanded by Col. d'Anthonay, that was raised principally from Germans, and ostensibly was a 'Legion' to operate in the role of light troops "a la Petite Guerre"; although their thirteen companies, including one of grenadiers, probably did not have much opportunity to do this during a siege:

Finally, we see some of the artillery of the Cannoniers Bombardiers, which having lovely red painted gun carriages, show up really well, even though only being teeny tiny 2mm!

Hope all this has whetted your appetite, and that you'll check back for further posts, when, never fear, I'll go into all the 'whys and wherefores' of the project as a whole.

"Vive le Roi!"