More Guns of/for August - French WW1 Dragoons and MGs in 12mm

12mm French dragoons for early WW1 - figures by Kallistra.

The WW1 painting in 12mm continues! Here we have some 12mm size French Dragoons - mounted and dismounted. The figures are metal castings from the excellent folks at Kallistra. They are based for the game "1914" by Great Escape Games, and these four bases would represent a regiment of dragoons in that game. 

Bit more of a close up...

Great Escape offers a lovely line of figures in support of their "1914" rules, but I was excited to add some variety via Kallistra's admirably complete figure range. I am very keen to game the early phases of the Great War, and particularly keen to deploy cavalry units, and especially excited to paint up French cavalry for the setting. Why? Well, for me, these cavalry units really underline that unique historical moment in the late summer of 1914... 

Love the lances!

What do I mean by that? Well, the exact moment in history when cavalry was supplanted on the battlefield if open to debate. Really, in a lot of ways, the bloody and totally pointless slaughter of the French cavalry by the Prussians in 1870 should have put an end to the view of cavalry as a battle-winning thing, but the cavalry arm was such a prestigious institution of the various armed forces in Europe. Thus it fell to the opening phases of WW1 to become, in many ways, a last gasp for cavalry attempting to play "decisive", battle-winning arm on the battlefield. To be clear, I am not arguing that things were totally over for cavalry after this point. After all, cavalry formations played an important roles in several battles later in the same war. There were cavalry units in WW2. Heck, special forces types rode on horses in Afghanistan in the 21st century. 

Dismounted unit, skirmish poses all around.

So there is no question cavalry continued to play a major military role after the opening phases of WW1. But I think those opening battles in 1914 did put, at last, an end to the idea that a field battle could/would/should be won at scale by a cavalry charge in anything other than exceptional circumstances. You can just tell by how the cavalry arms of the nations in 1914 kept their formal dress for battle - in some cases, quite formal - that these institutions were simply not going to let go of the belief that, at the end of it all, even with all the rifles and the artillery and the machine-guns, they would deliver decisive victory with a charge. 

Officer on the front base.

France in 1914 is a great example of this (second, perhaps, to the Austro-Hungarian military establishment of the time). At the outset of hostilities in August 1914 the French Cuirassiers and Dragoons have their glorious uniforms, and all that this entails, and I just love painting them up. Huge helmets, with long horse-hair tails from the comb, the beautiful dark blue tunics and red trousers...just glorious! And they have whacky lances too! Of course, with the right amount of cran, this lot is sure to send the enemy reeling!

Hotchkiss MGs

Hotckiss MGs...Kallistra crew on the left, Great Escape Games sculpt on the right.

To go along with the dragoons, I painted a pair of Hotchkiss MGs for my "1914" collection. The "1914" rules call for the MG elements to be mounted on 25mm square bases, and so with these you get a sense of the slight difference between the figures from Great Escape Games and those from Kallistra. The Great Escape Games casting is chunkier, and there is only room for the single figure running the MG. The slighter Kallistra figures, on the other hand, allow for the gunner to be joined by a crew mate. 

A bit of extra character comes with the ability to squeeze an extra crewman on the base.

I rather prefer the look of the Kallistra castings, as these early MGs were heavy affairs that required quite a few crew to haul them around and get them into action. It's just two crew, but at least it implies a crew! 

The Great Escape Games castings are chunkier fellows...I do love how they have their packs on, though!

That's all for now - watch for more early WW1 painting - and, just other random painting - to appear soon, I hope! Thanks for reading.