A Minifigs Mini-Mystery: re-basing saga continues

 Now I will quite understand if readers are getting a mite bored with pictures of vintage Minfigs 7YW/AWI figures, please excuse me as I am going to show some more!  The reason being that hobby time this past few days has been occupied with a minor Minifigs mystery, as follows: 

The latest group of figures on the re-basing production line are no less than 48 infantry which I take to be French: initially I guessed that they represent the Vaubecourt Regiment, because this is how they came out of the tin when I bought them: 

 I admit I was too quick to assume, that flag seemed to indicate Vaubecourt Infanterie pretty clearly, I didn't look any closer. . Anyway, this week I got to work on them, soaked them off their (thankfully just cardboard) bases, and took a closer look at the figures.  It's been a nice sunny couple of days, allowing a first venture into the garden with the painting table, so here they are catching some rays before a  paddle in a tray of cool water  : 

The officer is very nice but maybe not strictly related, more of him later..

Two issues arose immediately; (a) the flag wasn't actually attached to a figure, just sort of 'wedged' between the arms and body of one of them, and (b) the facing colours were all wrong! According to the excellent Kronosfkaf Project, they should have  white cuffs, red collars and red waistcoats; 

On closer inspection of the figures we see this: 

 

Quite nicely painted, I like the face, lots of character -  but look at the facings..Those cuffs are GREEN, as are the collars.  Which unit would that be? Well, I am a bit mystified.  I had a look through the invaluable  Osprey volume on Louis XV Infantry, which has a paragraph on pretty much every regiment - no luck. None of the units listed there had green cuffs - the vast majority were white, red, blue or purple. 

 

Having removed most of the flock that had been covering the bases, I can see the Minifigs serial number is AWI 18 : French Line Infantryman Advancing ( from the AWI range, obvs).  So maybe this is an 'AWI' period unit rather than 7YW; next port of call was to search on-line for French Regiments sent to help America, which turned up a Wikipedia page.   That was quite interesting in itself, in that several of the regmiments listed appear in the collection I acquired ( e,g Soissonais, Saintorge, Touraine) and many of the figures have 'AWI' code  - it looks like someone was indeed recruitng for the French forces in America 1778-1783.  But the green facings?   Back on-line, to  Kronsokaf's list of French Regiments in the 7YW :  after a fair amount of cross-referencing it looks like the only likely candidate would be  the Volontaires Étrangers de la Marine. - it seems they served in both the United States and the Caribbean. 

The Kronoskaf page gives this diagram of the uniform: 

 -well, it's green facings, at least!  That's the only one I've seen.. a slight question over the diagram showing the lapels as green, which doesn't appear on the figure, but perhaps that detail had changed between 1760s and 1770s?  (also the pose of the figure makes it quite hard to paint lapels, so maybe a bit of license was taken).  Having got the possible name of Volontaires Etrangers, further on-line meanderings  came up with a rather good  illustration, from a blog called  Flintlocks and Tomahawks: 

  -rather nice, though note the green waistcoat. Accounts clearly vary!   This unit had an 'interesting' start in life, being first raised at the start of the Seven Year's War  : Kronoskaf says The unit was raised on June 1, 1756 by Colonel Fischer to serve at sea and as garrison in the French colonies. Recruitment problems impeded the formation of the unit when its destination became known. Most of the recruits were German. The unit initially counted 3 battalions of about 911 men. In 1756 and 1757, its 3 battalions were sent to Bretagne.   Clearly, few recruits fancied life at sea! It then seems that one  battalion was used for coastal defence in France, one sent to Canada, and one joined the French army in Germany.   So conveniently, this unit served in both the 7YW and AWI, very useful!  However, we have 48 figures all carrying muskets, and I don't really need all three battalions;  I will stick to just one battalion, and try to find an officer, drummer and standard-bearer from the 'depot' to join them. The rest could be recruited for other regiments, with a little re-painting of cuffs and collars. Now what were the Vaubecourt regiment's facing colours again?

 Finally a quick look at the officer that arrived with these - I am now asuming he has no connection to them, but he is rather nicely painted :

 He really deserves a command role somewhere, Brigadier-General at least, I should think.  All of which I hope shows that sorting through  a  'pre-loved' collection is proving to be an enjoyable, interesting and sometimes challenging part of the hobby in itself - I'm glad to have got involved with these.  

Meanwhile in the 'real world' it's the Salute show in a couple of days time, but for the first time in a while I won't be attending, owing to other commitments. I will look forward to seeing other blogger's reports on the day, of which there will be many, I'm sure. Maybe next year..  

I'll try to change the subject a bit next time!  Until then, keep well, everyone.