3/54e Regiment de Ligne

The third battalion of the 54e Regiment de Ligne completes the fourth regiment and the twelfth battalion in this eight regiment twenty four battalion project, to put together Marshal Victor's I Corps at Talavera.

I Corps: Maréchal Victor
2nd Division: Général de division Lapisse (6,862)
Brigade: Général de brigade Laplannes
16th Légère Regiment (3 battalions)
45th Line Regiment (3 battalions)
Brigade: Général de brigade Solignac
8th Line Regiment (3 battalions)
54th Line Regiment (3 battalions)

The 54e Ligne fought alongside their comrades in the 8e Ligne under GdB Solignac during their involvement of the two days of fighting at Talavera and is covered in the post on the 3/8e Regiment de Ligne.

 3/8e Regiment de Ligne

There were only three regiments in Victor's corps that lost over five hundred men, or comparatively almost one battalion of soldiers and the 54e Ligne was in that unhappy group with 56 killed and 476 men all ranks wounded amounting to 532 casualties in total, with the wounded including their colonel. The bulk of these losses would have inevitably occurred in the afternoon assault by Lapisse's Division on the centre of the British line and bears testament to the ferocity of the fighting.

My 3/54e Ligne is composed of figures from the AB ranges from Fighting 15's with the fanion from GMB flags.

1/54e Eegiment de Ligne
2/54e Regiment de Ligne

Well with a project started back in May with the 1/24e Ligne and now twelve French line battalions done and the half way point achieved its time to take a few moments to celebrate the milestone which I intend to do next week with a few days away in Florence and Pisa to celebrate Carolyn's birthday, another even more significant milestone, and to prepare for the final run in to complete this project.

So what is to come?

I thought I would break the French infantry painting up with the two battalions of Brigadier Alan Cameron's brigade in Sherbrooke's 1st Infantry Division, namely the 1/61st (South Gloucestershire) Foot and the 2/83rd (County of Dublin) Foot. These two battalions will complete the British order of battle, just leaving the twelve remaining French battalions, and then we will finish with the seven battalions of Spanish infantry in Bassecourt's 5th Division and the four full regiments of cavalry under General Albuquerque.

I had a lot of interest in the French infantry painting tutorial so I will put a similar PDF together for the British and Spanish infantry, starting with work on the 61st Foot, when I get back from Italy.

Colonel Philipon and the 54e Regiment de Ligne

In addition we will be running the final play-test of the Talavera - Dawn Attack scenario to try out the game with a full on two divisional French attack, which might give the British players a few issues to deal with! Then it's on to the final additional scenario, Talavera - Attack on the Pajar, which I dabbled with at the Devon Wargames Group back in May, but want to try out using C&GII.

http://devonwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/talavera-attack-on-pajar-vergara.html

The testing of this scenario will take us through to the full game on completion of the Spanish. On the run in to playing the afternoon attack we will play through all the previously tested scenarios and carry forward the casualties and victory points into that final big game to link them all up using the tried and trusted C&GII. I think that sounds like a plan, and I hope to have a tested set of scenarios that can be played as stand alone games or linked into a mini campaign.

Onwards and upwards