Grenadiers make me go "hmmmmm"

I've been working on some Saxon grenadiers for 1806, which I've painted as Battalion #6 (von Liechtenheyn), and I've run into a fundamental snag. Hmmmm....

For those who may remember my earlier posts on Saxon infantry (Dec 13 and 20, 2014), I painted stands that could represent a company for smaller games and a battalion for larger games. In other words, four stands:

as a battalion (minus the grenadiers and schützen) or one stand:

as the whole battalion. That's both battalions of the Kürfurst Regiment. It seemed a very sound and flexible system to me.  

Now the snag. Most (but not all) armies of the Napoleonic period stripped away the grenadier companies of each infantry regiment and combined them into composite grenadier battalions that served separated from their parent regiments. "All well and good", you say. However, this means that half the battalion has facings of one color and the other half has a different color (for Austrians, it's three different colors!). 

Saxon grenadier battalions had four companies (two from each of its two parent regiments), so in my small game system, I need four stands; two of each facing color, but for my large game system, I need one stand, painted half and half! Damn it! There goes the simple interchangeability. I'm not in favor of having to paint up grenadiers in both systems!

So, I've decided to drop the "one company per stand" and go with just larger games, which is after all the entire reason for doing 3mm. Here's my grenadier battalion:

My only gripe (don't I always have at least one?) is that even at 3mm, it's blatantly obvious that these guys are wearing French-style bearskins. They look nothing like the modified Austrian-style that the Saxons wore:

and certainly not even remotely like the Prussian grenadier cap:

I know these guys are tiny, but come on! There are some things that paint just won't cover up!!

Anyway, the von Liechtenheyn battalion in 1806 was a composite of the grenadiers from the Kürfurst (#1) and von Bevilaqua (#10, the former von Bünau) regiments, faced red and a medium blue. As per the convention of the time, I've put the troops from the senior regiment on the right. 

As this is a long holiday weekend (Labor Day), I'm hoping to get in a fair bit of painting and maybe a second post, if Mrs. History PhD cooperates. I know...."yeah, right."

More next time...maybe.