Saturday 28 May 2011

My first French

For my first dip-of-the-toe into Napoleonics, I'm building an 1812+ French Battalion around 30 minis I bought on fleaBay.  This involves painting 12 from scratch, complete rebasing, and a little retouching.  Hopefully it'll be a gentle introduction.   The original painter was great at painting the fronts of the minis, but didn't bother to paint the packs or turnbacks.  Still, they were a fair price.


I am re-discovering the joy of turnbacks; these are very slow to paint.  And the facing and edgings are going to be a real pain. In the past week I've bought about 320 Perrys with turnbacks, which, at the rate I find can paint these, is a somewhat nightmarish prospect.

Tomorrow I'll post a picture of the next battalion, which I hope will be very much quicker to paint...

7 comments:

  1. Congratulations on the start. Everytime I see perry's French I'm tempted to make the switch from 15's to 25's.

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  2. Looking good; what blue do you use for your French? I think I must be used to seeing a much brighter blue, but now I am starting to wonder if a more muted colour would look much better.

    Are you basing them for Blackpowder?

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  3. The Perrys are lovely, but the Victrix are very nice too, Iowa. I'll be writing a bit about the two ranges tomorrow.

    Hi Chris, I believe the blue was very dark indeed, but a lot of wargamers lighten it. I'm going dark as many of my figures are already that colour. Prussian blue with a little black mixed in, and a dark wash... will see how it comes out.

    Cheers, Simon

    I'm basing them for BlackPowder and Lasalle, and will also use them with Command & Colours Napoleonics.

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  4. I don't envy the task of copying someone else's painting, but they are looking good. Using one singular basing technique will bring them all together regardless.

    I will have to pick up Blackpowder in my next Warlord Games order.

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  5. Very good choice of rules. The basing is only important with Lasalle, and you can choose whichever you want for the other two. Good idea indeed.

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  6. Chris, Blackpowder is quite a bit cheaper on Amazon, check there first. I do deplore the way the rules are written, but like the way they play. Some pretty pictures there, too!

    Hi Sebastofig, yes that's the critical thing, to get all the element frontages the same. We went for 45 mm which will be tght for artillery, but great for the other 2 arms.

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  7. Funny, I'm also dealing now with my first Perry's Frenchies... this is my first time painting napoleonics at this scales (my armies are all 20 mm) and I was somewaht afraid of the final result. I think yours look much better nonetheless. Congrats
    PS: I also play Lasalle!

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