French Napoleonic Army Update

Wow!  Six battalions painted and 2 guns for my French Napoleonic army.  I started this project nearly 5 years ago but in the last year I have made lots of progress.  I am working on the commander for this force and then it will be back to troops.

I plan to add 2 battalions of Warlord figures painted as Swiss.  These will be large units and I think I will add in mounted colonels.  I have some GMB flags on order for these units so they should pretty spectacular.  I will brigade the Swiss with the French so that will give me enough figures for t brigades for Black Powder.

After that I am going to paint 4 boxes worth of Warlord French as Italians.  This will give me a four battalion brigade for Black Powder.  These should be a breeze to paint as they are pretty much all white.  Once those are done I will be complete with my immediate plans for French and allied infantry.  Then it is on to either French cavalry or maybe Russians.

French 1/36 Infantry Regiment

Yet another battalion for my Napoleonic French project is ready for action.  This time we have the 1st battalion, 36th infantry regiment.  Named, as usual, for the flag I put on it.  These figures are Old Glory and are OK.  They are a little chunky in the sculpting style and they suffer a bit from the Old Glory wonky pose issue but are pretty nice when painted and formed up.  I have enough to build one more unit of these figures and I will get to them some day.  I doubt I will investing much more of the Old Glory figures as there are some many options for Napoleonic French.

French 1/9 Line Regiment

I have finished my fifth unit for my Black Powder Napoleonic project.  This time we have the 1st Battalion of the 9th Regiment.  Why did I pick this unit?  I would love to have some great historical reason for modeling this unit but like all the rest of my French it is named after the flag I put on it.

The figures are Warlord plastic figures.  This set come with metal command figures.  My one complaint is that the way the sets are created you get an odd number of elite company models.  For my units I need 8 of these models and the set comes with 7 so I have to add in a single Perry figure to build a complete unit.  Why would they put 7 in the box?  It is a real pain and in the end future projects with these figures will require that one box be used to scavenge the extra elites.  I understand that the current sets are 24 figures rather than the 32 in the boxes I have.  I can't see how the reduction of figures will correct the ratio issue.  I do recommend these figures as they are very well sculpted have lots of character.

Napoleonic French Artillery

Here are a couple of 6lbs guns for my Napoleonic French army.  These are from Old Glory and I think they turned out pretty good.  Not show winners but they will work on the table.  These took entirely too long to paint but that has been true of this entire project.  I am hoping to make some progress on this project over the coming weeks.

27th Regiment d'Infanterie de Ligne

This installment of the Napoleonic French project has the first and second battalions of the 27th regiment.  It so happens that between Warlord and Victrix I had both battalion flags.  This is the only regiment that I have more than one battalion flag for so I had to do both.

Like the other installments these figures are all Victrix.  The next batch is likely to be Warlord but it will be a ways away.  Time to take a break from these guys.

1st Battalion 27th Regiment

1st battalion command

1st battalion grenadiers

2nd battalion 27th regiment

2nd battalion command

2nf battalion voltiguers

The 27th regiment

Another French Battalion

Just over 4 years ago I painted my first unit of French troops for the Napoleonic era.  I was pretty excited at the time to finally be working on a long dreamed of project.  My local group's discovery of the Black Powder rules had several of us excited about jumping into a big project.  Well, that dream slowly faded into the background and several of my friends moved on from the idea.

1/8 Line regiment.  The figures are Victrix and are still my favorite of the plastic figures.

I never gave up on the dream of doing Napoleonic Black Powder games and have been slowly adding models to the collection and the paint queue.  Today I finished the second French battalion for this project.  Sadly, at this rate I will be too old to actually use them once I have enough painted for a game.  That just means that I need to get on the ball and get some stuff painted!

My entire painted French Napoleonic collection.  1/8 line regiment and the 1/2 line regiment.

I still have a couple of friends who have an interest in the project so things are not hopeless.  In fact, I am working adding a collection of Russians.  These will take a back seat to the French as you can't have a proper Napoleonic battle without the French.  It feels good to get this project back on the paint bench.

I have two more Victrix line battalions assembled and in the painting process.  Once those are done I will paint a commander and a gun and have a brigade ready for action.  I would like to have this phase done by the end of the year.

Perry French Hussars

For the last couple of weeks I have been building an prepping lots of models.  One set that I have been wanting to build for a long time is the Perry French Hussar set.  I have known for a long time that these are really great models but it wasn't until I built some that I truly appreciated just how great these are.  I have built and painted lots of Perry plastic miniatures as well as from some other manufacturers.  Plastic has lots of advantages and a few disadvantages.  One of the big disadvantages of plastic is the inability to do undercuts and the loss of detail towards the sides of pieces.  These minor disadvantages can be overcome by good model design.  In the case of these Hussar models the design is just about perfect.  Outside of an actual model kit built by one of the large model company, I don't think I have seen a better design or execution of a plastic kit.

The kit has some really nice features that allow you to build a huge variety of uniform styles.  There are four different styles of head gear with enough heads to do the entire box in a single style.  You also get two sets of legs, one in dress style and the other with the coveralls for campaign dress.  I am not a Napoleonic uniform specialist, but to my relatively untrained eye you should be able to do just about any unit from 1798 to 1815.  There might even be uses other than French for these as well.

You also get an amazing set of painting guides that cover more than a dozen different Hussars units and shows uniform differences in different campaigns or periods.  This set is so well done that I feel like, as a complete Napoleonic novice, that I can built great units and have a very close uniform accuracy.

This first set has been built as the 4th Hussars sometime around 1812.  This is one of two units with banners included in the box.  Unfortunately, since I am not really focusing on Napoleonics this year I am not sure when I will paint these figures but they are so nice I just had to share. 

28mm French Napoleonic Figure Comparison

I have been assembling my new Napoleonic additions and though there might be some interest in a figure comparison.

Figures with paint are Victrix.  Unpaited figures are, from left to right, Old Glory, Warlord Games and Perry Miniatures

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French Napoleonic Project

A couple of years ago I started on a French Napoleonic project.  I manage only a single battalion completed at that time.  This project got a little side tracked in favor of the ACW project for Black Powder.  Now that we have a few BP games in it is time to get the Napoleonic project back on track.

My usual game group have settled on the 1813 campaign as our focus.  I am working on French for the time being.  Once these are painted up I am planning on adding some Warlord and Perry plastics to the collection.

If everything goes as planned I hope to get a big game together for late next summer,  Stay tuned for painting progress.

French Battalion Complete

Tonight I finished my first French Battalion for Black Powder. I must say I really enjoyed assembling and paint these figures. All of the time I spent working on them really made me want to play Black Powder but I am a long way from doing a Napoleonic battle. So that means I need to get back to my ACW project. I am very close to having the Union up to two full brigades.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the completed unit. Thanks to the comments on my test paints for keeping me in perspective on how to paint these. I went for a nice looking unit rather than nice looking individual figures. In the end I may have accomplished both.

French Test Paints

Here are the first three painted examples of my Victrix French. The painting itself I am pleased with. I used the GW Badab Black wash rather than my usual Minwax Polyshades dip. I am not very happy with that decision. As usual, these look much better in person. I still can't seem to get good photographic examples of my work.

The first is a line Fusilier.

Next is a line Voltigeur.

Last is a line Grenadier.

The good news is these will be much easier to paint than I thought. I should be able to make good time on the rest of the battalion.

Victrix French Line Battalion

All of the Dwarf and Catachan action lately had me looking for a change of pace. I have been doing lots of thinking about various historical projects that i would like to do. To help sooth the urge I decided to build some of my Victrix French Line Infantry that I purchased a few months ago. I bought these because they are cool and I have been wanting to do some Napoleonic games. I intend to use them for Black Powder but I might also try some other rules for the period.

Here we have the first battalion assembled. This is a 28 figure unit and will be based on 50mmx40mm bases from Renendra. The bases did not come with the figures. They actually came with my Perry plastic ACW figures but I am using Litko bases for that project.

These are the line Fusiliers. They are a mix of covered and uncovered shakos. I really like the variation that is possible with this kit.

These are the line Voltigeurs. I went with the tall plume on the shakos for these guys because they look cool. I also based them on the 50mmx20mm bases so that they can skirmish.

Lastly we have the line Grenadiers. These are wearing the bearskin cap. I love the look of these guys and it makes me want to get some of the Old Guard Grenadiers...soon.

I have enough figures left in the first box that I should be able to build a second battalion from that box. That means that each battalion costs about $20. That is an unbeatable price for 28mm figures! You really can afford to do very large armies for prices like that. To make things even better the models are some of the best I have ever seen.

Now I need to paint them. I really am not very knowledgeable on the whole Napoleonic uniform thing. Victrix has made this a little easier as there is a nice painting guide on the box and some good color artwork.

Stay tuned for more on this project...

New Project - 1812 French

Ever since the release of the Perry and Victrix plastic Napoleonic kits I have been interested in starting a collection. After acquiring a copy of Warlord game's Black Powder I knew it was only a matter of time. I kept telling myself that once plastic Russians and Plastic Austrians were available I would jump in. Well, the Perrys, Warlord and Victrix are working on plastic kits for Russians and Austrians as well as Prussians. So I decided that before the armies I really want to do are released I would start my collection with the French. Basically, no French no Napoleonic wars so it had to be done.

Today I picked up two boxes of Victrix Napoleonic French Infantry 1807-1812. This is an amazing set of multi-part figures. Each box contains 60 figures and I paid $40 per box (I am sure I could get these cheaper but I was supporting my local shop). The kit allows for a wide range of poses as well as command figures. This set includes parts for Fusiliers, Voltiguers and Grenadiers.

There are two different sprues on the box and you get four of each sprue. There are over 100 different heads in the set which is pretty cool. I will have no trouble modeling very unique and interesting units.

The set also includes a very simple set of rules which I doubt I will read. On the rules booklet are eight regimental flags. These flags are very nice but they are printed on the back of the assembly instructions and I am not sure if the text will show through to the flags. I may make color copies of these.


The bad news is that I will not be working on these any time soon. Before I can start on these I need to finish Tom's FoW later Germans, I need to get started on my LoTR Dwarf Army (more on that later), and I need to paint some Poncho Villa Mexicans for some LoTOW games. Oh yeah, I need to paint up a few more units of ACW so I can actually play some Black Powder games. I will post of more as I get to this but for now I am just buying stuff.