More French Line Infantry

Over the Memorial Day public holiday I've been continuing the momentum on the Napoleonic French collection with another battalion of line infantry.

These are all built 'as-is' from the Perry Miniatures French Napoleonic Infantry set, just a matter of sticking on the backpack and painting, no head-swaps or other modelling involved.

For this unit I elected to use only the figures in veste, the next unit will use only figures in greatcoats and I've already been doing a lot of head-swaps on that lot.

I've been experimenting with a new way of doing the blue, it looks a lot lighter in these pictures that I think it does in the flesh, base-coat with Dark Prussian Blue + Prussian Blue, AP Strong tone, then repaint Dark Prussian Blue + Prussian Blue then another couple of highlight with a touch of Sky Blue added to the mix then a wash of AP Blue Tone.

A flag for these and the other two units painted so far is winging its way from GMB Designs in the UK and hopefully will be here soon so that I can get these and the other two units done this month to a complete state and ready for battle.

Once the standards are here the first four battalions of these troops I'm currently working on will represent Grenier's Brigade of Marcognet's Division during the Hundred Days campaign.

Checking the remaining figures in the boxes, with the aforementioned great-coated unit already underway I'll be able to add three more battalions to the collection, one battalion will see Grenier's Brigade complete.

With the extra two battalions of troops I plan to do one of these as a light infantry unit to add to the other two battalions from 13e Régiment de Légère that are currently with the rest of the collection in the UK then when these join the other battalions of their regiment then Schmitz's Brigade of Donzelot's Division will also be complete.

With 14 battalions now done I'm almost half-way through being able to represent d'Erlon's Corps, the next three battalions I have in hand will certainly take me over the half-way mark, all I need to to then is paint the Union Brigade to smash it with ;)

Of course there is the slight problem of geography with most of the collection still 3500 mile away!

French Line infantry

With the arrival of my order from Arcane Scenery I've been able to crack on with some more troops for my French Napoleonic forces and this week have turned out another four bases of line infantry.

All the line troops are from the Perry Miniatures Plastic French Napoleonic Infantry set.

In my bits box I also found this chap who will make an excellent leader for my Sharpe Practice games or a disorder marker for our 'Big Battle' games.

These four bases of foot bring the two partial units I painted earlier this month up to their full 24-figure strengths.

Here's the other unit in greatcoats.

Some flags from GMB Designs to complete them are currently making their way over the Atlantic to me.

Agincourt 1415 for Partizan in the Cloud #Partizaninthecloud

My travel plans to the UK this year have been scuppered and I was sad not to be able to attend the Partizan show. But all is not lost I can participate in Partizan in the Cloud #Partizaninthecloud  

Here is a Youtube video of a game that I set up and played earlier this week for the show.

The two forces used were as follows.

English

Henry V, King of England - Attached General (Senior, Heroic, Great Leader)
Two units of Veteran Later Knights on foot
Two units of Veteran Longbowmen

Edward of Norwich, the 2nd Duke of York  - Attached General (Heroic) 
Two units of Veteran Later Knights on foot
One unit of Veteran Longbowmen

Thomas de Camoys, 1st Baron Camoys - Attached General
Four units of Veteran Longbowmen

Sir Thomas Erpingham - Attached General
Four units of Veteran Longbowmen

French

Jean II Le Maingre, Boucicault, the Marshall of France - Attached General (Heroic) 
Five units of  Later Knights on foot

Charles d'Albret, Constable of France - Attached General (Heroic)
Five units of  Later Knights on foot

David, Lord Rambures, Grand Master of Crossbowmen - Attached General (Heroic)
Three units of  Later Knights on foot
Two units of Levy Crossbowmen

Charles, Duke of Orléans - Attached General (Heroic)
Two units of  Later Knights on foot
One unit of Sergeants
One unit of Levy Crossbowmen

Louis, Count of Vendôme - Attached General (Mounted, Heroic)
Three units of mounted Later Knights

Anthony, Comte de Brabant - Attached General (Mounted, Heroic)
Two units of mounted Later Knights

Waleran de Raineval, Comte de Fauquembergue - Attached General (Mounted, Heroic)
Two units of mounted Later Knights

Special rules:
Great leaders are a sort of special senior attached general.  A great leader's exceptional qualities enable him to play two replacement activation cards or to-hit cards in a single turn, rather than the usual one. Great leaders are also exceptional warriors and when wounded, play two injury cards and pick the lowest.  

English archers may perform an arrow storm, drawing three chits for shooting rather than two as a difficult activation if they are shooting at an enemy within range 2, an extra ammunition token is expended. 

To represent the problems caused when the French horse recoiled into their infantry, when mounted men at arms are broken they are subject to the Rampage rule (p.52)  


The unit carrying the Oriflamme can always redraw the chit if they fail to make a charge move. 

The battlefield is a ploughed field, any Men at Arms attempting to move or charge count as a difficult activation. 

And, if you are not bored already, I also created a short video of me setting up the table in our spare bedroom.

Light Infantry Carabiniers

Another batch of Napoleonic French off the workbench with a group of six Carabiniers to join their Voltigeur colleagues painted last week.

Again all six figures are from the Perry Miniatures range.

I buggered up a bit on the grey greatcoats, I had planned to paint them in VMC French Horizon Blue, and indeed did the basecoat in that colour, but when I came to re-apply the basecoat like a doofus used VMC Luftwaffe uniform, so although I like how they came out it's not what I intended.

This weeks efforts will be concentrating on getting the two under-strength units I showed a week ago up to their full 24-figure strength.

Light Infantry Voltigeurs

More work on the Napoleonic French this weekend with a couple of groups of Light Infantry Voltigeurs from Perry Miniatures.

A trawl through the lead pile turned up enough figures for twelve Voltigeurs and another six Carabiniers for a later post.

As they are from a light infantry battalion they are in a darker blue uniform than I usually use for the French.

These are lovely figures, but they, like many Perry white metal castings, are a bit of a bugger to clean up and during the many stages of my painting process I'm still finding gobs of metal that need trimming off the castings.

I reckon that the parent unit (the 13e Régiment de Légère) I initially intended these for were painted at least ten years ago, they certainly were painted predating me starting this blog.

It's unlikely that I'll be playing any "Big Battle" Napoleonics in the foreseeable future, but these will make a good couple of groups for any Sharpe Practice games we can get in.

Back at the end of April I placed an order for a load more infantry and bases with Arcane Scenery, twelve days later it was here in Wisconsin with me, great work from Arcane, Royal Mail and USPS.

Hopefully, more Napoleonics over the coming blog posts.

French line

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Following on from the Voltigeurs that were shown earlier this week I decided to go for a trawl in the pile o'shame and found a load of Perry French Napoleonic Infantry and a pack of Line Regimental Infantry command in greatcoats

The plastics had been trimmed from their frames and thrown in the box while the command pack looked to have been unopened. 

My existing forces are in units of 24 and there was enough stuff to do two units at 2/3 strength, the first one is in greatcoats with the figures from the command pack added.

The second are in their jackets so a little more colourful. I'd forgotten what lovely figures these are and have dropped an order on Arcane Scenery for a few more boxes to allow me to bring these two up to strength and to add a few more units to the collection.

I've also ordered some flags from GMB Designs for them all. Hopefully I'll not lose interest in them before these and the figures arrive from the UK.

The rest of the collection that I started about 11 years ago is still in the UK, if I recall there is already 11 battalions of infantry, five regiments of horse, plus loads of other stuff. I tried to sell it before I moved but it did not go and is still in storage, you can see some pictures of it here.

Also in the pile o'shame are some more light infantry Voltigeurs, a box of Hussars and some mounted ADCs so plenty to keep me going and interested. Hopefully the postage will not take too long.

I'll certainly not have enough for some big battle games but I reckon that I'll easily be able to play some Sharpe Practice if the mood takes me.

Star Wars: Legion - Imperial Scouts (by Mrs Scrivs)

Mrs Scrivs has finished her Imperial Scouts and they are getting a post all of their own, after all, this is Scrivsland, not MrScrivsland. 

These are really lovely figures and triggered some Empire Envy in me ;)

Victoria used four of these in our last game, as they were painted apart from the bases finished. They completed their objective, maybe it's only my newly painted figures that don't do so well!

Tardy French Voltigeurs

Recently I was perusing chum Toms blog and I noticed that he was painting some Napoleonic French troops. Getting a little jaded with all the 15th Century stuff I knew that I had some Perry Miniatures Napoleonic stuff in my pile o' shame.

Back in circa 2010 I had base-coated these figures and given them a sepia wash, then put them aside. Around 2016 I had put them in a jiffy bag and added them to the other pile o' shame stuff that was coming to Wisconsin with me and they had lain forgotten ever since.

So about 10 years after they were stated I had to tart up the now very scruffy and scratched base-coats then do some highlights and add a base. I think they have come out quite well considering. I'm now working my way through the best part of a box of French infantry that was in the pile o' shame with them.

As the remainder of my Napoleonic collection is back in the UK (and there is quite a bit of it) these are unlikely to get played with any time soon unless we do some small forces for Sharpe Practice or Songs of Drums and Shakos.