Slow Progress

Made very slow progress over the last fortnight. Still recovering from major surgery last year, underweather with seasonal cold, and then last week had stitches removed from first eye surgery. Still onwards and upwards- I did manage to get some work done.

Started with Line Infantry. Tempting though it would be to commence with Cavalry or guard, I knew I needed core first which would be useful for Waterloo, Peninsular War or any battle. The big attraction in Napoleonics is the full dress uniform, but I needed to build up my painting confidence. So greatcoats it is.

These are some of the figures I bought in December, block painted to basic gaming standard:

  This was painted as 6 "companies" each of 20 troopers plus officer plus drummer, plus a regimental commander and standard. So these 134 figures would give me the best part of four units for Black Powder using standard 36 man battalions. Just need some extra standard bearers.

I wanted some more variety in clothing. Not as much as for units in Peninsular War or in 1813/14 following the debacle of invasion of Russia. But enough to represent that units called up and outfitted at short notice for the Hundred Days. So I painted a few of the trousers and couple of greatcoats in dark blue, leaving the majority with light grey overcoats and white trousers. Next I dipped using Strongtone shade.

I had  planned on taking a few more before, during and after shots but poor light today by the time I had finished. Still it was a (belated) start and one I need to build on to keep project momentum going.

New Year - new gaming project

This is the first post of what will hopefully be a regular record of my progress on collecting and painting a Napoleonic French army in 28mm scale, prompted by 18th June 2015 being the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Mont-Saint-Jean aka La Belle Alliance aka Waterloo.

Like many others I was introduced to wargaming by the then monthly publication White Dwarf in the mid 80's. Starting with W40K Rogue Trader and WFB 3rd edition, but quickly moving onto Adeptus Titanicus, Space Hulk and Blood Bowl. Two of my favourite games remain Epic Armageddon and LOTR Strategy Battle Game. Having also dabbled in RPG's, LCG's and Boardgames, and other wargames such as Silent Death, Full Thrust, Battletech, and Warmachine, I found myself increasingly drifting into historicals.

Tried a variety of historical rulesets for both Ancients and Napoleonics. Myself and other club members at Leeds Night Owls gravitated towards Hail Caesar and Black Powder respectively, both produced by Warlord Games. They both had the right balance between granularity of historical detail and game playability. Good fun casual games allowing us to get as many painted club figures on the tabletop with multiple players, without getting too bogged down.

The recent explosion of 28mm plastics from the likes of Warlord Games, Victrix and the amazing Perry twins has made collecting a historicals army feasible for me. Firstly on the grounds of cost and affordability, secondly on lightweight (big factor in carrying army to/from club), thirdly on the level of sculpting detail and variety of pose. Not that I avoid metals - Perry Miniatures in particular have the perfect balance between plastic core troops and metal characters/specialist troops in their many wonderful ranges.

So I have started collecting 28mm French Napoleonic army using Perry Miniatures (plastic line infantry, heavy cavalry & light cavalry and metal command and artillery), Victrix (plastic Imperial Guard, line infantry and eventually artillery), Warlord Games (plastic line and light infantry) and HAT (plastic light infantry).
(I would like to add some of the classic Wargames Foundry metals but that is initially ruled out on cost).

First up some greatcoated French Line Infantry......