Brits and French - 28mm an army of each :)

[tas 1812]

Hi all,

I've always been fascinated with Napoleonics, what's not to like? It's what got me into gaming in the first place decades ago. However not until recently has my love of this period rekindled (mainly because of the fantastic range of plastics now available) as other game formats have lost their lustre currently for me. Black Powder is a fantastic ruleset, and what more of an excuse did I need...

So, here's the project WIP, all models are WIP, 3 Brigades of French, 3 brigades of British (12 units of each) all victrix infantry so far, perry cav also and a few conversions too. thoughts and advice please, I'm trying for fairly historically accurate, I'm sure in the speed paint I tend to do not everything is 100% accurate (as are some of my conversions) enough talk, pics

all of what's painted so far


most of the brits












and about a third of the french

[Cubster]

Eek! A whole army for each!

[mikeland]

Welcome to the forum tas 1812... fantastic armies, that certainly is the way to do it!How long did they take you?

[tas 1812]

Thanks for the replies,

I started on the brits in January, did 2 inf regts and the highlanders in about a month around other projects (paint and assembly), work's got in the way until recently and I only got the stuff built, (all victrix infantry, it took ages...) but with a few weeks off I smashed out the french and fleshed out the brits into 5 regts. The french seem to take longer though as is the tartan, I'm still doing it if my sanity holds...

I paint fast to get them on the table (I cut corners quite a bit, white drybrush straight over the plastic, colour the bits that need painting and wash/ink the whole model, all GW paints, and highlight when I get around to it) They're far from finished though, time permitting I can get a regt done in a week, (characters and guns quicker) I recently got the curaissiers done in a couple of nights painting as they were already based. don't look too hard though please

[gamester]

very nice i especially like the highlanders

[crouching lictor]

Nice work! I am doing the same type of project but at a much slower pace. I have two brigades of British infantry built and one painted. I have about a brigade plus of French infantry but have yet to get around to painting them. I am also building the complete 100 Days ORBAT for all of the forces involved in 10mm.

[Fluffy05]

Outstanding work to get so many figures painted up and nicely painted at that!

I am just starting Napoleonics in 28 mm and would be keen to get some pointers to build French and British along similar lines to yourself.

I am not a button counter but am certainly enjoying learning about the period.

Happy Gaming and thanks for sharing

Cheers,

Allan

[carvel2]

Great job.... Feeling lazy again

[Ala Noricorum]

Great job
I like the commander of cuirrasiers with bicorne hat!

did zou use spare comander head from victrix french infantry sprue?
Cheers

[tas 1812]

Thanks for all the comments guys, I just need more time to do more now

Here's another close up of that commander, he's a kit bash using the perry dragoon officer with the head from the french victrix sprue (well spotted Ala Noricorum )



I've got another mounted commander underway using a mix of perry and victrix bits, he looks a bit like this guy on the end...



(hope he hasn't been cut off...)

There's more in the pipline, I got half a unit of french dragoons, 2 commanders, a small Company skirmishing (2x2 models on a big base using up the left over bodies to get some extra deployments) and some work on my converted 95th rifles skirmishers over the weekend also, bit to do though and will hopefully get some WIP pics up tomorrow or so.

I love painting, but gaming is also an integral part of it for me, so this project is to get gaming forces on the table, and we are getting there (as soon as those boxes of French and Brit Hussars arrive at the LGS...) and soon i'll have enough done to get some more good games in and get a few others in on the action too around my area. I'm not a stickler for Historical accuracy, I'm trying to get these fairly right though (I've got a bit of work to do on the brit gunners for example... that's what you get for just deciding, "yep they're the right colours" :p doh!... ) but conversions are a great way to use up bits and add a bit of variety to the forces, there's a few there, see if you can spot them, I need to fix up a few, especially those without packs

$$$ are a factor too, the plastic sets make this affordable, that said I'll try to make the most out of each box and use as many of the models as possible. A bit of pre purchase/assembly planning can solve this (I blu tac'd on the arms first to see I had enough to get it to look right/as I wanted) and have done some converting along the way too as plastics make this so easy

Advice from others is gold too, I got some over on TMP which provied invaluable as I originally stuck it all together, painted away and later found out I'd painted an entire attalion all as flank companies (thanks victrix ) Saying that the victrix kits are great, bit to assembly but for someone who's spent years with GW stuff it aint much really, a friend has some perry inf and said they're easier to assemble, but the victrix are so characterful

get say two boxes of each and go from there, I used the victrix 1807-12 french and peninsular brits (flank and centre) and have got plenty of models out of them if you're a bit creative and then I've just added guns and cav for flavour and some light inf also

my thoughts, any feedback or suggestions are always welcome
cheers,

tas