D’Erlon’s I Corps Shiny French Infantry

Scott MacPhee (MacPhee’s Miniature Men Blog) just finished painting the figures for the 4 Divisions of French Infantry for my shiny Napoleonic Armies project. They arrived just before Christmas, and I finished basing them.

My basing scheme is 6 figures per base, which represents a regiment. 4 regiments + a divisional command stand = a division.

Scott did such a great job with this toy soldier style paintjob, which is going to really ‘pop’ on the tabletop. I really love the bright colors and glossy finish (I gave them a second coat of gloss to really make them shine using Floquil Hi-Gloss).

Figures are current Minifigs; Flags are GMB.

Unit Commander/ Strength Stands

 

For weeks I’ve been mulling over the best way to represent and track unit strengths and casualties in a way that is functional, but also doesn’t disrupt the look and feel of the table.

One day it struck me that the wooden blocks from the old Avalon Hill/ Columbia board game, ‘Napoleon’ might work well: The blocks have unit type symbols (Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery) as well as strength pips on each edge that represent the strength of the unit in the game.

These blocks have the advantages of dice, which are often used for this purpose, but also a little better feel for the period.

They can also be used standing to prevent your opponent from knowing the exact strength of a unit. This hidden information is one of the advantages of blocks vs. counters in block wargames.

So I decided to take the concept one step further and create specialized unit command stands with a ‘frame’ build specifically to hold the blocks. The added advantage is that I could also use the Unit Command Stand to also label the unit and the commander: In this case, the French 2nd Infantry Division in D’Erlon’s I Corps at Waterloo, commanded by Donzelot.

I constructed the stand/ frame using a Litko Base and craft sticks cut to size and wood-glued.

 

 

This divisional commander figure is an old, repainted Hinchliffe rider on a new Hinchliffe horse.

Hinchliffe are a bit outdated by today’s 28mm sculpting standards, but have many well animated figures, and are perfect for my current ‘toy soldier’ ‘shiny Napoleonic’ project. They are roughly 25mm in scale, and therefore work well with other classic 25mm lines that I want to use, like Minifigs, Del Prado, Connoisseur, Lamming, and Mirliton.

This figure is a bit odd looking, but actually resembled the portrait I found of General Donzelot.

Shiny Napoleonic Infantry

Here are my first Infantry units. These are all refreshes of long ago painted Minifigs miniatures. They all had been based and flocked for gaming and had to be carefully pried off their bases, somewhat cleaned up, touched up, and re-based. They retain the essential feel of their original paintjobs, which were quite nice.

 I’ve been experimenting with different unit compositions for my bases: 

My Infantry bases will have 6 foot figures (2 ranks of 3). The French Grenadier and British Foot bases are represented as a company of the same type, whereas the Nassau base is a battalion of 6 different companies. I think that this latter method makes more sense for me due to the scale of the battles that I want to fight (entire major battles rather than smaller engagements). It also looks rather fun and colorful with the various plumes, etc.

Shiny Napoleonic French Dragoons

After a crazy five year delay on this project, I’ve gotten back to my true 25mm vintage napoleonic miniatures.

I’ve been collecting painted and unpainted Minifigs, Del Prado, Connoisseur, and Hinchliffe figures. I’ve cleaned up, repaired, touched up, and rebased old painted figures from the 70’s and 80’s. It feels good to rescue these classics! Though I try to improve what needs help without changing the original artists work too much.

This set is the venerable Hinchliffe 25mm French Dragoons in Bardin 1812 - 1815 uniforms. (Note: The original painter designated them as the 9th Dragoons, which historically were converted to Line Lancers before the Bardin Regulations went into effect. So this unit never really looked like this…but I don’t mind.)

These figures were beautifully painted by the original owner, so I didn’t need to do much work on them. I refreshed the helmets with brighter bronze (actually used gold for this) to help them pop more on the table. I refreshed-painted the horsehair plumes and horse tails as the black had faded. I painted blankets red that had been left white. And I repaired a few spots where the paint had worn down to the metal. And then a fresh coat of gloss. 

All figures are Hinchliffe except the Eagle Bearer’s horse, which is Connoisseur. I’ve got flags ordered from GMB, which I’ll add soon.

Chasseur à Cheval de la Garde Impériale - Eagle Bearer

I opened a package that contained this proud figure on Saturday and his flag came spilling out. It had snapped off, and even worse, the decals on both sides had dried out and were cracking and flaking off.

I immediately sat down to see if I could rescue the flag. I used crazy glue liberally in hopes of keeping the bits and parts of the decal in place. I didn't have much hope that it would work, but to my surprise it did...sort of. It was a pretty ugly, cloudy blob, but at least the flag stayed intact.

Next, I glued the flag back on the post, and since I knew that it would never stay, had to also glue to to the side of the rider's busby (which I absolutely hated doing, but it was the only way!)

After that cured, I set about touching up the flag as best I could to restore the color and continuity that the cracking and gluing had destroyed. Again, it was somewhat successful. At least enough to rescue the figure as a flag bearer instead of an odd looking trooper without a sword in hand.

And lastly, I touched up the paint and changed a few things that needed it: such as his blanket wrapped around his torso. The factory paint color was gray, but Keith Rocco shows it as green in his famous painting: 'A Chasseur's Fate'.

It's pretty easy to see the damage to the flag in these close-ups, but from a normal wargame table distance, the repair should be invisible. And if I position him in the middle of the three riders on his eventual base, it will hopefully prevent new damage from inadvertent gamer grabbing. Only a full-on drop will destroy my work. Let's hope that never happens to this survivor!

(Note: still need to touch up a couple of spots and do his base.)

Prussian Dragoon

What has me especially energized right now is taking these beautiful toys that have been diminished by time and use, and restoring them to their previous glory...and perhaps (hopefully) even to a superior state than their original condition.

I am trying to choose very vibrant colors that are still within the range of historical accuracy, and to also be true to the original toys.

Today's project was a Prussian Dragoon trooper (Del Prado Code ZIE 55).
Here are the 'Before and After' images:

He received a brighter, more vibrant blue for his frock coat (Litevka).
Gray trousers replace the black as painted on the original figure.
Gray blanket roll vs. blue (per Knoetel).
I chose to give him red facings (collar and shoulder straps) because it really adds more color, 'pop' and contrast to the figure, and that is what I'm after.
Of the 8 Prussian Dragoon regiments in 1815, 4 of them had red facings, so this is also historically accurate. (2 had white and 2 yellow).
The horse gets new paint with slightly more red in the brown coat.
And the base gets the vibrant green that I am using for all bases for this project.

Comparing Refreshed Paintjobs on Del Prado

In my last post, I showed a few Del Prado figures that I had 'refreshed'.
I thought that it might be fun to compare the 'Before' and 'After' figs next to each other.
The fresher colors and a bit of gloss really do make a big difference!

This was the conversion of a French Cuirassier to a French Dragoon.

French Carabinier

And Prussian Hussar


The refreshed figures really shine... ;-)

Shiny Happy Minis

It's been quite a while since I posted here, but I'm excited about a new tabletop miniatures project, so I thought that it might be time.

Quite a while ago, I painted up a set of old Prince August 25mm (true 25mm, not the 28 - 30mm beasties that are common these days). And appropriately, I painted them in glossy, simple, old toy soldier style. They looked so fun and amazing, but I really didn't know what I wanted to do with them, so they just sat on my shelf.

Well, a week or so ago I ran across them, took them down, and admired them...and then the sickness took hold: "Maybe THIS is the scale that I really want for my tabletop gaming," I thought. "These are big enough for my aging eyes to actually see," I rationalized. "And look at how those bright colors 'POP'. (Never mind that I have an insanely nice - and expensive - collection of 18mm AB Napoleonics).

The fever had taken hold, and I started researching online to see if I could really put together an entire Napoleonic collection with old, out-of-production, 25mm miniatures.

I not only found several potential candidates, but I also stumbled on at least three other guys who are doing EXACTLY this sort of project right now. Perhaps there is something in the wargaming water. Perhaps there is a global 5G message going out that demands that old wargamers return to the mother ship. I don't know why, but they are doing this...and now, so am I.

My research turned up several 25mm product lines:

1) Prince August -
Strengths: I like their simplicity, size, and look. I also have hundreds of them that I bought 5 or 6 years ago on ebay for no reason at all.

Weaknesses: The line is not very extensive (almost entirely Waterloo, and very limited at that). And worse, anything that I don't have now or can't get on ebay, I'll have to cast myself. The company sells 'do-it-yourself' moulds. Ugh! I'm not much of a do it yourself person.

2) Tradition -
Strengths: They are currently manufactured, and have some good content and a bit broader an offering than P.A.

Weaknesses: I suspect that they are a bit smaller than P.A., so I'll have to be careful about mixing units. They also do not make all of the nations and units that I need, so they aren't a total solution.

3) MiniFigs -
Strengths: They have current production, which is, apparently, a bit larger than the older (out of print) 'S' line. They have almost everything that I could want in Napoleonics. The line is quite extensive for 25mm.

Weaknesses: What is with the GIANT SHAKOS and HELMETS?!  They look positively outlandish in some of the figures. Unfortunately this eliminates some of the extensive offering.

4) Del Prado -
Apparently, back in the misty past (I haven't been able to discover exactly when), an Italian company named Del Prado launched a line of painted 25mm Napoleonics called 'Relive Waterloo' which they sold as a subscription along with Napoleonic booklets. Every week (month?), the lucky subscriber would get a new issue in the mail. The small packs of 2 or 3 miniatures (Cavalry, Infantry, Artillery, Officers) from the battle of Waterloo were quite nice: good sculpts, and very solid paint-jobs.

Weakness: These are not available anymore and the only way to get them is on ebay and such.

To kick off my new project, I acquired a small parcel of them to give them a look. I received the first batch, and immediately tore them out of their original packaging to enjoy them (collective collector coronary)...

Well, they are truly wonderful! The paint jobs need a little bit of help due to a bit of fading and cracking, but I happily dove in and breathed some new life into these wonderful figures.

Here is the product of my work:

Belgian and French Carabiniers

Prussian and Dutch Hussars

British Lifeguards Heavy Cavalry

British Officer and French Dragoon (Paint Conversion from a Cuirassier)

As you can see, I also tried my hand at a paint conversion. As I put together the lists of units that I'll need for the French army, I was alarmed that there was no 'good' French Dragoon on any of the lists. I'm especially partial to French Dragoons, so this hit me hard. So hard that it was a distraction for a couple of days as my brain spent an illogical amount of time trying to solve the problem.

Then on the third morning, the solution struck me! There are too many Cuirassier in the Del Prado packs. So many, in fact, that collectors complain of just having too many of the things.
"I wonder if I could just re-paint them to look like Dragoons," I thought. They do have similar helmets, swords, and even horse furniture. The problem is the cuirass. On most miniatures, it is prominent, and very detailed. Luckily, the Del Prado Cuirassier figures are more simply made, and are small enough that the eye really can't see the cuirass once the paint conversion is complete. The illusion is actually quite good. Problem 1 solved!

I look forward to this project, and to eventually gaming many Napoleonic battles with these beautiful, colorful, glossy figures.

French Army 18mm AB

earlier this year I had the mad idea to replace my entire 28mm collection with 15mm. The 28's were absolutely beautiful (mostly painted by Scott MacPhee), but the size and basing scheme was starting to frustrate me. Plus I wanted a table that looked more like armies than skirmishers.

So, I sold my massive 28mm Napoleonic collection and purchased 5 new Napoleonic armies from AB Miniatures in 18mm. (French, British, Austrian, Prussian, and Russian). Luckily for me, Scott was just coming back from a stint as a teacher and was available to paint these.

There may be a handful of people on the planet that could come close to his quality of work. There are zero people on the planet that could produce that work as quickly as he can. In less than six months, he prepped, painted, and based a massive French army at a '10' quality level.

Here they are, in all their glory, on my gaming table.



































Thank you, Scott!  These guys look amazing.