French Napoleonic Ambulance

 3d printed in 18mm

I had this set printed by orders@taylorclanuk.org. Really great service and can recommend. 

French Napoleonic Forge

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

I have seen the future, it’s not dolphin blue planet friendly being plastic, but 3d printing is going to be the way to go.

This forge unit I bought printed from orders@taylorclanuk.org.

The set design is from https://napoleonicstlfiles.com/en/. Kane at Orders@Taylor has a comprehensive catalogue of Napoleonics he can print under licence. He will 3d print to whichever size you want and provides a really great turnaround and well packaged delivery for people such as myself that are 3d printer lacking. 

The figure detail is amazing. My only issue is that they are so realistic that once shrunk to 18mm some proportions are realistic but a bit small. Muskets, bayonets and scabbards can get a little flimsy. The plastic has got some give unlike their metal counterparts and they can also be easily glued back on. The horses from “napoleonicstlfiles” also have realistically thin legs, which again is not great for 18mm scale. But the Polish cavalry Kane also has come with a moulded base and were much sturdier. 

The variety of pose and variety of figure is really incredible. Details are so well defined painting is pretty easy, no guessing needed for buttons, belts or buckles. 

French Guard Artillery

French Guard Artillery

 Finished my two batteries of AB French Guard Artillery. The guns are Blue Moon French 12 pounders. I also finished some odds and ends and made an Essex Guard battery. This will do as a 6lb battery. At a distance the three units look okay together. The Essex guns are a bit chubby looking but the figures are in great coats so they look fine. 

Battery 1

Battery 2

Battery 3

French Corps Command Stand - Murat

 I have had the excellent Boki Sho Murats kicking their heels for a while on the pile. But as I have been focusing on increasing my French command stands, for one lucky figure their time finally came. It was the Borodino Murat because I just wanted a really over the top version. I had seen a few other versions online and the figure painted up really well. The problem was then what to pair him with. Luckily I had two Boki timpinast (or kettle drummers) waiting for such an opportunity. These figures are also very nice. They are very large figures and to keep them in proportion I placed them on the largest AB heavy horse I could find. Then as a final flourish I added a Lithuanian tartar trumpeter. He was proportionally dwarfed by the timpinasts, but with a little bit of card his height and self esteem were lifted. 

French 19th Line Infantry

 I currently have a job lot of Essex figures I picked up and am working my way through. This is the 19th Line regiment. The flags are TBW. I have applied some Vallejo Mat varnish on to take a little of the satin finish off. But to be honest Vallejo still tends to make my mat finishes a little satin in any case, maybe I am not applying it correctly ? 

French Old Guard Chasseurs a Pied

 A change from the artillery, some Chasseurs a Pied of the Imperial Guard. Figures are Blue Moon with an AB drum major and AB sappers (because the Blue Moon pack is 30 pcs, a few short of the 32 needed). The flag is from an excellent flag set from TBW. In the set you get the entire French flags for the battle of Waterloo (150 flags). I even received a revision in the post the other week which was a really kind gesture. 

Napoleonic French Guard Horse Artillery

 I seem to be doing a lot of artillery at the moment. But here are some AB figures with Blue Moon guns.

Napoleonic Young Guard Artillery

 Wheeling out the big guns with this one. French Young Guard Artillery (AB) with 12 pounders (Blue Moon). Looking a bit more blue in the photos compared to on the table. These 12lb guns from Blue Moon are big. They really make the 6lb guns look like pea shooters.

French Old Guard Grenadiers

 I think the manufacturing composition of anyone’s French Old Guard tells a lot about when they first got into Napoleonics! For me my figures are Essex first generation. This means I think they are dating back to around 1989? I decided to tidy a little bit of the old paint job (level of repaint was entirely dependent on my enthusiasm level) and a rebase. I thought these figures were going to look odd next to the newer 15mm/18mm figures, and to be honest they do. But I like them. Even though they are really short for Old Guard Grenadiers, they look more like a bantam regiment for those undersized for the main regiment. But I’m keeping them.

French Line Regiment

 I meant to post pictures of this Regiment a while ago. It’s the sister regiment to the other Essex one I posted a few months back. This regiment has 3 battalions, the third being the Essex French line in overcoats (“mostly”, also some odd left overs were drafted in, otherwise due to pack quantity constraints there would have been even more for the spares box)!! 

I thought the photos were pretty much the same as before so I jazzed things up by putting them walking through my small town building arrangement. I also focussed on the chaps in overcoats as these have some nice variety in the poses (unlike the bread and butter line infantry marching not in an over coat). Again Essex are so straight forward to clean and paint. Their stocky frames and stubby bayonets will still outlast any AB figure on the table, but they will never look as good! 

I regret to say they found no house with the kerb appeal they were looking for.

French Line Regiment

 This is a fairly generic French line regiment I Painted about a little while ago. It has a sister regiment that consists of another three battalions that I will put in the next post. All the figures are Essex. I still find these figures a nice easy paint. Very little cleaning and clearly defined detail. The folds in the uniforms make it easy to layer colour contrasts too. I understand some people don’t like proportions, but the stocky build and solid short bayonets make them good for handling. Plus I still have a fondness for them as they were my first 15mm figures I bought and painted 33 years ago.

French Guard Marines

Well this is a colourful lot! I had been dreading painting these as I knew it was going to have to be careful slow job. In reality it was a careful slow job. I wasn’t sure how orange to go on the trimmings for these, but the majority of sources were saying “orange”. They also are shown in illustrations with braid on the trousers at the front. I skipped this as I thought I would not get it done well and sometimes less is more. When it comes to flags it seems that there are plenty of options. 19th century witnesses seemed to have claimed to have seen all manner of configurations. I went with the eagle and a flag from Maverick Models that had cool looking anchor on it. Stuart Wilson of Maverick Models was really helpful and offers the flag in any size you want. I think I should have gone a bit smaller than the 15mm height I ordered. I think it’s more pennant style. I also went for the “effect” flag style, on reflection I think the plain would have been better, but this is personal taste. 

French Napoleonic Hussars

 A hefty slab of a regiment this one, 32 figures in total. Now why 32? Well it’s a long story dating back over 30 years. Before the internet ordering via Mail was a real hassle. Popping to the local Wargames shop was a lost easier. Problem with the shop popping was that it was like lottery. I wanted some French light cavalry and the shop had plenty of elite company hussars and not many packs of the regular ones. Because of the imbalance they were never painted and sat packed away for 30 years. When I looked over them again I decided to order more of them to balance the elite company felllas out. I should have made two units but decided to just base them up as a mammoth 32 figure unit. The elite company is still too large but I no longer care, it’s not keeping me up at night for some reason (although the wrong shoulder strap colours on my Russians would drive me nuts still). I also replaced the swords with some flattened wire. These are not great but are nice and robust. There also a figure in there from  http://warriorminiatures.com/ . It’s from the Gallia Little Gems range and is the Chasseurs a Chevalier officer (the chap on the horse rearing up). Warrior also do some nice guns that I will try do some more detailed post about at some point (very reasonably priced and a nice fit for 6lb guns).

French Line Horse Artillery

Two batteries of French Line Horse Artillery from Campaign Game Miniatures. Figures never need much cleaning up and CGM offer quite a few ranges that others don’t cater for in 15mm. These are in the later Bardin regulation uniform. The guns are also CGM and pretty good value at 2 for around €3.22 (at time of writing 15.01.21). 

French Light Infantry

 Just a couple of photos of my Campaign Miniatures French light infantry. These figures have a lot of interesting poses and came with very little flash. Also have nice solid bayonets, which is always a bonus.

Lithuanian Tartars

 Have just finished on my Boki Lithuanian Tartars. I really like the figures from Sho. They have great character and details. These figures need a little pinching in to get them on some Wargames bases comfortably (ankles and lance hand need squeezing in a bit depending on your base size). Their numbers mean that for most Wargames you probably don’t need that many figures, but I’m building for 1818 and anything is possible!! The lance Pennents are from Essex miniatures, they will sell on request the lances so you can drill and stick them on the end of cut down paperclip or brass rod, I use a 0.8mm drill bit and brass rod.

Here are the first batch of lancers. Difficult to determine the uniforms as they seemed to have a lot of variants.

Have now finished the second lot. I did these in a different colour scheme to give some variety.

Mameluke

Needed a break from the ships so started on some Mamelukes as a distraction. 

 

A bottle of rum - Vauban island fortress

 I painted up this nice model from Hagen-Miniatures based in Germany. Had really nice prompt delivery and packaging.

It’s their Vauban Island Fortress. It looks like it is based off the French fort Fort Louvois. The model came in three pieces and fitted together nicely. The guns were all provided separately. There were a couple of small air holes I should have filled but nothing big, so overall it was a really nice resin addition to the Black Seas world.