Friday 18 May 2012

Recycled Frenchies!

I acquired off Archduke Piccolo today a number of second hand painted 20mm plastic Napoleonic French. The Archduke had recently acquired them himself, but was persuaded to part with them upon receiving appropriate trade goods.

A group photo of some of the French.

Close up of some of the stands.

A command element. there were three stands like this.
The paint jobs on these figures are quite average at best, and the figures have had a rough life - I have been told that they fared badly in the earthquakes - which easily explains the missing paint on many of them! In defense of the figures, they are good enough to put on the table, and Napoleonics are not the easiest of figures to paint. It also looks like some of them were painted with hobby craft paint, which would increase the difficulty in producing a top paint job. By and large, this would have been a fieldable army that hopefully the original painter had fun using.

First I cut them out of their stands. these Voltigeurs will form a skrimish line on each V&B stand.

The figures are largely from the HaT 1808 -1812 French Line Infantry set.

I then start to figure out where the figures will go on their new home.

 I am basing them up for use with Volley and Bayonet, as a way of quickly getting some usable french forces on the tabletop. After the success I had with putting a wash over my second hand WW2 Italians, I was curious to see if I could do something similar with other second hand figures. I present the following for you to judge:


Two French stands without benefit of washing.
The French on the left have received a wash of GW Devlan Mud

Front view of the almost finished stand.
The rear view of the French stand,



Side view. The printed paper flag was washed too!





I followed advice from the Archduke and used ink on the coloured edges of the flag to remove the white cut edge.
The printed flags most likely were sourced from Warflag, and the flagbears were mainly converted musketmen. For the completed V&B stand, I nicked an eagle from an Italeri French Line Infantry flag, (a number of the figures are from that set, and from others too!).

Overall I am very pleased with the results achieved from recycling these figures - and from the looks of it it seems that some of these figures are on at least their third rebasing!  With luck I should be able to get another two V&B bases with command figures on them, and enough figures to do another four.



12 comments:

  1. Again I think the wash improves the model, my only concern is that it looks a tad thick on some of the models. Maybe they just have more detail to fill with the wash.

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    1. The figures (both the HaT and the second release Italeri French Line Infantry) used are great figures - just painted in a poor to average style - no doubt with a similar motive to mine - getting them quickly done and out on the table. The wash is quite heavy in places, but I'm not too concerned, as the places where it is too heavy doesn't detract from the overall look of the stand.

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  2. it does look good. But I agree with Sean, a bit thibk in some places.

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    1. Yep, it is! Still the overall look of the stand is improved by it. As long as the wash improves the look of the figure more than it hinders it, I am pleased!

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  3. Man, you move fast! It was only yesterday you got those figures: I've barely looked at what I have kept!

    I have included a link to the Napoleonic campaign site in which our campaign is going. If you join, you might want to negotiate with Barry a command of, oh, I don't know, the Polish army (Prince Poniatowski. I am in command of the Austrian VII Corps in Poland and Kienmayer's XI Corps in Bohemia.

    As you will have seen, some of the paintwork and even a few of the figures themselves, took a bit of a hiding in the earthquakes. A fair amount of wear and tear can degrade the painting quite a bit.

    I don't know whether one can paint over the wash, but I would before or after touched up a lot of the strapping and webbing that seems to have been omitted from many of the figures' original paint job. Even after the wash, I'd redo a lot of the white and yellow to thin the detail outlines, and liven up the figure.

    As I recall, there were something like 144 French figures (I stand to be corrected), which, if basing 3 skirmishers and 15 figures in a 3x5 (3 ranks of 5) column - i.e. 18 figures per stand; we're looking at Volley & Bayonet here - should yield 8 stands (8x18=144). At 2, 3 or 4 stands per Division, that gives you a pretty decent sort of Army Corps. All that need be added is artillery (I don't know what the scale is there, but you might get 1 gun per Division plus another Reserve artillery piece - 4 guns); and a light cavalry stand (or possibly two) - most likely chasseurs-a-cheval, but hussars and/or lancers are more easily available, and legit enough for a generic Corps.

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    1. Yeah, I got stuck into them as soon as I got home! Good points about the earthquake damage - some of them has suffered greatly from having half their paint crack and peel off. Some touching up on straps, etc was done on the rebased figures, but largely I am relying on the three foot rule detail wise!

      Your suggestions for V&B organisation sound about right, and OI probably will get more stands than I expected - this is not a bad thing!

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  4. Bu the way, you could yield an extra stand if you based them as 3 skirmishers plus 12 figures (3x4 column - quite acceptable) - 9 stands. You would have 9 figures over, but I might be able to scratch up a half-dozen unpainted dudes to supply those needed to make a tenth stand.

    Come to think of it, Rodger might be able to help you with advice...

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    1. I am hoping (as discussed over the phone) to do a variable number of figures on each stand 20 odd for a strong one, down to 12ish for a weak one. The one shown in this post has 19 figures.

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  5. Having said all the above, once the flocking is complete, you will see some really nice units. I've seen a very mediocre paint jobs on rough homecast figures utterly transformed by flocked bases. Astonishing...

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    1. Agreed! Good basing - Hell, even average basing - can greatly lift the appearance of a figure or unit.

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  6. I found about half a dozen French guys - including a flag bearer - masquerading as Prussians in the infantry I retained. Culled them out, laid them carefully aside,... and do you think I can find them again, by Jupiter??!!

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    1. I am currently not at a machine I can log in from, so this will be as Mr Anon., rather than as Uncle Brian.

      This sounds smilar to me finding a loose figure just after I had finished the eight stands! Oh well! looks like I might be able to make a weak ninth stand!

      Best Regards,
      Uncle Brian

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