Proper model soldiers, these!I popped into Orc's Nest today (it's only 400 yards from my office!) to look for a few more Copplestone Ngoni and saw that they had the Perry French Plastic in, so I just had to buy a box. They are absolutely gorgeous; far superior to their rather disappointing ACW figures. Now I can see that I will be basing up French during Strictly Come Dancing tomorrow!
This however, gives me a problem. The figures come with pre cut bases that contemplate 6 Figures on a 40mm base (which I beleive is the norm for General de Brigade). I absolutely prefer to mount my figures on individual bases and make movement trays for them. Especially as I am interested in skirmish gaming for Napoleonics using the Sharp Practice Rules. The rules I used to use for Napoleonics in my Airfix days were the very old school Charles Grant ones which first appeared in Military Modelling in the seventies. These contemplate individual figures (in battalions of 48!) and I suspect that this is what I will go for.
I have always wanted to do portions of Quatre Bras as a wargame and did a lot of research as to the units involved and the numbers of figures you would need (hundreds and hundreds). General Brigade works out at 1/20 but I was thinking about 1/33 which would give French infantry battalions of about 12-14 figures, far too small for the Grant rules. If I combined battalions so that I had four units in, say Bachelu's Division that would give units of about 30: about right.
The great thing about this box is you get 42 figures for £15.00 plus loads of alternative heads and other bits (compared with Warlord's rather stingy 20 Roman Veterans for £17.00).
Now, realistically I have painted exactly five Perry Napoleonics in three years but could this just get me painting them on the production line? I gather that many of the French units for The Hundred Days only had a uniform greatcoat and this would make painting them a lot quicker (about half the figures in the box are so equipped). Can't wait to get home and put the soundtrack to Waterloo on!
I to started in Napoleonics; too long ago to want to contemplate! Airfix figures (mostly unpainted) using the rules from "Wargames" I seem to remember that the regiments were approximately 25 strong..... this sounds like an interesting project, they do indeed look nicer than the ACW (the infantry of which I think look like they all have piles) but there's still too much "construction" involved for me... and they're..... plastic (enough said!) :o)
ReplyDeleteActually, apart from the command figures and the skirmishing voltigeurs the figures are complete and they just need the backpack glueing on. More will follow in the next week or so!
ReplyDeleteI've also just got my box and started painting but.... Can you help out? On the painting guide it says flank companies have knapsacks with sabres. Which are the flank companies? As you might guess from this question, I'm quite new to Napoleonics.
ReplyDeleteStuart, the flank companies are the Grenadiers and voligeurs. There were one of each company in a battalion along with four fusilier companies (so, six in total).
ReplyDeleteThe flank companies have the fringed epaulettes on their shoulders (you can see the difference in this picture:
http://legatuswargamesarmies.blogspot.com/2008/11/plastic-v-metal-perry-french-napoleonic.html
The grenadier (red epaulettes)is on the left. Voltigeurs had yellow, green or a combination of both on their epaulettes.
So all you have to do is match up the fringed epaulettes with the knapsacks with sabres...
Thats great exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks for your help. I've got the flat colours on twelve of the figures so can now start matching the back packs.
ReplyDeleteThese are great.They look really good.The hundred days saw the French in a varietyof clopthin.
ReplyDelete