The rest of the French Infantry wait to be re based in the shade. As usual I may end up with more units than I can use in one days gaming, but that would not be anything new for me. I love to paint and collect and with each unit holding a different memory's for me, I can spend hours sitting there remembering years gone by. Most of the time though I sit there and think "God I wouldn't of painted It that colour now", but that's life. I hope you have enjoyed my trip into 18th Century France.
Here is a look at the next unit to be re based, a unit of Light Infantry. This one will be merged with another slightly later unit to make three units of twenty four. By re basing them all It gives me a chance to dust them down and retouch any old paint work. Also, there is a lovely feeling at having them all properly organised at last. I orginally had them in units of 36 but now have changed them down to 24 after reading the 'Napoleon' rules. I still like the idea of large French units opposed to British ones so might combine two against every one of British. 'Black powder' uses the 36 man regiment size for the French and I think I will sway that way too, we will have to see.
Another command base with another brave French Officer leading from the front. As I am collecting the Armies of Waterloo, I have taken to coating a lot of the troops in mud. I love the fact that all these lovely uniforms were covered in mud and dirt. It gives them a real feel of the day, I will make the bases very muddy as well to finish the effect.
This base carries a unit of Sappers to help smash down any annoying farmyard doors. I always shied away from different troop types early on but embrace them now because of their different look and character they bring to a unit.
A command base of one of the French Units. I think I will use two of these 24 man units to represent a Brigade and four of them to make a Division.
I have used the Voltigeur skirmish bases to make up the numbers here, hence the gaps in the line. These will be replaced by full numbers when the Voltigeurs on the work bench are ready. Then the Skirmishers will find the rightful place out in front of the Battalions.
A company of Grenadiers advance, these massive men specialised in assaulting building and taking bridges, they were the shock troops of their day. Most of these Frenchmen come from 'Front Rank' with the exception of a few skirmishers from 'Foundry'. The four Grenadiers above were painted back in 2005 as was most of my French range.
Ross from Friends takes off his inpractical Shako and takes cover behind a fallen comrade.
An Voltigeur Officer orders a shaken man to return fire.
As there are so many to paint, I tend to use a lot of washes to speed up time. After painting or spraying the figure white, I give It a wash with watered down 'Drab C' from the Foundry paint range. When this is dry I paint on the highlights in white again. The faces and hands are Foundry 'Flesh B' washed with watered down brown Ink. The blue of the coats are painted using the layer technique as Is the wood of the musket. The gun barrel is painted silver and washed with black Ink. By using washes on these guys I can race through them and not get too caught up and bored with detail.The messy figure obove has just recieved its Drab wash and is in need of highlighting and cutting back with the blue.
I am now a total convert to the Army painter method. By brushing the stain on instead of dipping, i can get a result that I'm very happy with. In fact some of these dipped Celts actually look better than some of my hand shaded ones. This fact is both depressing and great at the same time.
At last with my new found 'dipping' technique I am tackling my Horse Archer problem. These guys have been sitting around on my table for what seems like years. Generally getting in the way and gathering dust, I thought I would at last take care of them once and for all.
I thought It would also be a good opportunity to try out various colours, both on man and horse to see which ones looked the best once dipped in stain. I was pleased with most of the horse colours as the stain works well on shading flesh. I found It wise to always paint the figure slightly lighter than you wanted it and so used the mid-tone and the highlight ranges in the 'Foundry' paint range.
After reading an article in War games Illustrated about the 'Army Painter' staining process, I thought it was time I gave 'dipping' another try. So I gathered up some figures and set about them with a large brush covered in Flesh coloured paint. The results were good and the secret was in the matte varnishing afterwards. Before I had used Games Workshop matte varnish which has a kind of satin finish, but the varnish from 'Army painter' really is very matte indeed and makes all the difference.
After they had been varnished I was very happy with them and thought they wouldn't look out of place within my existing units. There is a slight drop in quality maybe but I can live with this due to the quick time It took to complete them. The time was very impressive and rather than five figures being finished in a weekend, the number could rise to twenty four at least. So with the idea of having hundreds of fighting figures finished in a month I have decided to use 'Quick dip' for my remaining unfinished Barbarian units.
