Friday 1 April 2016

Tribute for Byron - Napoleonic French Infantry Status Stand



I've known Byron from waaay back. Back to when I played (get this) the GW Fantasy tournament circuit (!) and he ran his own Rogue Trader series (the excellent 'WarCons'). Byron has been a Challenger since the fourth edition and, as many of you know, has exhibited some of the finest painting seen in the Challenge over the past three years.

This year I was a bit in the weeds with the administration of the duels, but Byron came to my rescue by offering to take them off my shoulders. I know it's been a bit of a struggle for him as he was not involved in the initial negotiations detailing the nuances of the various duels, but he's done a valiant job in maintaining the roster, keeping it updated, so participants could better focus on their targets. 

A few years ago Byron began to tip his toe into collecting and painting 28mm French Napoleonics. He's now at a point where he can field a small infantry brigade, so I invited him down this weekend to get them properly thrashed on the tabletop (really, what's a 500k drive for a wargame amongst friends?). With this in mind, I thought I'd make him a casualty/status stand to add to his collection of Grognards. 

Seen here is a French line officer haranguing a grenadier drummer to keep up the tempo.


Both are 28mm figures from the venerable, but excellent, Foundry range, sculpted by the Perry's. 


Similar to my other unit stands I've created three sockets on the base to fit small dice to track unit status and a fin that can fit a unit identification label. It's pretty rudimentary stuff, but it seems to work alright and I find looks nicer than 'bare' chits or dice cluttering the tabletop.


Here are some examples of previous unit stands with their ID labels and how one of them looks with a sample unit (the small greyscale marker is to track things like 'Fatigue' or 'Disruption, depending on the system).

Examples of unit stands from my collection.

Thanks very much for all your help Byron! I hope you like these lads - we'll get them on the table with your boys later tonight for a bit of mayhem!

Curt

14 comments:

  1. Lovely piece and well deserved for Byron's valiant efforts

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  2. That's a very lovely (and useful) stand of figures! :)

    Great work keeping track of the side-duels Byron :)

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  3. wow- that's really a nice stand

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  4. I get a kind of mental paralysis when confronted with unpainted Napoleonics - I'm terrified of getting some detail wrong, since I know next to nothing about the uniforms of the period.

    So I can certainly appreciate when someone has the patience and skill to put together a vignette, let alone an army - very nice work, Curt!

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  5. Amazing figure and even better in person, thank you Curt! I got to use it last night in the middle of a super tense game of black powder. Curt attracts great players and people so we had a lot of fun and a great game. I even got to get my French units into action, which was a treat since I thought it would be years before I had enough painted to get a game in with them, they were even passable next to Curts amazing collection. Thanks again Curt!

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  6. Congrats on the keen award, Byron!
    Curt, that is a snazzy piece! Like artillery, it brings a touch of class to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl! ;)

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  7. Very nice and a fitting tribute for Byron's great work!

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  8. Absolutely stunning! I love how you managed both to create a little vignette, telling a story on the one hand and second a status marker. So much better than tons of different coloured chits or gems cluttering up the table.

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  9. Assume these fellow saw action over the weekend! Great stuff dude, and congrats Byron on getting those French lads painted and into action!

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