Thursday 4 March 2021

From GregB - More 10mm FPW Infantry and Command (45 points)

More 10mm troops for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Figures from Pendraken.

Hi everybody! To the surprise of nobody, my next submissions includes even more 10mm subjects for the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. These are all metal castings from Pendraken. There are three bases of French line infantry, one base of Prussian line infantry and another command base for the French.

Deadly Chassepot rifles at the ready.

Firing lines will be the friend of any French player in the FPW period.

I've raved previously about how cool the French line infantry uniforms are from this period (and they are SO cool) so that makes painting these little regiments a lot of fun. The three bases together will represent an infantry unit. My planning is such that each base would generally represent a battalion, and thus the three bases together would represent a regiment, but there are a lot of different rules that give you different options on perspective - this could just as easily represent a brigade, or each base could represent a company etc. whatever. I really like rules that are agnostic about that kind of thing.

Senior command base for the French.

Actual senior commanders would have had smaller flags...but screw it.

He's thinking "how can I snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?"


The command base is meant to represent a more senior level of officer group - like many of you, the more figures on the base, the more senior the command. Here we have a mounted senior officer, with some flunkies, and a flag, so this would be something like a corps commander.

Prussian line infantry, ready to advance!

The Pendraken sculpts are just fantastic.

So far, so French. In AHPC XI my 10mm work has been on French troops - so why only this one single base of Prussians in this submission? Well, I had finished a bunch of Prussians and Bavarians already over the past couple years, and it made sense to focus on building up the French in this edition of the Challenge. With that said, I was doing a review of the little soldiers on my shelf (as one does), and I noticed that, for whatever reason, my Prussians were still a single base short of having an entire Corps' worth of Prussian line infantry (on the basis that one base = one battalion). This irked me (as these sorts of things do), and so painted these guys up to round things out.

One more look at the French lingards...

Of course, no project is ever actually "finished", these figures do represent something of a waypoint for my 10mm FPW efforts - I have enough stuff painted to stage the Battle of Wissembourg as described in Bruce Weigle's awesome "1870" rule set - I even have enough French finished to play the alternative versions of the scenario he offers! That works out to 65 bases of infantry, 20 bases of cavalry, 28 bases of artillery, and 18 different command bases. I'm not about to stop there, but this a nice point to pause and smile a little. Now I just need to get them on to the table...but my thanks to all AHPC participants and commenters - it very fun to share all of this with you, and your encouragement, as well as your work on your own projects, has been a great inspiration. 

In terms of points, there are 43 foot castings and one mounted casting, all in 10mm, which should equal 45 points...at least I think it does...there is a reason I am not trusted for mathematical tasks...anyway, thanks for reading, and stay sane out there! Now I must turn my brushes toward some "Bavarian Content"....stay tuned...

17 comments:

  1. Nice work! This 10mm project must be pretty big by now.

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    1. Thanks Mike - yes, the project is getting there...

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  2. Absolutely brilliant work, Greg. These chaps just look tremendous. They'll look great on the wargames table!!

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  3. More lovely FPW units Greg. The army does have elan.

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    1. Thanks Peter! Yes, they have style...but poor leadership in this era, unfortunately...

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  4. Not elan. These dudes have CRAN!! ;)

    Well done dude. I love this project for many, many reasons, the beauty of the uniforms, the vainglorious history and the fact that it's in a scale that will be easily transportable to my house when we play with them. :)

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    1. Thanks dude! And yes, exactly - CRAN!!

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    2. I feel like I’m out of the loop on an inside joke. What is CRAN?

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    3. "Cran" is a French word. I would translate it roughly to mean "stiff neck", but as they say, much gets lost in the translation.

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  5. fantastic Greg, a looming project for me in 28mm

    cheers
    Matt

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    1. Thanks Matt - will be great to see your stuff in 28mm!

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  6. More splendid looking French, excellent!
    Best Iain

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  7. Splendid Frenchies and dour Prussians, wonderful. Many congrats on reaching your first milestone too.

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