From StuartL - Les petits Français - 72 Points

Hi all,

    So, after taking a week or so off from the challenge and painting to deal with some real life stuff, I managed to get back behind the brushes a bit this week. Todays post was largely inspired by minis painted by fellow challenger GregB. When I first joined the challenge back in 2018/19, Greg was working on some Franco-Prussian War minis in various scales. I had not previously heard much about this conflict, and I was rather impressed by Greg's fine work. 

    A couple of years ago, I was browsing My Mini Factory, and came across a 3D designer there by the name of Turner Miniatures. He was just starting to add some FPW minis to his tribe, so I subscribed, eventually getting everything that he released. I got some minis printed out in time for last year's challenge, but as I was unable to enter, they just sat there gathering dust. 

    So, with my entry to the challenge this year, I resolved to get some of these chaps done. Turner Minis are somewhere in the 6-8mm scale range normally, but these were printed at 135% so should be a bit over 10mm. The figures come in strips of 4 and I based them as full battalions.

   

    Each of these units is made up of 24 soldiers mounted on a piece of plasticard roughly 9cm by 4cm. The flags are all hand made. No-one I know locally is going to know what they should look like, and sourcing flags for minis that are not at any exact scale seemed like a bit of an effort.

    Normally, only the 2nd battalion of a regiment would carry a full standard with an eagle, and the other battalions would have fanions. But again, no-one I am going to play with will know or care about that. Simple French Tricolore make it easy to determine allegiance on the tabletop.

    I'm not a huge fan of painting smaller scale minis. I tried these at 6mm and didn't enjoy it. Even at 10mm, it felt like a huge departure from my usual style when I do 28mm. Perhaps these will grow on me if I do more of them, I'm not sure. I have a bunch more French waiting to be painted and after that I will need to arrange printing out some Prussians to oppose them.

    Scoring wise, there are 72x 10mm minis, at 1 point per model, so that should just be 72 points.

    My ongoing duels information:

Skulls - 206 (+0)
BSRoD - 16 (+0)
Squirrels - 11 (+1) - D&D Animals, 30K Militia, Plague Clowns, Afghans, Robots, Anglo-Saxons, Medieval Polish, Clan Smoke Jaguar, 81st West Africans, Undead, 10mm FPW French

    Hopefully life will stop getting in the way and I can work on some more substantial entries for next week.

From Millsy:

Good to have you back on the tools Stuart!

Despite what you say about not enjoying smaller scale stuff these look great. I know next to nothing about the period but I like what I see and may have to dig a little deeper now. Probably a bad idea as we all know where that leads.

Such fine fellows all deserve their own eagle despite what the button counters might say. Anyone as well turned out as these chaps wouldn't leave home with a mere fanion.

Great stuff and another 72 points added to your tally mate.

Cheers,

Millsy