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

From KerryT - French medieval bows and shields (240 points)

Morning, afternoon & evening all

I have only just realised that my entries to date have not contained a single metal figure and have all been plastic or 3D printed. The world of wargaming is changing it seems, though in my case this has happened by accident rather design. I'm so glad I bought both an FDM and then a resin printer. It has opened up a new world for me.

This week I've put together more 3D printed 100YW figures from Medbury Miniatures. The Perry Miniatures  Agincourt figures that I  undercoated in anticipation of last year's challenge remain untouched. I do hope to rectify that soon though.

The Medbury range is pretty big and over the past week I've managed to get both French crossbowmen and infantry with pavises completed. Luckily with a bit of fiddling I've been able to get the transfers for the French pavises designed for the Perry range to fit these.

The four transfer sheets are quite varied with each sheet containing 4 different shield designs, 3 for each city. My plan was to use these for both crossbow units and spear armed town/city militia. Its obvious from these pictures that with so many lovely shield designs to choose from that I couldn't make up my mind which to get, so I got one of each! 

The cities and their militia  represented are from Paris, Dunkerque, Peronne, Angers, Limoge, Alencon, Orleans, Pontoise, Lyons, Soissons, Rouen & Tours. I would probably have been better off with less variety though, but which would you chose?

Soissons back left, Pontoise back right, then Peronne, Orleans, Paris and Angers

Dunkerque right, Rouen & Limoge mixed

While putting these together I also realised that I've not really represented the most numerous crossbowmen in the French army during the 100YW, the famous mercenary Genoese crossbowmen. However I do have some figures over and will try and add these in a few weeks time.

There's a bit of a glare off the shields because of the lights I use to photograph figures

The other problem I had was deciding whether to represent them as individual crossbow or spear units, or together in combination. In the end I opted for one crossbow unit, one spear and one mixed, but it was only when I took the photos I realised that the crossbow unit contained a pavisier!

Medbury make a few crouching figures

A few close ups....

The men of Paris & Lyons in the front

The men of Peronne & Alencon up front here

Les Bleus

Les Rouges

Buildings from the Printable Scenery Country range

I hope to complete more 100YW units as the challenge progresses

In summary

48 x 28mm infantry @ 5 points each = 240 points

1 Squirrel

Many thanks and best wishes Valleyboy

From Millsy:

Aha! Another paint and chat subject has made an appearance. I was wondering when we'd see your pavises and apparently there wasn't long to wait.

Such a riot of colour Kerry. I've never been as tempted by French medievals as I am right now I think. I disagree completely that less is more, at least in this instance. Smashing stuff mate.

240 points busts through the 1K barrier and takes you halfway your target. Nice one.

Cheers,

Millsy

From SteveG: More Ancients (110 points)

 Had an extra day of painting with a public holiday here so went hard to complete these ancient guys! 

Thureophoroi - mostly the new plastic Victrix but a few metal Aventine 

Octopus shield in middle free handed. 

Easter Phalangites - from Succersor Phalangites by Victrix.  

They have the option to snip off their legs and use the trousered ones. I think they look quite cool and the process is  easy enough to do. 

Ptolemaic Phalangites.  Some Aventine some Warlord Games 

Eastern Phalanx again 

Banner man has an Aventine head. Just drilled out the plastic neck and inserted the metal head

Transfers from Nailodia on Ebay. Designed as finger nail art ! Better utilized for miniature shield I reckon !  

Lion transfer by Nailodia , other Little Big Man studios. 

                                                ResinWarfare 3D printed Carthaginians

                                    I love their " special character and command models".  

And that's it  for now.   Working on some Romans for next week ,  They should have an interesting story to tell .     Steve G    Points =   22 x 5.

From Millsy:

Sounds like we spent our long weekends in very similar ways mate, with brush in hand. There are certainly worse ways to spend a weekend that's for sure.

Another fine crop of ancients! The linothorax is brilliant. So many miniature versions are painted white or buff but there's evidence to suggest a wide range of colours were used to edge them or even paint large parts. Great to see that realised, it adds so much interest. Good to see I'm not the only one who has dipped their toe into nail art too.

110 more points for the tally Steve. Nice one.

Cheers,
Millsy

From RichardM - Peninsular continues with Hessen-Darmstadt, more Swiss and last of the Portuguese Line (166 points)

My last of the Portuguese infantry, some more Swiss - but more importantly the start of the "German" Division allies for Napoleon.  As with my other posts, these are all Adler Miniatures 6mm Napoleonics.

We should start with the "Germans" from the Confederation of the Rhine as they are different from prior weeks.  

This unit is two battalions of the Gross-und Erbprinz Regiment.  They were present at some of the larger engagements such as Talavera, Ocana and Badajoz.  I did these in more of a campaign dress with blanket roll and a mixture of coloured trousers, mostly brown.   I think because of the figures that I have most of the other CotR troops will look more like on a parade ground.

For the Swiss, I have painted the 2nd Swiss Regiment with their dark blue facings.  They started in the Peninsula in 1807 with the 2nd Battalion racing to Lisbon in the hope of catching the Portuguese Royal Family.  The 1st and 3rd Battalions later entered the Peninsula.  While they were active in many smaller actions over subsequent years, they do not appear to have fought in any of the larger actions that I will refight on the tabletop.  However, as I said last week, I am also painting them for action in Russia in 1812 so I thought it better to do all the Swiss at once, before I forget the colours used.  

Lastly I have the end of the Portuguese Line Infantry - the 2nd, 9th and 14th Regiments - each of two battalions.  This brings the total for the Portuguese painted in this year's Challenge to 36 battalions of Line Infantry, 10 battalions of Cacadores and three cavalry regiments.   

I still need to do officers, artillery and skirmishers for the Portuguese which I think will be after the challenge.  

Next week should be more of the Confederation of the Rhine, the 3rd Swiss Regiment and the first of some Spanish.  

Points:

Swiss

- 3 battalions of 36 figures @ 0.5 points per figure = 56 points

- Regimental commander with 2 mounted figures @ 1 point per figure - 2 points

Hessen-Darmstadt - 2 battalions of 36 figures @ 0.5 points = 36 points

Line battalions - 6 battalions of 24 figures each @ 0.5 points per figures = 72 points

Total = 166 points

From Millsy:

Nice to see the Germans getting a look in this time Richard. Confederation troops are such a melting pot both of uniform variety and troop quality. It's hard to to find something to like about every unit. Stiffened up with the ever reliable Swiss I am sure they'll serve you well.

We focus a lot on points total but if ever we scored on actual bodies you'd come out in front by a county mile mate! Lovely work as ever and 166 well earned points it is.

Cheers,

Millsy