New French Napoleonic Things

These have been sitting on the paint desk for a quite a while waiting for me to finish the final company of voltigeurs. They all sat around patiently whilst I painted numerous other things and didn't hassle me. I mean... What were they going to do? They're just plastic and metal after all!

So here's my newest French infantry regiment. I actually finished the first battalion a while back and posted some pics, but here it is again just for the sake of completion. They are a mix of Perry plastics and metals.

I also finished these generals a few months back and they needed a bit of dusting off before their photo shoot. These are Perry figures and I think they're supposed to be divisional generals. They're very nice figures. I think one is supposed to be Jerome Bonaparte but I don't know which one. As per usual, I'm going to use them for whatever I want to use them for.

I bought some plastic HaT Industry 28mm voltigeurs. They're very nice figures even if they are a little bit plain and restricted by the HaT sculpting & moulding methods. I painted a couple of them and gave them a very plain, flat paint job to see how they turned out. 

They are made from a softer plastic than other manufacturers but it isn't that soft plastic that 1:72 scale figures are made from. This material is easier to work with than other plastics and is far, far less brittle. Therefore the weapons and other uniform items are far more realistic in scale (look at the musket, swords and plumes) and they're very unlikely to break off. 

Scale-wise, they are slimmer and more realistically proportioned than most other metal or plastic figures. Next to Perry French infantry they're slim and fractionally shorter. I don't think they'd mix well in the same unit. But battalions of these little guys would look okay next to battalions of most other manufacturers (Not Front Rank though. They'd look like skinny little runts next to Front Rank).

All in all, these are pretty good figures for what they are. Nice detail. Easy to paint. They'd be easy to multi-base, and they're quite affordable too!

Αντίο φίλοι μου

A quick post to say farewell to my beloved Ancient Greek hoplites. This was the first ancient army I made and it was a labour of love. I really like this army but, as with many of the troops I make, they sit in a box, on a shelf and don't get onto the wargaming table often enough. They've had a few battles but the last time they were out was about 5 years back. I'd rather see them being used for what I made them for.

So now they're moving on but... I still have my other Greek army - Macedonian Successors with lots of pikes!

The majority of these figures are AB Miniatures with a few Xyston thrown in. The reason for this is because I could visit Eureka Miniatures each week at the time and pick the AB's up directly. They're lovely little figures.

Spartans on the right. Armoured Athenians in the centre and poorer, unarmoured hoplites on the left.

When I made this army I didn't know that you could buy shield decals for 15mm. So I painted all the shields by hand. Some of the early ones are a bit rough but I got better and, in my opinion, I did a few really good ones towards the end.

So goodbye my little hoplites. Go and defend your homes and families from the Persian's once again.

The Dwarf Post I Had to Write

The Dwarf Post sounds like a newspaper. Like the Ancient Times - Maybe that means I've now become a journalist. 

So get prepared for some "fake news."

That can't be good!

Anyway, I've done hardly anything of note regarding wargaming. I painted up some more elves to add to my army but that didn't seem worth posting about. I also finished some ancient Iberians but I'll post them when I've finished the other Iberians currently on my painting desk. That leaves me with some dwarves.

I bought an Oathmark Dwarf Infantry box a while back and I painted a few figures. They're quite nice figures but nothing really special. Like all the Oathmark figures, they do what they were designed for but they're really quite dull and uninspiring. As it is, I had the rest of the box made up and undercoated but never bothered to finish them. 

Until now!!!

There's not very many of them but they make up the start of a nice little warband. Two units of 12 figures. I really dislike the crappy shield design I gave them. I might order some decals from Northstar and do the shields again. Decals might give the figures that little bit of extra "something" to make me love them. I often paint shields individually but I just couldn't be bothered to do these with any enthusiasm.

These are my command elements. The King, A hero and a spell caster. The metal figures are nice and a far cry above the plastics.

A couple of units. The unit above is the new one I painted. I think the standard is from a box of Warlord Celts. It had been sitting in my bits box for some time and looks good with these stumpy lads.

I posted these figures below some time last year ~ http://this28mmlife.blogspot.com/2020/11/some-svertlings.html

Hese is a closer look at the metal figures that I just finished. The hero figures is very nice. His face looks odd because his helmet has a mask and the camera in my new phone doesn't capture the image well enough (because it isn't very good in my opinion!). The other two figures are quite nice too

And that's them. Only a small warband but I have a couple of things that I could use to enhance them and give them a bit more potential. I could give them a pet Umber Hulk which would fit into their underground/tunnelling aesthetic and I could also give them some northern barbarian allies. I'm not sure at this stage if I want to increase their numbers as, who knows, I might sell them.

P.S. Why did I have to make this post? Because the blog was getting stale because I haven't posted anything for the past few weeks. So I hade to find something to put up.