10mm To The Rescue... I Hope!

Whilst perusing the internet I was made aware of Pendraken 10mm miniatures which I'd never heard of or seen them before. What really caught my eye was that they were for the Marlburian Era/War of Spanish Succession. This interested me even more because WSS is something I've been interested in for quite some time. Several years back I was going to do this period in 28mm but that fell through due to an intense dislike for painting the cavalry that I had purchased. Then, last year I toyed with the idea of 6mm but wasn't too blown away.

What about 10mm?

Well, I checked out the Pendraken website and considered for a short while before investing in one of their French Army sets (and a few extra horse). There were five x 30 figure battalions in the set so and I decided to paint up a couple of test cases. I decided to do Montmorency's brigade which is the same brigade I did the first time around in 28mm and then again in 10mm for my second attempt.

1st Battalion Bourbon 

I'm really impressed by them. They have a degree of detail considering their size but they are pretty easy to paint. I spent about 2 days on each battalion which are both 30 figures each. The command figures are from a separate set so I had a couple of left overs. For some reason the command sets only have 1 standard bearer per set and each battalion requires two. I ended up converting a couple of the chaps with their weapon at the high port into standard bearers.

I was very unsure how to base them and originally put the first battalion onto 50mm x 30mm bases with 10 figures per base. This had a nice footprint but the figures looked to spaced apart. With the second I put them onto 45x30mm bases and it looked better. So I rebased the first battalion to match. The line lost a bit of its width but I think it looks better overall. I chose to mount them on three wide bases. They always fought in line in this era and column was not use at all for manoeuvre on the battle field (maybe if assaulting across a bridge but that's about it).

1st Battalion Nivernais

However, I'm still not happy with the basing and I think I might end up rebasing again. I used some trimmed down plastic bases left over from some Perry sets but I'd rather go with 1.8mm mdf. I magnetised the bottom of the bases but I'm not sure if that's necessary or if I even like it.

My only real gripe is the lack of command figures. They are very, very limited. I made enquiries on LAF and it was suggested to look at Pedrakens other ranges to fill the gaps. Unfortunately before I received this advice I put in an order with VanDyke miniatures only to be told afterwards that they don't really match scale wise.

Also, I made the flags oversized too because I like the flags of this era. I don't care if that's historically inaccurate. I like them with big flags. These flags are the ones I originally designed in Photoshop for 28mm. I just shrunk them down to 20mm square.

Anyway, here's both battalions with their 6mm counterparts:

The 6mm's are from Irregular Miniatures. They have a really nice packed rank look but they lack detail and uniform details are one of the things that makes these armies look so appealing (along with the flags). These crappy little flags were hand painted. And it shows.

And just for fun, here they are again in 28mm:

If you want to know why I became disillusioned with WSS in 28mm read here. I lost complete interest in the whole thing and sold off all I had done at that time. I enjoyed painting the foot but I absolutely despised painting the horse. Considering the French army was about 30% to 50% horse, that was going to be an awful lot of misery as far as I was concerned.

But I'm loving these 10mm figures.

So far.

I haven't painted any horse yet.