28mm French and Indian Wars - Compagnie Franches de la Marine

 

Back to one of my favourite periods of history, the French and Indian Wars.  Oddly I don't have  a lot of figures for it.  I started playing the period with 'Age of Reason' rules over 20 years ago. This was ok at the time, but I did switch to Black Powder a few years ago. As all of my troops were based for Age of Reason, it meant 12 man units and very tightly based figures.

Black Powder played well and the 12 man units didn't seem to matter as the casualties are recorded separately anyway.  Despite being a favourite period I just never added any more figures after an initial delve and I have not added any figures for at least 20 years!

My most recent game rekindled my interest in the FIW (first time on the table for about 6 years!).  Watching 'Last of the Mohicans' combined to push me even further in. I found some more Osprey books and also purchased a 1930's ex-school book on General Wolfe on Ebay.   In addition I purchased 'A Dark and Bloody Ground' published by Warlord Games and this ensured that the whole thing snowballed again!  

I have been toying with doing more skirmish gaming and I realised this period could lend itself to some really good games. This means that I could get more use from the troops in skirmishes as well as the larger battles. There are so many raids and missions which can be played and with really interesting terrain, a land that must have seemed as strange and as distant as the planet Mars for those living in Britain or France!

I bought 2 sets of rules recently which gained my attention. 'Musket's and Tomahawks' and 'Sharp Practice'.  I have read through both sets of rules and am really looking forward to playing them both.  I suspect that I might find Sharp Practice easier to get into as I have several sets of rules by the Too Fat Lardies already and find them very enjoyable.

It's quite funny but I used to think skirmish gaming was a really inferior way to play games. I think it was caused by early experience in the 1980's with some really bad sets of rules (15 turns to load a matchlock!) and other oddball things.  These days there are so many really fine sets of rules and there are many that I have not yet tried.

Back to the figures, these are 28mm Compagnie Franches de la Marine produced by Warlord Games in metal.  I understand that these were originally made by Conquest Games.

The Compagnie Franches de la Marine are really interesting. They were formed as Companies under the budgets of the Navy. So they are designated 'Marine' being under the Ministry of the Marine but they are not Marines as we know them.  The companies were formed throughout New France as Independent companies.  As a result they could be mixed in their background, training and operational service.  The troops from non-urban areas could be superb woodland fighters and greatly skilled.  Dress and equipment would have been adapted with many native American items.  The troops in the urban garrisons probably wore the more formal uniform of tricorns and uniform coats.

The Warlord figures were great fun to paint up and my enthusiasm for them ensured that I finished painting them in 9 evenings and basing took a further 3 evenings.  There is a small magnet in the base which will help them to stay in their storage boxes on the magnetic sheet, as well as keeping them in movement trays.  I need to give movement trays more thought, as they might just speed up group movement.

What added to the fun of painting was the mixture of equipment,  The native American items added lots of colour and interest.  Getting the uniform shades of colour right led to lots of research and I think this is pretty close.

Paints used were largely Vallejo.  Basing was made with less grass than usual and more pieces of tree. I wanted a good 'forest floor' look to them

Despite using less static grass than usual, I still managed to get grass over the figures. In my joy of completing the figures today, I again completely forgot to brush off the figures before taking photos.  So please excuse the bits of grass on the troops faces and uniforms!  It will all brush or blow off!

There are some quite dynamic poses and also some marching/more static figures.  These again lend themselves well to being characters in skirmish games..

I have some more figures to paint for this collection and I look forward doing them soon.  This weekend will be a challenge as my interest might get diverted by a planned WW2 game using 'Panzergrenadier Deluxe'. Hopefully I will still remain focussed on painting FIW as I really do want to play with these soon.

I'll stop typing now and let you enjoy the many pictures.

Star Wars - Rebel Infantry - Star Wars Legion Set

 

Firstly, Christmas greetings to you all!  I hope you are having a splendid day and getting time to unwrap your presents and have the joy of more things to add to your projects. Will it jump to the front of the queue in the lead/plastic mountain?  The big question!

Secondly, it feels like Christmas as I have finally had time to sit down and complete something.  This time the opposing Rebel force for the Stormtroopers in my last post.  I have been a way for much of the last couple of months, and when I haven't been away, I have been preparing to go.  Life seems to be a case of packing and unpacking all the time but there we go, I cannot complain as it pays for my hobbies.

These are from the Star Wars Legion Boxed set.  It is a fine boxed set too, with many figures inside and three Star Wars machines, a walker and two speeder bikes. Everything is really well sculpted and it all fits together really well.

I decided to use the Army painter washes to do a lot of the work for me.  They really are excellent and it only leaves a little further lowlighting, highlighting and touching up after the block painting.  I think choosing the colours for the equipment was the hardest bit. I had to do some image searching on Google and make some best guesses for colours, but I think these are not too far off.  There was a lot of Vallejo Iraqi Sand paint in use!

One effect of the wash was to show some of the  moulding seams that I had initially missed. These are always apparent in our figures so its something we are used to, but some of these were quite thick and ran deeply down creases, needing some good work with a sharp blade.

I really like the poses of the figures. This officer (of which there are two in the set) is excellent. I love the way the great coat is lifted by the wind as he walks.  The only thing that troubles me with the figure is that his rifle muzzle is in the ground or just touching it. Anyone who collects firearms or is ex/serving military is going to be constantly bothered by this and wanting to yell at the figure! 

I was asked by Jonathan Freitag in my last post to tell more on how I intend to use these figures for Chain of Command Rules.  I have wanted to play a land-based Star Wars game for years and I am still amazed that no-one has produced the Battle of Hoth as a commercial game in 6mm or similar. That would be superb! I imagine it is all about copyrights etc.  When I saw these Legion figure sets it got me thinking. I liked the idea of playing a game with them, but I was put off by the huge number of cards and special attributes to remember.

I just wanted a game where the command decisions of the commanders were what really mattered, ok and with a few Jedi tricks for the right 'movie feel'.  Chain of Command I like a lot as a set of rules and I wondered how I could modify it. When I gave it more thought I then wondered if it had been done by anyone else.  The answer....oh yes!  There is even a Facebook group set up just for this.  If you don't have Facebook as it is a sapper of time then set yourself up with a silly name and subscribe with that so that no-one you know can send you links about amusing kittens etc, and just subscribe to the group.  There are downloads of all the data you need to modify Chain of Command for Star Wars.  The group link is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2038080069817639  or just search 'Star Wars Chain of Command' and it should come up.

Hopefully that will be of use.  I am looking forward to adding more to this collection over time. I have been given the wonderful present of 3D printed Ewoks for Christmas, compatible for Star Wars Legion (an Etsy purchase).  This should give plenty of variety of play. I can imagine Ewoks being great in the woods, but awful at running in the open and very squishy should the walkers get them.  Lots of fun all round!

For anyone wondering, the different colour bases are just a way I keep track of my command figures at a glance. I could even do my different sections in different colour bases but I might just use dots or numbers as per my WW1 Chain of Command collection.

The 12 basic infantrymen follow in the pics now. There are two of each pose in the set.  Nice poses, lots of interesting kit and two figures with blue heads which remind me of the 'Blue Man Group' that entertaining music band.

I have glued a small round magnet beneath each stand to enable them to stand up and not move on the magnetic sheets in their box. This saves me the expense of having to buy their special boxes with individual cut outs.  I don't plan on taking these anywhere anyway but at least they won't rattle about when I pull their box down from the shelf.

I'll stop here and let you scroll through the last remaining pictures.  I think I will be going back to proper history figures again next. I feel the need to do something of the redcoat and tricorn period.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

Best wishes,

Jason