FIW: starting the French

My first batch of Northstar French FIW figures arrived a week or so ago and promptly pushed their way onto the workbench. These are lovely chunky figures that suit my painting style admirably. I also have a second batch of French figures in transit, including some fusiliers and grenadiers from Crusader Miniatures (also supplied by Northstar). As well, while waiting for the first Northstar batch to arrive, I had rummaged about in my lead pile o' shame and found a few extras to add to the force. All these together had been completed a week ago and waiting for their matt sealer. Unfortunately, Canada Post saw fit to spend 12 days delivering a package with the AP spray sealer cans the immense distance of three kilometers to my house. And after the first two coats (to all the figures below), they came out with a decidedly glossy finish. Check the can.... yup... "matt sealer." Try one more spray...nope... if anything, worse. Sigh... I then pulled out my trusty but time-consuming bottle of brush-on matt sealer. Tedious work... hmmph!

Compagnies Franches de la Marine

(Northstar)

Milice Canadienne

(Northstar)

natives

(Northstar)

Cannoniers-Bombardiers de la Marine

(Crusader Miniatures)

These were a boredom project while waiting for the Northstar order to arrive. These started out as Prussian SYW artillerists with some carving and filing. The uniform is close enough for my purposes, although they would normally have discarded the uniform coat and worked the guns in their habite-vestes. The gun (possibly not accurate) was from the extras pile and the limber (Front Rank) was purloined from the unpainted 18thc. ImagiNations pile.

 I chose also to leave the gun un-based to allow adding to the limber. Even though one horse would have had serious issues dragging such an artillery piece along crude tracks in the North American wilderness, I chose the single-horse limber for convenience. It has a smaller footprint and, more importantly, I had run out of limber horses.

Also from the lead pile, I found this 18th c wagon. Again, only a single horse because I had no more in the pile o' shame. I also needed to modify the limber arrangement to suit only one horse. The original wagon comes with a two-horse abreast limber so I ended up affixing a single-horse limber (same as the artillery limber above). I also added a barrel to the front of the wagon and baggage to the back of the horse (to cover up the limber-saddle). Incidentally, this entire piece was painted using GW contrast paints.

French CinC

(Crusader Miniatures)

This is actually an Austrian figure but the closest I had to French.

The french force so far. 

On the way are three groups of French infantry and another group of natives.

Exploring Officers & British Light Dragoons (dismounted)

I've been waiting impatiently for my Northstar order of FIW French to arrive (no knock on Northstar... just restless to keep the FIW project going) and so delved into the box o' shame and found some items collected at Fall In! 2019 from Brigade Games. For a while I've been wanting to put together some Moveable Deployment Points for our Sharp Practice Spanish Peninsula games. Brigade Games' exploring officers seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

For the British I decided to combine two irregularly uniformed officers on one stand. These should serve admirably for my British force.

And for the French, Pierre Ducos, intelligence officer. This figure is clearly an homage to the character in the Sharpe series.

While at the Brigade Games stand, I also picked up a pack of dismounted British light dragoons. These are lovely figures and a pleasure to paint. How much use they'll be in our games (or how often they'll be used) is a matter for conjecture. But that's never stopped me from adding such a unit to a collection.

on the road again...

Carrying on with my terrain-making for the War of 1812 and the French and Indian War, next up some roads. For many years I've been using a variety of materials for quick and easy roads, none of which were completely satisfactory. Part of the problem was finding a material that could be easily worked and looked good (and wouldn't warp when texturing or glue is applied). Of course, the other part was actually getting around to doing something about it...

A recent trip to Home Depot garnered several of these PVC(?) textured garage floor tiles. The texture is perfect!

For those interested, the product code. 

The tiles are easily cut with a heavy-duty exacto knife. The edges were then bevelled (a decidedly messy and tedious exercise). I also picked up some brown silicon caulking for the wheel ruts (be sure to get the paintable version). This is spread out with a finger and the wheel ruts scored in with a small wooden matchstick. Tip: wait a full 24 hrs for the caulking to cure completely before proceeding.

The caulking has been spread and the pieces ready for a variety of dry-brush coats and washes. You can see the original test pieces finished. The straight pieces (of various lengths) were easy to cut. The curves and junctions, not so much.

And the entire batch completed. A lot of work for what seems a small batch but all told it would stretch about 12 feet.

The rubber is flexible but only with some effort. These are not meant to be draped over hills or depressions but will conform to slight variations. If they're not stored flat, it takes only a few minutes for the rubber to settle flat when on a table.

And some action shots...

FIW & War of 1812 scatter terrain

While waiting for my new FIW figures to arrive from Northstar, I decided to knock together a couple of scatter terrain pieces.

Some scrap pieces of balsa produced a small herb/vegetable garden and pig sty, suitably distressed and frontier-like. The cattle and pigs are from Eureka, picked up at Fall In! 2019.

The pigs are, of course, mounted separately for use elsewhere on the farm and for looting and plundering, if necessary.

I also took the opportunity to tart up my old wooden fence pieces. These have been around for at least 10 years and needed an update of their ground colour to match the newer terrain pieces. These were mounted on floor tiles and thus I couldn't chamfer the edges or round the corners but the new colours and foliage make a nice difference. I just need to get around to making more (only six feet here).