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.
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