22 March 2012

French Command Stands

I recently just finished rebasing my French command stands. I liked the Prussian ones so much, I decided to change the works. During the process I also finally painted the emperor himself and numerous ADC's. The stands are 120x80mm, and I have decided not to differentiate high command structures by number of figures or size of base. Higher command structure is defined as Army, Corps or Division (Prussian Brigade). I will try to make it obvious from the figures on the stand what level they represent. Lower level commanders (brigade,regimental or battalion) remain on 40x40 or 40x25mm stands.


I use a burnt sienna as the base color for my French bases (use a raw umber for Prussian). They were then dry brushed with a buff. The texture is provided by a Golden coarse pumice gel. I then applied a dark brown liquitex ink. Let dry and then glued on various grasses. I like how they came out.
Here we the French army command stand with Boney himself.
I had 2 Elite figures for Boney and his ADC, they are a little different, but they have a certain attraction. The rest are from Perry.
Overview of various stands, I plan to do one more Infantry division stand and of course need more Génerals de Brigade.
Here is a Divisional Cavalry Stand, all from Front Rank I believe, aside from the standing dragoon from Perry.
Above a Corps level stand, with a maréchal and his baton. This is a Redoubt figure(Masenna), I believe, as is the mounted and standing ADC's. The rest are Front Rank.
Infantry division stand, all Front Rank, aside from the Redoubt ADC's in the background (good place for them as they are pretty unattractive figures).
 The Elite horses are sort of flattened looking!
The rest of the figures are from the "hangers on" Perry metal pack and the GendeDiv is the Quiot figure from Perry. Lovely to paint as usual.


I just received my FOG Napoleonics book yesterday, very nice production on general inspection. Might be useful for big battles as the tactical unit is a regiment or a demi-brigade. Meant to be played on a 8x5' table. A typical French 1815 infantry division would be represented by 3 units of 4 bases each as well as an artillery base, while a Prussian Brigade (Division) would be represented by 3 units of 6 bases as well as 2 artillery bases. These representations are not fixed, but I am just trying to give you a rough idea of what you need. To refight Placenoit (the example in the book), you need a total of 4 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry division for the Prussians and 3 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry divisions for the French. A Cavalry division appears to consist of 2-4 units of 4-6 bases. This looks pretty doable with my present collection, so I will have a further look. I really do not have a ruleset for higher level games. Do not be told that you need any specific basing as you do not, everything just needs to be similarly based. I have not look at the mechanisms of play, the summary sheets do look a little busy, but I have not delved into them yet. More to come.......


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15 comments:

  1. Really nice! A good work!

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  2. Not a real fan of Elites but I have to say they look great en masse. Your command stands are superb. I have to say what a pleasure its been to see your painting and your Napoleonic armies develop on your blog. You've created a collection from scratch - and a wonderful table! - that would be the envy of any gamer. Inspirational stuff mon ami!

    Cheers,
    Doc

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  3. Excellent work as usual.

    I'm interested in seeing your thoughts on "FOG Nap" - it seems to be a very promising ruleset

    Miles

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  4. Looking real good! Nice mix of minis, too.

    I agree... One should not differenciate command levels by number of minis, especially with higher level command. There is so much space there one should rather turn it into a diorama!

    Why are you thinking about FOG for bigger games? Number of minis or playability? I am asking because R2E seems to be suitable for bigger games as well and I know youmhave those, too.

    Cheers,

    Burkhard

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  5. Thanks everyone.

    Miles, I will have to see about FOG, the mechanisms seem a little complicated on first pass but I have not had a good look.

    Burkhard, Yes it is the number of minis that are needed that attracts me to higher level games. RtE is a non starter really, I do not understand the rules and I would need many more minis then FoG for the same level game. I was hoping Sam Mustafa would release Blucher, but not happened yet.

    John

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  6. Great painting, love the work on the Emperor horse, very, very nice!!

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  7. Magnificent! my favourite is the hussar ADC - great painting.

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  8. Impressive work as always!
    Regards
    Rafa

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  9. Hi John, thanks for your comments you left on my blog. It's much appreciated. I have a question for you; Which ruleset do you prefer for Napoleonics? It's something I would like to get into in the future.

    Cheers,

    Richard

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  10. Wow, really great work. Mucho inspiring!

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