More 6mm Terrain and French AFV's

I am hoping soon to play some more "O" Group in 6mm, and while waiting for an EW Western Front Supplement to come out I thought I would have a go at some EW Western Front games from the TFL "O" Group Fall of France supplement.

I have lots of EW German AFV's but I thought I would add some French vehicles. Most of the vehicles, I found for free on Thingiverse so I decided to save some money and go with 3D prints on my cheap resin printer. It does not do a great job and cannon are quite a challenge but they do come out good enough for wargaming. I had a look through the supplement to see what I needed, I could not find everything but what  was found should be good enough to start working through the scenarios in the book.

There are:

2 Char Bis

2 Souma S35

3 Renault R35

4 Hotchkiss K39

3 Panhards

6 Laffly Trucks

2 Renault UE

I am happy with them and I am sure they will do good service on the table.

I also painted up a 2-3 BUA town base (I am using cm rather than inches) from Commission-Figurines. Nice how it came out but screwed up the assembly on one of the houses, but a very nice pdf model.

Additions to the French Armoury

 

It is funny how my blog has become completely focused on gaming over the last couple of years when it actually started off as a painting blog. Certainly during the Covid, my gaming increased markedly but I did continue to paint and put together terrain. I have just not been that good at documenting progress on my blog. I will start to try to catch up with a series of themed blog posts.

Today I took some photos of my French supports for Chain of Command which I play in 20 mm. I should note that I actually do not have a French Infantry force but have been substituting my Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais figures. I do plan to add some French figures to my force but mostly they will be supports for which I do not have Belgian figures.

I have, however, put together some French Armours and guns for the force. I already had two Hotchkiss H39 Tanks, a Souma S35 as well as a Char bis. No trucks though or armoured fighting vehicles, and no light artillery.

We have been playing the Gembloux Gap campaign so I thought it best to have some available to my opponent. Aside from the guns these new additions have all been printed on my small resin printer, which really has done an amazing job.

I have gone with my own colour scheme which is quite simple, the figures look maybe a little washed out. I believe this is because there is some slight frosting from the matt varnish. I am just going to watch this and see what happens. They certainly look vibrant on the table, which is my main goal. I primed the models black or grey and then airbrushed them with Panzer Aces Green Taillight, followed by a wash with Citadel Camoshade followed by a dry brush of VMC Olive Green. Wheels and accruements are then painted in and washed. They are not the best but they will do for the tabletop.

25 mm L/72 to the left from Ace Models. An EWM Belgian 76mm IG on the right

Two Renault R35's, these came from Thingiverse, not the best detailing. I will probably paint on the French camp scheme when I have a spare moment.

Laffly Tractors, I really like these P-Y gave me the STL, not sure where they originate.

Panhard 178 AFV's from 3D Breed

I believe, I am probably good now for French support vehicles and guns but who knows, something always pops up.

French Armour-AHPCX #2

For the last 3-4 months, I have been immersed in the world of 3D Printing. I started with terrain to learn the skills needed to utilize this technology but over the last month I have been experimenting with printing vehicles on a FDM printer. It is quite a challenge and I will accept that a Resin techonology is probably the way to go here. However, I still believe that for wargaming, FDM vehicle prints are a good option. 

I recently had an EW CoC game and my opponent was playing the Belgians and decided he wanted to take some French tanks as supports. Well I have no French tanks as I do not have a French force (yet) so we had to use some substitutes. Not an ideal choice and this can be a little more difficult as vehicles are hard to find for some of the more minor nations (no offence to the those nations of course).

But in the 3D Print world this is not the case, and with a bit of googling I found several different STL files for French tanks. The tricky bit is how to print these STL files, as it is not a case of just hitting print. Problems include what type of supports to use, how do you orient the vehicle on the build plate ( I have tried flat on the side vertical as well as on a tilt all with different degrees of success). My prints have improved but I am still not even close but I am hoping you will agree they are ok for wargaming. Enough blather, time to move on to photos. These were my 2nd submission to the AHPCX.

Char B1 bis, sort of lost control of the dirt!

I am not a big fan of the black lining between the camo

Somua S35

Have to find some French decals

Hotchkiss H35 and 39

 

As you can see the striations on the models are quite a challenge and although these were all painted with an airbrush there was some runoff and spidering.

AHPCVIII Ninth Submission:AB Miniatures

These troops have been sitting primed on the painting table for over 2 years, time to get them done. Aside from a unit of British Foot Artillery this is it for the AB Miniatures' lead pile. They are nice to paint but it is always a challenge I think to do less than 28mm Napoleonics. I like how they came out. I have 3 batteries of French Artillery that should be enough to play games at the scale I am interested. These chappies will be fielded as Artillerie à Pied although I have to say that the differentiation between French foot and horse artillery uniforms sometimes escapes me.

French Recruits

A couple of days ago I received the latest recruits for my French Napoleonic force. These were painted by Big Battalions in Thailand. They really do an excellent job and I can recommend them without reservation. With this addition I have completed my core force for the French. Although we see most units in pre-bardin uniform the OB is from Salamanca 1812. I have also had the opportunity to obtain Flagdude standards for the force.

Old Guard Grenadiers, Chasseurs and 3/13e legere.

French Cavalry and Infantry Colonels

A unit of French Horse Artillery

1,2 27e ligne

1,2,3 50e ligne

I was missing a few figures for my British Peninsular force, so I got these painted as well.

12th Portuguese Caçadores

British Cavalry Colonels

As you can see Big Battalions do a nice job right down to the bases, all the figures are on metal bases so they are stored in magnetized drawers. I am very pleased.

My French force, 30 battalions with command stands and 2 artillery batteries, I still have some work to do on my cavalry force basing so I will post those separately

Foy's 1e Division with the 6e legere, and the 69e ligne in Chemineau's brigade and the 39e ligne and 76 ligne in Desgravier's brigade. Colonels for each regiments as well as a ADC for Foy. 

Clausel's 2e Division with the 25e legere as well 27e ligne in Berlier's brigade. Barber's Brigade has the 50e and 59e  ligne

An 1810 Guard force with 2 units of Old Guard and 3 units of Young Guard

Four Regiments Etranger as well as the 13e legere

I think that will do it for now with the French, I may add some Germans and Swiss but that will be in the distant future, if at all (I did get some Flagdude standards just in case!)

AB Napoleonics

I have been promising for some time to show off this new Napoleonic army, so here we go. I decided to go with exclusively AB Miniatures which are thought to be the best in this scale. They are very nice, minimal flash generally (although of course I painted very few of them) and there really is an enormous selection. My only criticism is that the metal is a little soft; we have lost some bayonets and because of this the flagpoles are a bit of a joke, so much so that I have had both painting services remove them. I have replaced them all myself with stiff metal lances (I bought a bunch a long time ago so I have forgotten from where they came). This has added a bit of work for me but I had to add standards anyway. Most of the standards are from GMB with a few from Adolfo Ramos. I would have liked to have used Flagdude but we all know that story!

After a lot of thought, I have decided to go with a Peninsular War OB, generally mirroring the Battle of Salamanca in July of 1812. I am sure I will drift into the Hundred Days campaign, but for now limiting myself to the Peninsula was thought prudent (after all this project had to be self funding from the sale of my 28mm figures). I will not go into the unit by unit detail of the OB but suffice to say it is as follows:

ANGLO-PORTUGUESE

• First Division: Fermor's, Von Lowe's and Wheatley's Brigades
• Third Division: Wallace's Campbell's and Power's Brigades
• Light Division: Barnard's and Vandeleur's Brigades
• 5 Regiments of Cavalry
• 1 Battery of RHA
• 1 Battery of RFA

FRENCH

• Foy's First Division: Chemineau's and Desgravier's Brigades
• Clausel's Second Division: Berlier's and Barbot's Brigades
• A Guards Brigade with 5 battalions
• 8 Regiments of Cavalry
• 3 Batteries of Artillery

SPANISH Portago's Division (Spanish Army of Estremdura 1808)

• 6 infantry Battalions
• 1 Cavalry Regiment
• 1 Artillery Battery

They are not all photographed as the Spanish are on their way from Spain and I am missing still 9 battalions of French, some artillery as well as a battalion of caçadores (3 French on the way), but the rest are below.

The units have been based for the General Bonaparte meets Chain of Command (a playtest title) ruleset. As I have said ad nauseum, this is the best Napoleonic ruleset I have played. The formed infantry units vary from 6-10 stands, but stands are also required for two different types of skirmishers (as discussed below). Command figure stands are also required for colonels, Brigadiers, and Divisional Generals as well as ADC's. The game is aimed at the Divisional level with 2-4 brigades per side with cavalry and artillery support.

I commissioned 2 painters, Jose M D Aznarez (aka Pep) in Spain and Big Battalions (Graham John Campbell) in Thailand. I found Pep on TMP, he regularly sells painted AB units, so I bought a unit, found the painting to be excellent so went ahead a ordered the French units as well as half my British units from him. A little later I came up on Big Battalions on eBay, I established communication with Graham in a somewhat round about way and he sold me 8 units of painted French cavalry. These were also quite excellent so I put in an order for the 10 remaining British battalions I had not yet commissioned.

I really can not say enough positive about both these men, Pep is an excellent painter and Graham runs a first class painting service. I acquired this massive army (I am afraid to count the number of units) in less then 6 months. They both have excellent communication skills and I never worried once about the accuracy of their uniform details. Amazingly enough, neither took money up front, they purchased the figures themselves and only charged me when the figures were painted and ready to be shipped. I can recommend both services without hesitation. Pep and I purchased our figures from Eureka Miniatures USA, I have to say that Rob Walter runs an excellent operation, I have never had to wait for more then 2 days for an order. I am sure the Australian Eureka operation is the same.

Well on to the figures.

Hard to photograph the lot but here they are

Bde Chemineau by Pep

Le Jeune Garde by Pep

French Cavalry by BB

French Divisional Commander by Pep

Dragoons by BB

Garde Lanciers and Cuirassiers by BB

French Hussars by BB

Look at those numerals!

Le Jeune Garde by Pep

French Divisional Commander with ADC by Pep

French Legere by Pep

French Cavalry Division stand with ADC by Pep

My painting contribution!

French Infantry Division stand by Pep

French line by Pep

British Rifles advancing

Barnard's Bde of the Light Division. The Riffles are by BB, the 43rd by me and the Cacadores by Pep

British Divisional Commander by Pep

Von Lowe's Bde by BB

Fermor's Bde in the farground by Pep and Wheatley's Brigade in the near ground by BB, BB did a great job on the 5th/60th Rifles.  I unfortunately have no close ups of the job on the tartan by BB but it is impressive

Impressive...........no?

KGL Brigade by BB

Vandeleur's Brigade with the Cacadores and 52nd by Pep and the 3/95th Rifles by BB.

Kempt's Brigade, by Pep and BB (if you have not figured it out yet they use different basing styles). The 1/45 is on the way from Spain. 

GMB Flags

Powers Portuguese Bde missing the 11th Cacadores by BB

British Cavalry by Pep

ditto

Voltiguers by BB

These skirmishers are based as Tiralleurs de Combat, they have the ability to break off  from the parent battalions and add a skirmish screen. They can also stay formed with their battalion and fight as a regular base. This is one of the things I like about the General Bonaparte meets Chain of Command ruleset.

British Cavalry is quite impressive......

......but not as impressive as French Cavalry

These British Rifles (by BB) are based as Tiralleurs en Grande Bande. The bases are twice as wide as a typical infantry base and hold 3 figures. In the ruleset these units always fight in skirmish formation.

Barnard's Brigade from the Light Division with 2 battalions fighting in Tiralleurs en Grande Bande Formation.

RHA painted by me

5/60th Rifles in Tirailleurs de Combat formation skirmishing for the Coldstream Guards

Le Jeune garde followed by the 25e legere.

Well illustrated command structure with GdB in the centre with 2 colonels with  a regiment each (of 2 battalions)

GdD off to the side with a separate base for the ADC, all important to playing this ruleset.

I can say that I have absolutely no regrets selling my 28mm Napoleonics. I finally have a coherent Peninsular force which will soon be complete. They are all on metal bases and the amount of storage required is minimal. As you can see from the first photo it is possible to field the 3 British divisions and 2 French divisions with cavalry and cannon on a 6x4 terrain. They are beautifully painted....what more could I want!