Landships II

Naoise · Corporal

Early WW1 French Infantry

Paul B · Lieutenant

Aha! Voila les pantalons rouge! En avant mes amis, a la baionette! A l'outrance!

OK, that's about the limit of my early WW1 French! They do look very nice indeed, Hat figures paint up so well for the most part.

For�a wargames unit, it's likely that "Crush the Kaiser" will have a company of 1914-15 French at around 15�riflemen�per company, plus an NCO and an Officer, although this isn't final yet - in fact we don't yet (quite) have a working title for the�14-15 supplement!

Cheers

Paul��

Naoise · Corporal

Alright Paul,

Some very nice patriotic french phrases there. Thank you for the kind words, these minis were very enjoyable to paint and have a lot of detail. I was thinking of ordering some IT french officers and mg's for a wider variety of poses and also the two Airfix French officers will come in handy.

I'll really have to start churning these out if I'm to have any sort of sizable force for your next installment of Crush the Kaiser(1914-15). I've never been very good at painting huge amounts of men and generally lose interest before finished. Hopefully this will be different. I dont know how you painted so many British(Canadians? joke.) and Germans en masse.

Oh just on another topic I was thinking of making a table for my armies to fight on. I have Hat and Airfix early war Germans and will pick up some IT ones too to oppose Les Bleues. I dont want it to be entirely trenches and certainly dont want it to be just green fields either. Somewhere in between would be ideal( I'm fussy I know). The only problem is I'm not too sure how I'd go about portraying the period of WW1 when all sides began to settle down. Any tips/advice would be very helpful.

Paul B · Lieutenant

Thanks Naoise

I find that I paint in batches, usually a company at a time, but vary it between the armies involved so I get some variety (eg a British company then a German one and so on ). Only trouble with that is that I sometimes forget which paints I used before and have to write them down! A penalty of age I'm afraid!

The early trenches of October (ish) 1914 onwards were not all as well built as the later ones - they tended to be narrower and straighter with not as many traverses and fire-bays. That's a generalisation of course, but an easy way to represent it on the wargames table. Before that infantry would dig in or go to ground in scrapes to fire, so you might use some of the foxhole type defences made in resin eg by Shellhole Scenics or Ironclad. French trenches also had the (not entirely deserved) reputation of not being as well made as those of other nations!

If you want to represent trenches on the table but don't want to make the trench boards from styrene - although this is actually one of the most cost effective ways of doing it - I would look at some of the ready made trenches out there. The ones at War and Peace last year were vac-formed by Amera (look in their Future Wars range I think) and they are quite reasonable if a bit wide for 1/72. I know that Frontline also do some reasonably priced trenches, as do Ironclad.

Hope this helps!

Naoise · Corporal

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your helpful advice and be aware also that i too write down my own painting guides. Its an awful feeling not being able to remember which colours go where(happens to me all too often when I dont take note).

Looking at all the options I have I think I'll go the DIY route and just scratchbuild my table. I have all the materials I need( I think so at least) and this will allow me to do what I want. I think I might do a sort of trenches table( but like you said temporary/simple looking trenches) with some traces of civilisation( not the total moonscape that comes to mind when thinking of WW1 scenery). Still planning but at least I have a start point. Thank you for the links, some of those ranges looked very tempting indeed. But I think my own effort will be the only satisfactory outcome.

I'm off for the weekend but will be home Sunday so do not be concerned if I dont reply within the next 2 days or so.

Thanks Naoise.

PS, I hope you have some sort of counter measures for your beautiful display against the dust at War and Peace. Last year it was something awful. Just in case.

PDA · Legend

I hope someone takes the time to correct me if I am wrong, but, if it's early war for the French, then The Miracle of The Marne springs to mind, which, AFAIK, had no trenches:

Or maybe a quasi-fictitious encounter�in Alsace Lorraine,�where a village changes hands 10 times in a day, as part of the Battle of Lorraine.

Bocage scenery might be fun to make, and apparently it means something like "rustic" or "patchwork", so it could be a useful terrain for an early war game.

Paul B · Lieutenant

Hi Naoise, and hi PDA

PDA is of course right. For the Marne period there were no trenches�as they were later understood as the battles were still mobile, but troops would�take up defensive positions to fire (as in the photo) - so the sort of hastily dug in positions are useful on the wargames table. Bocage is a wonderful thing -�I have some for my Normandy games for WW2 scratchbuilt out of stripwood for the base and Woodland Scenics tree armatures for the branches.

Dust is a problem at war and peace, it tends to cover everything especially as we�are usually by the door. There is of course nature's own counter-measure, commonly known as rain, but then the tent fills up with people (and�I mean fills) and�none of us can drive anywhere as we don't have 4wd! Plus of course the campsite gets a bit soggy, so on the whole dust is better than mud!�

Naoise · Corporal

Hi lads,

Thanks for taking the time to post and thank you PDA for the wonderful photo and links. You's have both been very helpful. I think I might go down that bocage route like you said PDA with maybe a small village and church and also some hastily dug positions like you said Paul.

The only problem with doing a distinctive/famous sector of the front is that, chances are there will be mistakes and also it will limit the combatants. The Marne(sector) is a perfect setting for a gaming table as all 3 sides took part. Hopefully Hat will release their early war BEF soon, but for now I have enough on my plate.

Thank you both very much for your extremely helpful advice.

FR73 · General

Exellent painting Naoise, I admire that you can do facial features so well. My wife always asks "Why don't you paint faces on them?" I don't usually try to get into much detail but I am finishing a special part of my Korps project that will be the envy of all who model in this scale... In the meantime meet fritz smile

I have the early war Germans, both HaT and Airfix. here are my Aifx ones. You've already seen these Paul. Right now I'm painting up the HaT troops and would much interested if you could post some pic of your HaT Germans here Paul.

Three cheers for his majesty the Kaiser

-Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!

Greetings, Josh

-- Edited by FR73 on Tuesday 2nd of August 2011 08:28:49 AM

-- Edited by FR73 on Tuesday 2nd of August 2011 08:34:16 AM