Adler Leger Unit Finished.

Having bought a single Regiment of Adler infantry to compare it against the Baccus I felt it was the obvious place to start from my swag from the weekend. Well What can I say but the figures are so very well detailed and the poses are excellent. The fact that the light regiments have three different poses for the standard infantryman is a big plus. Add to that the slight variations you get within some of those poses and you end up with units that are anything but wooden. However the downside to this is a slight slowing down of the painting of the figures. This is indeed a mantra that Adler force me to come back to again and again. At no point did I have a good run to really be able to give a full comparison of painting a Adler unit against a Baccus but enough to be able to come to solid conclusions.

 

In the spirit of full disclosure the Adler unit is 38 figures strong compared to my Baccus of 29 figures. This allows a bigger and more expensive wholesome unit which really adds to the finished base. The picture above shows off the three poses that the skirmish elements come in opposed to the two poses of Baccus at this point. Of all the Baccus figures the only one I have found I dislike is the skirmish figures. This is especially bad when they are out front! The Adler win hands down in a rather unfair fight.

 

The Baccus flags fit with no problem, other than having to take the figure off the base to attach, so next time I will remember to add before basing. I really like the front rank presenting their muskets with the rank behind holding at port but slightly different angles. This is the firing and advancing posed figures, they also do marching which I assume is similar to the Baccus figure.

 

I always thought the roll on top of the backpack was a blanket. Turns out it's their greatcoat which should be rather more grey than blue! Next lot will be done correctly. Note the soldier to the rear who has taken time to check on a fallen comrades er valuables. Maybe he owed him money?

 

The very thing that allows you to make the line less line like also really adds to the finishing time. Right from cleaning up the figures (and they do have a fair amount more flash than Baccus) through cutting them off their strips and sticking on painting sticks and on through the painting procedure it all takes more time. In some cases not a great deal but others such as separating the figures which need excess base cutting off on both sides of the figure which exceeds the Baccus prep time four fold. Lee said Adler always command good prices of E-Bay, well given the work involved in just getting a brush to the figure I am not surprised!

 

Time to paint is one important comparison but far more important is a comparison of figure sizes, if it's too obvious then it's hardly worth bothering with both. Well when in line and next to each other it is a bit too obvious but when I placed a unit in column next to them you don't notice half as much. All in all I am happy to mix between the two makes and still look forward to the redesigned French that Baccus intend to bring out soon.

 

Last shot from above, again the way they are based really changes the final look. The Baccus can be very close whilst the Adler would need closer clipping to get them in closer order. Not that I don't like the look a looser formation achieves.

 

The Big question though from the point of getting the lead on the table has to be quality V quantity. I found these figures more of a challenge than Baccus but the again I have painted up a fair few hundred Baccus so I should have it down. I used the same spray them blue, ink them blue and dry brush the correct blue over. Very easy when they are Leger as you don't need to go back to do the trousers. How ever not only have you got more detail to contend with but some of that detail is actually easier to paint than Baccus. Witness the painting of the Shako cords. Tried with Baccus and made a mess of it (though I have now twigged how to do it with them!). Painting time I would hazard a guess it's about 20% longer once I get in a groove, at the moment it's about 40% which could be the reason you see so many part painted Adler on E-Bay. The most frustrating is the basing. Baccus is strips of 4, Adler is tweezers and single figures. Sure you can be very creative (as I hope to show) but the time spent is a pain. Again you get faster but it will always be well over four times the speed of doing a Baccus base!

 

The long and short of it though is that Adler are well worth buying, look great, will take longer to do but hell it's not like I am supposed to paint up a few thousand for a display game is it? Lee, you want to repeat that a bit louder?