First Finish of 2020

And just like that I equalled the posts of 2019 LOL. These are three battalions of French SYW infantry for use with Blackpowder and belong to my son. I actually started these in last years painting challenge and their they sat. In the end three painting sessions saw them finished. Always a bit embarrassing when they finish so fast given the time lapse.

He has three more undercoated so I should get those done in the next month or so. A few things ahead of them in the queue. I know after that he still has some artillery and dragoons but not really sure if he has any infantry left.

The three regiments they depict from the left are Picardie (Regiment 1), Due Roi (Regiment 12) and Briqueville (Regiment 23). The figures are Lancashire Games from their 15mm range. I find size wise they fit well with Old Glory. I also have the Prussians and I find those castings better than the French in that the French have a little bit of misalignment on the standard infantry figure (turnback slightly worse than the full frock coat) which shows worst on the cartridge box at the rear of the figure. Still at the price they are tough to beat for value for money and are really quick to paint.

The flags are from Cadogan Hobbies and are the best priced flags I have ever got my hands on. The print quality is not at all bad and you get all the available flags. I had difficulty finding the Prussians originally and at this point no French are showing but if you contact them they will make them available. They also do the cavalry ensigns as well.

I am waiting for a bust and brass rods to arrive so will be playing around with my airbrush which will allow me to play catch up with the other finishes I managed last year.

Lancashire Games French SYW Heavy Cavalry

Recently finished up a couple of heavy cavalry units for The Boy. These are Lancashire Games French cavalry from their Seven Years War range. Having painted up quite a few of this suppliers figures I do find them really quick to paint. The detail is reasonable and I do miss out a few of the smaller details to speed things up but they still come out looking fine.

We use Black Powder rules which allow you to be creative with your basing. Were not over happy with the army list book for this period but it does supply you with stats for the units but beyond that it really does not help in producing a realistic or balanced army. Indeed the author actually states he is no expert on the period!

This regiment is the Royal Cravate, having looked at a display game that used a larger than standard number of figures we decided to copy them. Light cavalry have twelve figures a regiment, dragoons have fourteen and the heavies sixteen making each cavalry unit average about £7.50 a pop. Of course any units that use most of the other suppliers the cost is somewhat more.

The second regiment is Meustre ds Camp and as usual The Boy picked which units he wanted me to paint. He still has a lot of unpainted cavalry so I will be back to this army again fairly soon. 

The flags are from Cadogan Hobbies who sell on ebay and are very good value for the quality. I have the flags for just about all the cavalry and infantry for Prussia and France and for under £28 and that's hundreds of flags!

The Boy is a bit low on unpainted infantry so will look to pick some more of those once I get a couple more battalions painted. I also bought some Blue Moon command figures for him that will give him another two command stands and allow for a mounted officer on one of his infantry bases. Will have to look for other command figures at some point to further expand his command options.

If you do go down the route of buying Battle Packs from Lancashire Games be aware that most of these packs are just the standard figures, command figures have to be bought on top of these packs, annoying if you don't realise and have to make a second order. However shooting Alan a email to check prior works well as he is quick to respond.

French SYW Artillery - Lancashire Games 15mm

The Boy's army continues to grow, he has had noticeable success in a recent game with his guns, blasting my poor infantry to bits as I advanced towards his troops so it was not surprising that he should favour yet more guns.

As such I painted up a couple of battalion guns and a medium giving him a little more flexibility. He will need a couple more battalion guns when I paint up a few more infantry battalions for him.

As he has a artillery Battle Pack from Lancashire Games so still has plenty of guns left to go at. I also have one as well as the Blue Moon gun pack so we won't go short.

In fact these have taken the table once already but suffered from the usual luck that first time used troops tend to suffer. Still The Boy's army continues to grow, he even has two regiments of heavy cavalry on my workbench at the moment that will soon be finished.

His next troops though are likely to be 6mm British Napoleonic's he is hankering after a few horse artillery batteries having played against my French ones a few weeks back.

15mm Lancashire Games French SYW Infantry

Well a month without posts and it flew past. Not having your own computer was a real pain in the backside. Though I was not aware it had been a whole month since I posted here. Well I now have my own computer again so expect more posts again, though I have painted far less than you would expect without the distraction of a computer.

Two more regiments for The Boys army, it's starting to take shape now and we hopefully will be getting a few more games in soon.

This is the 6th Regiment La Marine which fought it's first battle of the Seven Years War on the 26th July 1757 at the battle of Hastenbeck which was won by the French. This was to be the only major action the regiment was to actually fight. It was at a number of other battles but was never fully engaged, though detachments did fight a number of actions.

The regiment wore grey-white coats with black facings making them a little different. The red waistcoats are hidden on most figures but you get a good view of one in the first picture.

The colonels standard is fairly plain which is good as I don't want the whole army to be a blaze of the more fancy ones. Talking of which......

Having the odd blaze of colour and detail makes the army look better so I think he can be forgiven for picking these guys.

These are Regiment 16 Dauphin which also was part of the same army as Regiment 6 but these were more involved in future battles so look to have seen more action.

The coats are white as have been most of the regiments I have painted for The Boy and this really helps make the light blue facings pop.

So overall I am impressed with the Lancashire Games casting's. Some of them shave the ammunition pouch somehow cast so that at the mould line they are staggered and whilst it is not very obvious it's still disappointing when the rest of the figure looks good.

Above is the four regiments I painted during the Analogue Painting Challenge making five painted up all together for him. I need to add a few more and more cavalry and then he will have a more balanced force.

Talking of the challenge, it finishes on Monday. I have two small submissions so rather limp over the line this year but I have still painted up far more than I had expected.

French SYW Dragoons by Lancashire Games

Sorry it's been over a week since my last post. Not that I have nothing to post about, just mostly worn down by a busy end to our busy period at work along with being more than a little under the weather. I managed to resist posting about all my prep (well post dedicated to the subject). However that was what took up most of my hobby time but in the end the need to paint something won out and I got these almost finished before the Analogue Painting Challenge started.

These are Lancashire Games French Dragoons from their SYW range and are for The Boy's army. He now has two regiments of Dragoons, three guns, three command stands and a single battalion of infantry. Clearly I need to now pay attention to expanding this arm of his army.

The Boy choose the regiment for me to paint based on images of the regiments and their cornets. He has another regiment picked out that I hope to paint for him during the challenge but that is a bit down the list of unit to do. He will be receiving more Lancashire Games figures for Christmas, enough to make a further two regiments of dragoons and and four battalions of infantry. After that I will have to get him some heavy cavalry, hussars and grenadiers. That should keep me busy.

This is the regiment Languedoc which did not it appears have a very busy war but The Boy liked the colour of the uniform and the two colour standard seems he will be building a colourful army. 

Next up for his army will be one more battalion of his own uniform design then onto a couple of normal uniform colours so plenty to go at over the next few months.

SYW Schomberg Dragoons by Blue Moon

I not so long ago bought these Blue Moon French Dragoons for The Boy and they jumped up the painting queue. Schomberg Dragoons fit in that category that see's a unit represented in more armies because it's different in this case it's the only Dragoon regiment that wears the helmet that the Napoleonic French Dragoons owe it's birth right too. It is also the only regiment of dragoons in the French army to wear green. 

Old Glory supply these castings in the UK as per link above. Blue Moon normally supply command separately with nine command figures to a pack meaning you normally buy three packs of cavalry and one of command for every three units of cavalry. But as you only need the one regiment Blue Moon supply you a fifteen figure pack including three command. Lee and me have fourteen figure dragoon regiments (sixteen figures for heavy cavalry) so this was almost perfect for us.

The castings were fairly clear of mould lines but some better than others and flash was certainly present but easy to remove. The horse figures certainly have a bulk about them which looks good. The riders look a bit little in comparison but that could be just me. However the final look of the painted unit looks really nice.

Plenty of detail and the separate rider castings did not cause any issues making them a little more pleasurable to work with. The Blue Moon range is not yet complete and nowhere is that more obvious than in the French range with about half the listed figures yet to be made available. I can see me returning to this range for some more of their cavalry as when compared with the two other suppliers I have painted to date these are the best.

I also painted up the French Mounted Officers but that's for another post in the near future. Meanwhile I continue with a couple of units for my army.

French SYW Infantry With a Twist

The whole Seven Years War project all started out based on The Boys choice of what to do next. I really thought he would have gone Medieval on us but after some good thought he opted for SYW and whilst Lee and myself have really ran with it, The Boy originally was painting his own but as a nine year old often does he lost interest in painting them himself so I have taken on the duties.

He decided the colours of his first battalion himself after deciding as it was Imagination he would go full hog. Since then he has rethought the idea and wants to be more historical so only a few battalions will not be standard SYW French. That is till he again possibly changes his mind.

As you can see they are a brightly dressed group. I expect to do another one or two battalions for this regiment at some point. At the moment I am painting up command and a regiment of Dragoons, all historically correct.

The figures are all Lancashire Games and the quality of the figures were what prompted me to buy some of their Prussian castings, a decision I have not regretted. My son has enough figures for a few more battalions but I will need to buy more figures soon for him. Possibly as a Christmas present but probably just because I can LOL.

The flag is from this ebay seller who has a tremendous range (more in a future post) and for £11.25 you get nine sheets each with thirty infantry flags per sheet, representing great value.

Also available are cavalry flags. He covers all major forces but also the minor allies as well. Prices reflect the number of flags available. The paper is matt and resists fault lines in the creases. I have since bought both the French and Prussian cavalry flags and the Prussian infantry whilst Lee who introduced me to them has not only the Russia and Austrian but plenty of the others as well.

Next up for the SYW will be the two light battalions I recently painted up but I also have a few 6mm units awaiting blogging but before any of these I will be updating the Secret Santa status as we stand. The Santa Clause has already been assigned (earlier notice so to be able to paint up our gifts) and Chris seems to be keeping us all in order :-)

Lancashire Games French SYW Artillery

Keeping with 15mm but switching to the SYW I have finished the first three units for The Boy's French army. Sounds impressive until you realise it's artillery so very small units.

I continue to be impressed by Lancashire Games products, true the cavalry let them down a little but these figures look the part and again paint up nice and quick. I went with a dark blue and crimson to make them pop, my son rather likes them so a score there.

The pack comes with three different sized guns so I crewed the smaller one with just three crew. The wheels go on the carriages with ease and they have enough detail to be interesting to paint whilst not too fiddly. The guns are a slightly darker blue than the coats of the crew.

The Boy has chosen his next unit which is infantry so I will be finishing a unit he started way back around the start of the year, also Lancashire Games. Today I ordered him the Schomberg Dragoons as he wants to have a unit in the distinctive green. These are Blue Moon via Old Glory along with a few higher command figures to lead his troops.

Meanwhile I have started a battalion of Grenadiers for my Prussians, seems to be all go and all 15mm on the desk at the moment. So I will be looking at getting a few more 6mm units across it sometime soon just to keep it fresh.