French Review and Give Away

Whilst taking photo's of my latest French I thought I should do a review of the whole lot. I started painting these about two and a half to three years ago. Consider that I have also been painting up a rather large Prussian army at the same time as well as 15 and 28mm figures as well. Ian has been a very busy boy indeed.

I have gone extra large to try and get the impact across. Hope it works LOL. Each base is 60x60mm for the infantry and holds 28 figures so that's 2492 infantry 120 gun crews to 40 guns, 12 limbers, over 300 cavalry, around 60 command figures. That's a fair few and in unpainted lead around £150 just for the infantry. I don't think I want to go further with that chain of thought.

Unfortunately I changed basing style around a year into the project. One day I may get round to rebasing but that is going to be one horrid job so it is going to be one for a later date. Here we have the Neapolitan and Italian infantry for Spain on the left with lots of cavalry in the centre. Many of these again have no place at Waterloo being Hussars and Chasseurs. These will see action soon enough but it won't be Waterloo. My gun park got a real shot in the arm when I received my first Secret Santa gift and I have reaped the benefit. I still have more artillery I have bought since then but it was great fun to paint up tat gift and now they sit in the centre of the field.

The guts of the army, 75 Battalions of infantry look like this! Well actually they look almost double this number as they take up a lot of space!

Another shot of the Allied troops very colourful whilst the Italian troops were as good as the French the Neapolitan battalions were left wanting but at least they made good lucking corpses. The French command are to the left, 13 bases all together and I have another 4 bases worth part painted and lots more as virgin lead. So it's quite possible I will never need to buy a command pack ever again.

The vast majority of the cavalry is Baccus but a sprinkling of Adler is included. I have many more figures that will be added to the French and there allies in the coming years and again the vast majority is Baccus though a lot of the Hussars will be of the old castings. I have about 20 odd battalions worth of infantry and the same again of cavalry regiments so apart from the Guard I don't see the need to buy anything but the new releases when they come available for some time to come. I also have a Polish Brigade pack to paint up in the future not to mention the 30+ Prussian battalions at least 8 guns and 15+ regiments of cavalry and command about half of these are needed for the Waterloo game. Seems that I have plenty to keep me going, but will that stop me?

So here it is at last the give away. Feel free to join in, up for grabs is two lots of £20 gift vouchers for any Baccus figures that you want, one of which has been donated by Peter at Baccus and a group of Napoleonic buildings from Leven. All to celebrate the finishing of the French.

All you need to do is leave a comment below and I will pull out the winners from my Adrian Helmet in a weeks time. All I ask is that you join in only if you will want to paint up your prize at some point in the not toooooooo distant future. Oh it would be nice but not required to post about the give away and no need to be a follower, just leave a comment

100 Followers Giveaway......The Results!

I used a Random Number  Generator for this draw rather than dice and the kids (well it's not 6am yet and I have a feeling I would get in trouble for getting the kids out of bed!). First up, thanks to everyone who took part. The best attended giveaway so far and here is the stats for the prizes.

 

The brushes were the most popular item netting 33 requests out of the total of 36 entrants. Not surprisingly the mould was least popular gaining only 15 requests. Close on it's heals was the 54mm figure with 19 requests. At least my offer to paint figures met with a reasonable response of 21, imagine the embarrassment if that came last ;-) Second was the brush holder at 22 so as you can see a very good turn out. Now for the results.

 

Painted figure prize goes to Tim who has a great looking blog called Fidus et Audak and greater looking figures, go check him out.

 

The Baccus half mould goes to Lee Sharpe who does not have a blog for me to plug.

 

The 54mm figure goes to Johnathon who's Blog I pimped not so long ago called The Inevitable Spark. Really looking forward to seeing this painted as Johnathon is a top painter.

 

The Brushes were won by Chris who mixes it up on his blog between painting and AAR's. He should also possibly win a prize for the name of his blog Sippin' On Paint Water.

 

Last up the brush holder was won by Dux Homunculorum with a blog of the same name and funny enough has just won Tamsin's giveaway as well!! Beware though he is having a bit of a rant about heft, don't say I did not warn you.

 

So please can all you winners contact me with your e-mail address as ian_willey@hotmail.com and I will send out the prizes next week or in the case of the painted figures we can then discuss what you want painting and how many etc.

 

Again Thanks for the interest and sorry if you did not win.  

 

100 Followers, Why Thank You All!

Edit 4. Kickstarter Style. Having now used the Rosemary and Co. brushes for about a month I have decided to upgrade the brush prize to pure Kolinsky Sable series 33. This is in reaction to the blended brushes tips curling a little. I will be only using the series 33 in the future so I won't supply below that quality for other painters. So if you put yourself down for other prizes but not these then throw your hat in for them if you wish. Of course if you have yet to go for this then time is running out as I do the draw in just three days!

Edit 3. Bump the post and add better brush rack pic.

Edit 2. Bumped the Post

Edit 1. Just added a picture of the 54mm casting and added details. So if it rocks your boat throw your hat in the ring. Plenty of time to add your name to the list, all you need to do is leave a post saying what you want, can e one item, the lot or somewhere between.


Well what can I say but thanks to the lot of you. I had a great helping hand when I was pimped by a number of blogs that pushed me from the 60's and I have a feeling Anne's recent plug has helped some with the last four followers, so a big thank you to Anne.

Well I did say I would have a big giveaway once I hit 100 so here it is. You can enter for as many of the prizes as you wish all you need to do is leave a comment in this post stating what you want. No selection will get you entered for all of them. If you also run a blog a shout about this giveaway would also be great (but not essential) if you go for a prize. Obviously whilst I want to say thank you to my followers I also want to attract some new ones so the more attention I get the better.

So first up is the chance to win a unit of your own figures painted by me to the spec you supply. I'm thinking 24 or so 28mm, 48 or so 15mm 100+ 6mm etc. If I don't think I can do you justice I will say. Really just about anything goes but you have to live with the results LOL. Basing will be left to you but I will varnish etc. If you want shield transfers etc.then you would have to supply or I can leave them ready for adding at your leisure.I won't put  a time on it but I would push them to the front.

Second up is half of a Baccus mould. OK it's useless I will keep the other half but the bragging rights is fantastic. I mean how many people own one of these things? I bet even less own half of one LOL.

Third, a 54mm casting from Sarum Soldiers. This is now no longer made, seems they have dropped the detailed military ranges and concentrate on other less detailed ranges. This figure comes with 4 different heads so you can change the regiment. The photo shows the Drummer Boy, British Foot Guards, Waterloo 1815.

Fourth, a selection of Rosemary & Co brushes from the Blended selection, tailored to the scale you paint.

Last up a brush holder that I think is rather neat and whilst picking up one for the winner I will be getting myself one as well. Which I have now don, here it is below.

So this will run till the 8th of September (1 year anniversaryof the blog) and I plan to keep refreshing the post so it pops up at the front of the blog allowing late comers to have a go. Remember to take part you just need to be a member so can have a go even if this is the first time you looked at it, just click follow. Also remember you can select as many items as you wish. Good Luck one and all and I hope you have fun with this.

Wargaming Girl Giveaway

Tamsin over at Wargaming Girl is having a give away on her blog. She has offered to paint up to 72 points of figures (15mm that would be 24 foot or 12 horse). The reason, she has managed to get 250 followers in less than a year. I believe her to be the most active of bloggers I follow, not only that but she has a great mix of games played and new figures painted. If you don't follow her already then get across to see what all the fuss is about.