Warlord Epic Waterloo French Army on Parade

 I have finally organised and based my Epic 15mm French army and I attach a few pictures to show the result.  I still have some more heavy cavalry and skirmishers, as well as some horse artillery to come back from the painter, but the army is just about complete. All of the figures were painted professionally apart from the Guard, which I did.

An overview:

The light cavalry, Chasseurs, Hussars and Lancers, as well as a battery of horse artillery.

The line infantry, foot artillery and skirmishers:

The heavy cavalry, currently consisting of just one regiment of Carabiniers and a horse artillery battery:

The Imperial Guard:

Guard foot artillery:

They will be in action soon.

Epic Battles Waterloo - Young Guard

 Today I finished off the third of my 15mm Guard battalions.  This time I have painted some of the line infantry in greatcoats as Young Guard - these are chasseurs.  Once agin a bit of paint has really brought out the character of these figures and I am pleased with the result:

Just some cavalry remaining to complete the French army.

Epic Waterloo French Line Artillery

Continuing the process of basing my Epic Waterloo French, last night I mounted three batteries of French Line Artillery on their bases.  The artillery figures are the most fiddly of the mouldings, made up of three parts, which when painted require a bit of filing to get them to fit together. Once assembled they have to be aligned with four holes on the bases.  With my fat fingers they often fell apart before I could secure them.

But, I got there in the end and lined up they look quite impressive.  I did not paint these figures:

Epic Waterloo - French Imperial Guard

 My Warlord Epic Waterloo 15mm French army is nearing completion.  While I was waiting for the bulk of the figures to come back from the painter I purchased an Imperial Guard set and began painting them.  They are lovely figures but are a real test for my eyes.  The figures appear to be 13.5mm, rather than 15mm  and consist of ranks of 10 figures, with 80 figures making a battalion.

Here are two battalions of Imperial Guard Grenadiers.  Fortunately they are in campaign dress which simplifies the painting, although you could really go to town on the detail with the right brush and decent eyesight!

The officer figures are also from the Epic range, but Napoleon is a 15mm Minifigs casting.  I bought him before Warlord brought out their senior commander sets.

I am now in the process of organising and basing the rest of the French.  Pictures to follow shortly.

Epic Battles Waterloo 15mm British Army

 Last night I finished off the last of the figures in the British Army starter set making up 15 battalions of infantry, seven of cavalry and five batteries of artillery.  In all over 1000 figures.  I must confess that I did not paint them all, sending a load off to a painting service. On completion they look good and fit in well with my 5" hex playing surface.

Here is an army overview:

The infantry:

I bought some French and painted them as Nassau allies. I will paint some Belgians and dutch too:

There is a heavy cavalry brigade of four regiments:

A light cavalry brigade of three regiments:

Each cavalry Brigade has a horse artillery battery in support:

As well as three batteries of foot artillery:

Finally a command group as there are plenty of spare mounted officer figures:

General Update

I recently finished painting these rather charming 30mm British Lancers from the Spencer Smith Classic range.  The lance arm is a separate casting, so it would be a simple task to create sword equipped cavalry, something that I might try.

Elsewhere, I have been very distracted by other projects.  I recently received a heap of plastic Samurai figures and I have been working through those. the infantry are from the MB board game 'Shogun' and the cavalry are by Zvezda:

However, I have been further distracted by the release of the Warlord Epic Battles Waterloo series, which has seen some major painting sessions underway.  Bob Black has bought the French and I the British. In each army there are 12 infantry, six cavalry and 5 batteries.  Not only an epic battle, but an epic painting project too!

WW1 Hex Mat

 For my forthcoming foray into WW1 trench warfare, I thought it would be quite good to invest in a mat for my tabletop.  I spotted one on the cigar box website and placed an order.  A few weeks later it turned up.

The mat is made of a fleecy material and lies on the table nice and smoothly with no wrinkles.  I had mine over printed with 3" hexes to suit 15mm scale figures.  Here is a close shot of the mat:

It is supposed to represent a war torn terrain, with no man's land depicted by the heavy shelled area.  Here is wider view of the mat with its shell holes:

I like the mat, however, my one gripe is that the printed image stays the same size regardless of the hex size.  This makes the shell craters really too large for 15mm scale.  In fact you would need massive hexes for some of the larger shell holes.  All that said, by the time terrain features are placed on the table, such as hills, woods and wire the craters will likely fade into the background a bit.

We will see how it looks when I set up a game.