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Project Blog by jamescutts Cult of Games Member

Recommendations: 92

About the Project

Got to get BACK to it. Checkout my other projects to follow along.

This Project is Completed

French Chasseurs a Cheval

Tutoring 4
Skill 4
Idea 3
No Comments
French Chasseurs a Cheval

Undercoated in Scale 75 Instant Primer Ice Charm

Horse Flesh a Mix of

  • Contrast Gore-Grunta Fur
  • Contrast Cygore Brown or Wildwood (cant remember)
  • Contrast Skeleton Horde
  • Contrast Aggaros Dunes

To give some variation in shades ive given a few of these more that one coat

For the Tails and mains i manly mixed up the above with the addition of some black templar.

Leather is all back templar

Pack on horse is Waagh Flesh, im not super happy with the green but its what I had on hand, i gave it a shade of Coelia Greenshare to get something more like what i was after.

Sheepskin is Rakarth Flesh as that was the first color i spotted (this paint is terriable by the way and i nearly threw it out, split terriable and with solid lumps in it)

I then gave most of the horse and the sheepskin a wash in Armypaint soft tone 3-2 with mixing medium before a final Praxiti white drybrush on the sheepskins.

French Line Infantry - A wargames view

Tutoring 3
Skill 4
Idea 3
No Comments
French Line Infantry - A wargames view

Completed French Line Infantry Battalion

A view Napoleon would be proud of

Tutoring 3
Skill 4
Idea 3
No Comments
Glorious French Infantrymen marching forwards at your commandGlorious French Infantrymen marching forwards at your command
Whats better than one battalion marching towards your enemy, two battalionsWhats better than one battalion marching towards your enemy, two battalions

Needing inspiration

Tutoring 3
Skill 4
Idea 3
No Comments

At this point in the project was I was beginning to suffer from the effects of the dreaded hobby burnout. This many French in this short of a timeframe is enough to drive any Englishman mad.

Needing inspiration and possibly something to stick back together my scattered thoughts I fell back on our trusty friend.

Needing inspiration

The Prussians are back

Tutoring 3
Skill 4
Idea 3
No Comments
The Prussians are back

The dreaded Prussians have arrived, in the form of the suprisingly good or exceptionally poor Prussian Landwehr. Made up of those not already in the army the combat effective ness of these troops varied significantly.

Courtesy of Warlord Games in this instance.

A strange kit this one, I believe these launched in 2017 replacing an earlier plastic kit. From what I’ve seen the older kit appeared much more characterful and more inline with the more varied poses of the Late French Infanty kit below.

Overall A decent kit for the pricely sum of £13 (after a bit of bargin hunting), the plastics are OK, not some of the fantastic sculpting standards from other manufactures such as victri or perry. The figures feel quite hunched on the shoulders. Detail is reasonable but not fantastic for plastic. The biggest let down is the metals, theres little definition in the detail, paticualry the officers face, there also a bit shorter.

For the price though looking foward to these being painted up.

Painting Prussians begins

Tutoring 3
Skill 4
Idea 3
No Comments

Ok, i was going to do a painting guide but after two photos it really started to get in the way of being productive.

Basecoat all the coats Prussian BlueBasecoat all the coats Prussian Blue
Basecoat all the rolls London GreyBasecoat all the rolls London Grey

A rant at Warlord

Tutoring 3
Skill 4
Idea 3
No Comments
A rant at Warlord

First off I really wanted to like this kit, the sculpts are reasonably detailed, when togehter they make a good looking unit of Landwehr Cavalry.

No onto the bad, the horse scupts are a mixed bag, while are are well detailed, some of the poses are pretty poor, with unrealistic effects, paticually the horse the trumeter is riding on the images above. The riders dont match the reins giving a low sense of realism. In fact nearl all the riders hands are held high.

Personally i can forgive the above, but the “resin” material is terriable, very trick to work with and much more reminisent of the cheap plastic toy soldiers are made of in the pound shop. Again i could forgive this but the casting is also poor, several of the figures have clearly been over incorrectly cast, levign a plastic discoloured and with less sharp detailing.

One upside from the material is the minis are quite flexiable and the lances are hard to break, simply flexing back into positiion, equallt the horses just flex rather than snap.

The biggest problem with the kit is its assembly, and i dont know how these moulds got past any quality control, pretty much none of the riders fit into the saddle, they all, sit too hig with part of the mini being obstructed by the horse in one way or another, this led to lots of testing trying to get the best fit for each rider on each horse. To make matters worse the lances are a not the best fit in the hands, tnding to want to flare out heavily to the side unlike the product shots without cutting way the inside of the hand. This combines with the above problem, where you find a rider that fits on a horse but not with the lance, making assembly an absolute nightmare.

If you’ve tried the warlord plastic french cavalry that fit perfectly then this is the exact opposite of that.

I really wanted to like this set, the poses are quite good, and they fill a good gap left by other manufactures. but for me its and avoid, theres certianly potential here but the execution is poor. If these where around half the price(£15?) I’d say give them a go if you really want to, but for £25 (at the time of writing) these are shockingly poor.

Landwehr Cavalry

Tutoring 3
Skill 4
Idea 3
No Comments
Landwehr Cavalry

After my previous rant I’ve slowly come around to these guys, first off once you get past the assembly and get a prime on these really start to become nice to work with.

Detaling is good, thouh a few of the scultps where softer i think due to casting.

They paint up really nicely and for cavalry where a pleasue to paint, usually i would paint the rider and horse seperate but due to the assembly everything was superguled to buggery to get it to fit so that wasnt an option.

Either way very enjoyable minis to paint and worked great with a mix of traditional and contrast painting techniques.

New Plastic Crack has Arrived From Wargames Atlantic

Tutoring 3
Skill 4
Idea 4
No Comments

Prussian Reserve (1813-1815)

The boxThe box

These arrived in the post the other day, so far very impressed.

  • Great scuplts
  • Quick assembly
  • Fantastic value
  • Miminal mould lines

Hopefully they paint up nice.

One small critism i have is the eyes are pretty sunken into the face.

Simple detailed sprue with minimal componentsSimple detailed sprue with minimal components
Assembled and ready for actionAssembled and ready for action

Comparison with Perry Minatures

Left to Right: Perry Prussian Voulenteer Jäger follwed by Line Infantry man, Wargames Atlantic Reserve, Metal Perry Reserve CommandLeft to Right: Perry Prussian Voulenteer Jäger follwed by Line Infantry man, Wargames Atlantic Reserve, Metal Perry Reserve Command

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