"Who Makes The Best 28mm FPW Figures?" Topic

I am thinking about starting this new (for me) period and was wondering what ranges of figures that people would recommend for a brand new project in the 28mm scale. Which ranges are the most complete?

Please give your recommendations and state your reasons why.

Secondly, what types of forces would you recommend a newbie starting with? I tend to like big battalions so something like 24-36 figures per battalion is what I have in mind.

I think the Foundry range by the Perrys is the finest. The sculpts really capture the feeling for the period. The Castaway range is also very nice & is cheaper. It goes well with the Foundry so I would use them together. Some of the Battle Honors 1859 French may be useful as well.Askari makes beautiful turcos & zouaves although they are armed with the lebel instead of the Chassepot & the equipment is a bit off as well.I think the brother of the sculptor who did the very nice 15mm OG range has done some beautiful greens for 28mm but they haven't gone into production.

Alte Fritz,

We use Foundry and Castaway Arts primarily, augmented by old Iron Brigade, Falcon, and Askari (for French Colonial units). Once on the table they all seem to go very well together. Our first FPW battle is reported here:

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The first picture has my composite Foreign Legion Regiment with two battalions of Falcon and one battalion of Iron Brigade. The second picture shows my other composite French regiment with two Colonial battlions from Askari and a naval infantry battalion from Old Glory.

We use Larry Brom's "Chassepot and Needlegun" rules. The Prussians (and their German allies) are in 24-man battalions (six 4-figure stands) and the French are in 18-man battalions (six 3-figure stands). All cavalry is in 16-man regiments (four 4-figure or eight 2-figure stands). Artillery batteries are three guns and six gunners.

Right now we have approximately about 30 battalions of infantry and two regiments of cavalry, with supporting artillery, on each side.

Jim

we have the Castaway ones on close out –

French

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Prussian

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Wow Col Campbell! That is a great looking game and very inspirational as well.

I once thought about FPW in 15mm, but after seeing this………..

Hi everyone,

As mentioned above by Doc Ord I am working on a line of 25mm/28mm FPW figures. I have several greens near completion and will be posting some pics of them soon to my Franco-Prussian War website ( cs.cvtc.edu/~cooleyjc/fpwar ) . I'll try to post again when the pics are ready. I am currently working with a potential production partner to get these figures produced so hopefully some will be in the works soon.

My brother Perris and I really enjoyed sculpting the 15mm FPW and APW lines for Old Glory ( 19th Century Miniatures ) as this period has been a passion of ours for a long time.

I am really enjoying working in the 25mm scale as well. I think the Foundry line is excellent and have many of their figures. I wanted to have more poses though so… I started on this range of figures. I love sculpting dynamic poses many of which are inspired by the artwork of Detaille, De Neuville and Troiani.

Just out of curiosity, what kinds of troops and poses are you all most interested in seeing? I plan on doing most of the troop types from the war…

Kind regards,
Jon Cooley

Hi All. In addition to the figures mentioned up above, I have Old Glory WWI German Reservists. They come without much equipment so I just added a milliput blanket roll and painted them as 1870 Prussians. They fit will with Foundry and I have them on the same base. I have the 1859 French fro Battle Honours and they are OK. The heads are much smaller than Foundry and don't really look right next to them. They seem to match the Castaway stuff pretty will though.

The former Helion 1866 Prussians are also excellet. I have a large number of these running at the trail.

Jon. I am glaad to hear you are still working on yuor 28mm FPW. I had almost given up hope. More pses all around would be great. Actually I really like the Old Glory approach where a whole bag of figures might be advancing but with minor variations.

We really could do with more poses for the wurtumbergers. Foundry only produces two and they don't work that well together. Brunswickers would also be cool.

I am always browsing the German e-bay to look at the 30mm FPW flats. Lots of good ideas for active poses there. Berlin Zinnfiguren also has many pictures of flats in thier fleamarket section. I think yuo would find them very reminiscient of the artists you are fond of.

Good luck Jon. Hope to see these figures soon.

Mike

My skirmish project needs some good Chasseur figures. I have never found that the foundry figures do justice to De Neuville's 'En Plein Soleil'.

Good luck Jon.

Hi Ianioheck,

My first Chasseur figure is actually based on the second skirmisher in 'En Plein Soleil'. Bill Horan did a 54mm figure in this pose as well that inspired me. I hope to do the first skirmisher at the wall corner as well. Again, I'll post when I get updated shots of my greens up to my FPW website.

Kind regards,
Jon

The Castaway figures are nice, I bought some French and found them closer to 25 than 28mm.

Alte Fritz

Have painted several hundred of FPW Foundry castings in the last two years. Sold them all easily for great prices on Ebay. Some of the French Infantry castings are very "Flashy" due to their age. The Germans are much less so, at least the ones I got! Foundrys line is by far the most complete I know about. Another endless project for you I suspect!!

The new Perry Range is superb,

Tally Ho!

eaglesofempire.com
Mark

I would say Foundry and Perry. But consider 15mm. OG has a very nice range of figures. In fact I believe they used a different sculptor for them as they are far and above their other ranges. Freikorps 15 also has some nice figures. The battles are so large that 15mm made sense because of the smaller foot print. For rules we use "They Died For Glory" which are my favorite rules.