"Where to get extra miniatures from infantry platoon packs " Topic

Hi everyone,

I'm a new user, so I apologise if this has been answered before.

I picked up a bunch of French desert troops second hand recently, but found that one of the tirailleurs platoons was missing its accompanying VB team (rifle grenade base). Battlefront doesn't appear to sell these separately from the platoon packs, and I can't find anywhere else that does either. I also looked at the old command decision line, but they don't seem to include such figures.

Does anyone know if there is anywhere that you can buy 'bits' from these platoon packs, where I might be able to pick up a few individual VB team figures to complete this platoon? Alternatively, are there any other manufacturers that make 15mm french desert troops that I could check?

Cheers,

Andrew

These aren't desert but they have VBs ? (pack 574)
peterpig.co.uk/french.htm

LES

Shoot BF an email, they should be able to help you out.

Thanks. I was hoping to get them in desert uniform to match the rest of the platoon, but the Peter Pig ones look good if I can't.

I'll give BF a try as well. I think they used to sell individual components, but I couldn't find anything on their website saying they still do…

Oddly enough, for an "evil empire", BF has some pretty nice people. They might be able to help you out. Otherwise proxy miniatures is your best bet. One thing to remember though was that the Free French, and even the Vichy French, were a pretty ragged lot when it came to gear, uniforms, and other kit. The troops carried all sorts of stuff and wore many different uniforms, especially as the war went on. Having a perfectly clad force by say 1941-1942 would be pretty odd. The Free French, for instance, would have an odd collection of French and British gear whereas many Vichy units would have whatever kit the quartermasters could scare up. So having some oddball guys in a platoon isn't that odd really. Trust me, it gets a whole lot worse when the US joins the war… then you would really have a weird mix of equipment in a French unit!

Anyway, I wouldn't stress it much.

Get a small snip of wire, strip off the insulation – glue to end of rifle. Worked for me :)

No-one else does VB figures in the colonial uniform yet (they are on Eureka's 300 club list).

Peter Pig, Forged in Battle both do VB figures in the european uniform and QRF does Belgian VB figures.

When I did my french back before VB figures were available I used Old Glory and drilled out the rifle barrels to insert 0.4mm copper wire with the insulation pushed forward to make the launcher cup. It's fiddly work but I managed to do 32 of them without breaking any gun barrels so you should be able to do it with the BF figures which are a bit chunkier than Old Glory.

Wow Leadgend Wow!!
I used the pins that you get from new shirts with a blob of solder on the end. drilled out the gun barrels and put in the head of the pin.
Roy