"Best Franco-Prussian War Figures?" Topic

Any suggestions for a good line of Franco-Prussian War figures in 15mm? Maybe even 10mm or old school 20mm. I do not like "Chunky" 15mm figures and would prefer to get 28mm but I just don't have the room. Thanks in advance

Baccus 6mm are lovely, cheap, fast to paint…

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In 10mm the Perrin/Black Cat range is gorgeous. I'm not sure who carries them now though.

I use Perrin 10mm and they are really nice sculpts and not chunky.
Joe

My favorites in 15mm are Old Glory 15's from 19th Century
oldglory15s.com
sculpted by the Perris brothers who are Franco-Prussian war fanatics.

Some pictures of one of our games – the Bavarians are Lancashire

I've just ordered some 10mm from Magister Militum and I'm waiting for them to arrive.

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Wow, thank you gentlemen for your kind assistance. I always wanted to create an HG Wells style late 19th Century wargame with 2 generic armies- 1 red, 1 blue. I travel constantly with my job so ai could never have 54mm and even 28mm would really be pushing it. I thought that the FPW figs would be a good place to start. I wish someone made those classic Britains looking British soldiers in the Bearskins in 10mm to be my Red army but I figure the French would do, perhaps even the Bavarians as the Red Army and the Prussians as the blue.? Any further suggestions would be most appreciated. Thanks!

I'm currently working on some Old Glory 15mm(Wurtemburgers and French to start with). I'm liking how they paint up so far. The detail is good.

Freikorps 15's. True 15mm so nice and small – not chunky and quite a variety of figures. Their Austro-Prussian range is extensive, I know it is not exactly what you asked for but could give you a bit more variety and is near enough in time.

Thanks Iain but who sells them? I cannot find them.

I have Pendraken's 10mm FPW troops which I am currently basing for Chris Pringle's Bloody Big Battles rules.

Dave

Jason, QRF sells Freikorps.

Minifigs do a very nice 15mm Franco-Prussian range: link

No help at all but I love the old Minifigs S Range FPW. Also Hagen have some good FPW figs especially the Bavarians, which I believe are metal versions of a set dropped by HaT. I have a mitrailleuse and crew and Prussian Emperor and Crown Prince from them and they are recommended. Finally a left field solution which isn't what you asked for but might fit the HG Wells theme and is worth a look is the 30mm range from Peter at Spencer Smith. I have a similar project in mind to re fight the campaigns and battles recorded by George Keef in his Georland Journal. When he originally fought these he used Demi ronde FPW figures. As I have large S Range Crimean War armies I will be going with these and the FPW ones but if I was starting from scratch I would go with the Spencer Smiths

My 28mm are a mix as are my 6mm. The 6mm are a mix of Baccus, very nice, Heroics and Ros also very nice and irregular. The latter look horrible in bare metal but once painted liven up a great deal. Search on my name for photos,

Tally Ho!

If you were prepared to do 28mm Irregular have a range of home service types including guardsmen in bearskins as well as Prussians French Austrians and italians in a fairly toyish style. They also do a small range of FPW in 20mm (in my opinion the Prussians are better than the French …)

Once again, thank you all very much for the excellent information. I did see Spencer Smith's figures last week…that's what got me thinking about the whole thing- beautiful figures. I will check out Hagen also, never heard of them. Thanks guys!

Given space and scales of battles, 10 mm is the best way to go:
Pendraken with a bit of Perrin/ ( sold by Magister in the Uk) infantry and artillery and the must, the generals; but forget the cavalry.

Some aCw can squeeze in generals in cap, some infantry for garde mobile and you have all you need compatible with variants.

Outpost Wargames Service 15mm link

Ah forgot this one. Yes 15mm too if
You have space
Already have masses of terrain in 15mm as unless playing fantasy desert France, you will need a lot of woods, villages farms etc. a lot.

I started my FPW army back in '92. It now consists of Frontier, Rank 'n File, Falcon, Minifig and Old Glory 15s.
The OGs are by far the best sculpted. I last ran convention games using a modified version of Larry Brom's Chassepot & Needlegun on a 6x12 table with 10 players. with 1200 figs, that size table gives plenty of room for maneuver. Using a 1/60 figure ratio with 2 figs@base, 6 bases for French Bn. and 8 for the Prussians, I basically was putting a corps per side. Good luck and hope you enjoy the period as much as i have.

Note there are size variations with the above manufacturers, but they work if you keep same mfg figs within a single unit. The OGs are large 15s compared to the Frontier. Falcons are also large.

oops! Forgot that I also have a bunch of Freikorps as well.

If you did 6mm using H&R you could do a Bruce Wiegle's style set up.

I went with Freikorps from QRF they are great little figures and you get a wide range of types.

10mm Pendraken……

B and B do a good range in 20mm -lots of character (ie chunky!!) -I've got some painted up for 1914. There are one or two packs that are less than historical but not amongst the major troop types.
I have 15s and 28s -if I were starting today I'd probably go with 10mm.
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Irregular do some good 20mm Austrians too for the inevitable expansion!!.

My 15mm armies are so old that most of them are actually Minifigs WW1 -French with filed kepis and Germans just painted blue. Back pack totally wrong of course but this was back in the 80s.
link
The Prussians in the pics are rather unhelpfully the now defunct Pioneer Miniatures.
Old Glory do great artillery and the figs have bags of variety but they I find the rifles etc rather flimsy and prone to break.

The OG 15mm figures are the most complete and IMHO the best range OG makes. I don't know of any better ones. I have some Friekorps 15mm but I have to say the OG figures are much better.

It's a trade-off: Minifigs are clean, well sculpted, slender figures, but you'll be limited to units of clones.

Old Glory look better at a distance because of the unit dynamism provided by the variants within any one 'pose', but the sculpting is 'softer' and sometimes a bit two-dimensional, the Prussian helmets are closer in shape to the contemporary British model than the pickelhaube, and the helmet spike is too delicate and often breaks off. Still, I went with OG for the reason cited and because of the discount obtainable through bulk buying. Even with 'casualties' due to lost helmet spikes they work out a lot cheaper than Minifigs.

Jason If you need Bear Skin hats in 10mm then the Magister Militum Crimea range will provide this:-

link

I can't find the will to paint 15mm anymore: At the end of the day, most of my miniature hobby time is painting, not playing. I need to truly enjoy the quality of the painting and the sculpting.
For that, I would recommend to go the 28mm way. The best options now, qualitywise (sculpting and pose variety), are the 1866 range from North Star and the upcoming 1870 range from Footsore Miniature, plus the upcoming 1859 ranges from Gringo40. One ladder below that level you have Old Glory/Battle Honours 25mm range.
Some day, I expect to play the 1859-1870 wars with minis of the highest quality :-)

the problem with 28mm is that there is only one range (WF) that is reasonble complete. The others have only a small range or are just promises

Steve Barber has joined the 28mm fray and looking good
stevebarbermodels.com
However as you say Jason you do need room -I play on the floor in my big attic(!)

Pendraken 10mm. Lovely figures, and a very extensive range, including 1866 Austrians for that inevitable expansion. Perin/Magister Militum 10mm have some nice single pose infantry (but with very long thin rifle barrels and bayonets which are very fragile) and good Generals packs which are compatible with Pendraken. Cavalry are not great.

Mollinary

But playing this period with such great uniforms with 10mm or smaller blobs? That's a pity (which of course is just mho)

Brunet. You were saying something about blobs? Maybe this will change your mind. 10mm Pendraken by the uber-talented Javier

imageshack.com/i/hlaaEVzZj

imageshack.com/i/iplPMuBwj

these are painted great, but look at them on a wargames table from 1 feet away.
And as said, just my opinion

I respect your opinion. Just trying to change it. 1 feet away 28mm will not look any more different i dare say. When you are in the game zone you do not notice the quality of painting.

The goal is to replicate the paintings of candido lopez from 1 foot away, and 10mm does it.

KT: I like the look of your 'blobs'! :-)

I was think the 10mm fig link had 15mm figs on it!!