"Uses for Airfix Napoleonics" Topic

Like no doubt many of us, I have an abiding affection for thee little fellers as they got me started. Of the various sets offered, the Landwehr, RHA, British Line, and the hussars are pretty serviceable to depict what they are supposed to be. The French Guard likewise, just about. The French artillery is pretty dire, the cuirassiers likewise. The French line infantry look like one or two units of the Young Guard, but there their resemblance to any actual unit seems to end.

So has anyone found a use for these? What unit can the French line and the artillery gunners be painted as that represents a real unit? Prussians? Nassauers? Bueller? Anyone?

For bonus points, can one assemble any two opposing armies from these figures without swapping heads?

The French line make good orcs.

The extensive series in Airfix magazine by I think Terry Wise is a must read . Lots of ideas about converting Airfix figures . I really liked the Guard and the Landwehr as figs , but they seem so small in comparison to other figures . The only figs left in my armies are the RHA and French arty ( not the guns ( sets .

Imagi-nations perhaps ?

The only thing I really draw the line at are the Airfix French guns, for which I generally scrounge up Esci replacements. But I don't take the 1/72 plastics all that seriously. They're a nice hardy "travel" army suitable for being kept in pizza boxes and footlockers and small enough to share an apartment with me.

These are gaming figures, guys: 54mm dioramas are different.

I remember a lot of these coming out just after I had indulged in major conversions to make an army. If I Recall correctly the Higlanders, French artillery and Cuirassiers came out first, and close together, they were all about the same size of figures, and the highlanders were my favourites. They then brought out the French line infantry, British line infantry, RHA, and British hussars, of which the latter two sets contained some lovely models, but all four were Giants in comparison with the first three sets. Then finally out came the Imperial Guard and the Prussian Landwehr and they returned to the scale of the original sets. Altogether they were a complete muddle.

Mollinary

Black hat, blue coat, white pants and a French flag. Why not use them as French?

Aside from the size issues, though, the uniforms many of these figures wear depicts no unit. French infantry did not have two crossbelts and a bayonet and sword on the left hip, unless they were elite companies, in which case they had epaulettes and a plume as well. The marching gunners repeat the same error. So what can they be used for?

You're asking for too much from toys produced in the 1970s – even wargaming miniatures of the same era often repeated similar errors.

We happily used the French for Austrians and Russians and Prussians with head swaps for Bavarians, Washingtons Army for Hessians, British Grenadiers for Saxon Grenadiers – and Imperial Guard before that set emerged.

This was a huge step forward from having to convert everything from Confederates, Federals and Cowboys – the delight when the US cavalry came out was huge!

I remember with huge fondness those series in Airfix Mag demonstrating the way to convert and create Seven Weeks War and Napoleonics and everything in between, before and beyond – they were halcyon days but I won't be going back to them any time soon.

Yep my Airfix French infantry became Austrians (as there were no plastic shako-wearing Austrians in the 80s) and the French artillery have became Russians, with headswaps to kiwers and Crimean War caps.

Strangely I never actually did any as French as my opponent did them.

I recently painted up another unit of French infantry and find they work fine as French infantry. As wargame units on the table.

But in reality, there are no actual, accurate French infantry in 1/72 yet. Both HaT and Waterloo1815 are supposed to be bringing out correctly uniformed French.

And I use their artilley with better guns (the Italeri versions are rather lovely). They paint up rather well.

Of course. Not as nice as my Franznap figures…

Trimmed their shakos with a craft knife and made plasticine bicornes stiffened with PVA and those French infantry became Spanish in one of my armies. British infantry also became Americans.

It's hard to recall what an excellent mag Airfix Mag was in the mid to late 70s – did anyone else buy multiple Sherwood Forest Castles to emulate Terry's fantastic full medieval castle – or likewise with the Roman fort to make the walled town? I know I did.

I'd never heard of the Seven Weeks War but suddenly had everything I needed to make the figures and play games.

I think the series on the Desert War and making Boys ATRs from brens with pins and Ramke fallschirmjager from putty and banana oil is still while I love 1940-41 over other WWII eras.

And Terry's Napoleonic series is still valid info even today, magnificent value for money. if only today's mags produced such quality I might be persuaded to buy them.

What a stalwart of the hobby Terry Wise was – far more relevant to my 70s childhood and formative years than Featherstone, Grant and Bath who even then were deemed 'old school'

Airfix Mag and PSL books were my mainstay as a lad with a few outsiders like Operation Warboard, halcyon days indeed.

Airfix mags……..I have them all still in the attic……converting ACW into Napoleonic figures by cutting off plastic sprue to make cylindric shakos…that was the advice! The series was early 70s. Trust me…I checked today.

That was before Airfix produced their Nap range.

It totally fired my imagination though. Then came their own range. Then I found Skytrex Hobbit figures and, finally, a few Hinchliffe (but they were expensive and I had discovered girls by then, who were far better than the solitary vice……… of highlighting 25mm figures)

Here is an idea…….what about us sharing pics from those days? No, I do not mean me in a WHU shirt with hair down to the bottom of my ribcage (seriously)….I have more than one.I mean did we take pics of our Airfix figures? I found several today……terrible photography (the first ever Pentax Spotmatic SLR using 35mm slide film) but great nostalgia.

Why not someone start this? Our old pictures…no one can criticise……

I have no idea how many boxes of Highlanders I had, and I was so stoked when the RHA came out and then the Hussars. Whatever the mistakes there were in the uniforms we didn't notice at the time. The don't live up to current accuracy but then they were never intended to. In those days my French Foreign Legion figures were also Zouaves for Civil War battles. Romans helped fill out my Medieval Armies. Maybe the Napoleonic don't work for anything today but back in the day they were something!

Yes, I had the Robin Hood Castle as well as the FFL Fort. I imagine that a lot of us got started with these figure, first probably as toys. I first got some when we were on vacation in London, then this Hobby Shop in Richmond had them and I think that I had everything except the astronauts. I wish that I had photos of them and more so I wish that I still had the soldiers themselves.

Here's some of mine from many years ago, mostly Esci though actually, and terrible photos sorry. But at the time these things opened up whole vistas of possibility.
link

I also used the plasticine and PVA technique Brian mentioned above to convert troops into other types. And if details were a bit wrong, well also remember you're using 20-30 guys to represent hundreds – and from a certain distance you don't notice the incorrect details anyway.

Well, i would have to post pics of my current units then. I have French, Brits, Scots, hussars, landwehr, artillery and even LHS. Most of my (1/72)OTS is more modern figures such as HaT, Italeri and Zvezda, but I have a lot of Airfix

Some of us are quite happy with them all s game tokens. On the table they work fine – trust me. Twin cross straps and all

I am going to do it……..no matter how bad the photos……..

Good deed for today.

Did anyone try cutting off shako heads and sticking them on French WW1 poilus? Made for great coated types (pun unintended). US cavalry with cuirassier heads for British dragoons. Hussars swapped heads with French line for a KGL unit.

EEEH, nostalgia. Kids these days………..?

Slightly off topic (though not by much), but……

1) If we're discussing Airfix magazine and WW2, let's not forget the inestimable John Sandars and his 8th Army/DAK conversions and variants – and bear in mind this was using the original 8A/DAK infantry sets, not the later ones.

2) Does anyone else remember the series in "Almark Modelling" magazine in which someone created AWI armies out of Airfix figures – Napoleonic examples that stuck in my mind included the RHA outriders (British Legion and QR light dragoons), French infantry (British light infantry in short coats, shakos cut into helmets), etc etc?

Well I did say I would do it….

TMP link

I still have all Airfix mags back to 1965, up to late 70s I think it was I packed up…(too busy)

It changed focus in 78/79 just after it changed format into A4. IIRC the best stuff is mostly 71-75 although I think terry's Napoleonic series is later 77 and in the larger format.

Strange the stuff you can recall.

No longer have mine – they were lost to a flood in the late 80s along with every other paper-based wargame and RPG documentation I possessed.

So were those Terry Wise articles about converting the Napoleonics to something useful, or converting other figures into Napoleonics?

Lost it to a Flood? I've heard girls use that line, but never believed it.

The other gag (and it is also true)…..we used to spend our Anniversary in a hotel in York…when the lads were babies anyway.

Well, one night an American couple were checking in and overheard, at reception, that they were "expecting the Floods back again tonight". If you know York … you can imagine the reaction.

Deadhead is easier…..no one these days has ever heard of The Grateful Dead

I love the smell of Banana Oil in the morning! Still have all my Airfix Mags from 1964 to early 80's

Converted Cuirassiers to Carabiniers (plasticene/banana oil helmet comb), US cavalry to line lancers(using Cuirassier heads), US Cavalry to Hussars (tinfoil pelisse with sleeves from cavalry arms and hands cut off).
Not to mention WWI Germans to Rorke's Drift British and Indians to Zulu's. Sadly, all long parted with.
I still have some original boxes, with figure on the sprue, of Guards Band, Farm Stock, Cowboys, and a Zoo set.

Do any of you have even the worst quality photo?

All of my wargame figures are 1:72 plastic. In my opinion Airfix British infantry are the best and I probably have 50 battalions of them (all of the British and Hanoverian Battalions at Waterloo and virtually all of the British Battalions in the Peninsula (left in their 1812 shakos). I do a lot of plastic conversion, so my Hanoverians have their shakos welded into stovepipes.

My French are the complete 2nd Corps and Imperial Guard at Waterloo, all Airfix. Some of my Peninsular French (the more exotic units such as Swiss, Garde de Paris etc) are converted from Hat Foot Chasseurs.

My Portugese are Airfix French bodies with Airfix British heads (I know they adopted stovepipe shakos from 1811, but I have assumed that their would have been a delay), whilst my Brunswickers have British bodies and French heads. I made French Guard Horse Artillery out of British Hussar top halves on standing (horse holder) Airfix Cuirassier legs, with the tall boots welded down to hussar type ones. French Line Horse Artillery were Airfix British RHA with French heads. I have 12 Regiments of Airfix French Cuirassiers painted, and in some cases converted, as French Cuirassier, Dragoons and Carabiniers. Some of those same French Cuirassiers were converted as British Light Dragoons (in the 1812 uniform).

My British RA are converted from Airfix British line infantry. I used Airfix British artillery gun carriages and limbers as they were, but made French gun carriages from British wheels with French trails welded on. French limbers were originally scratch built using the original French artillery wheels, but now there are some Hat ones. Gun barrels are Esci/Italeri, using appropriate ones to represent 4lb, 6 lb, 8/9lb and 12lb respectively. I have always used the British RHA teams for all horse artillery (regardless of nation) and originally used the French ones for foot artillery, although more recently have used Hat French train horses for these. Not Airfix, but I have used the Italeri French Guard Artillery guns carriages as siege guns, with the large gun barrels from the Hat RN and Royal Marines set.

I have recently got into the Jacobite Rebellion and War of Austrian Succession, and am using Airfix Napoleonic French guns (with different barrels) to represent French 4lb (my British 3 lb are Imex AWI American). I have used (heavily converted) Airfix George Washington's Army figures as civilian artillery drivers, walking beside their horses. I have used the original simple Airfix French limbers for both of these small guns. Most of the rest of these armies are RedBox and Strelets.

Lots of other conversions during the last 50 years, too many to mention.

Rod

Lost it to a Flood? I've heard girls use that line, but never believed it.

Sorry lost me there, no idea what you're referring to – I had 6 packing crates full of books, games, magazines, typed up notes, etc, etc. I was moving, it was Christmas, the crates were in the new place, I was at my in-laws. There was a burst pipe, the basement flooded, by the time I arrived, some days later, the contents were mostly pulp.

It is my surname……..quite a common name in Ireland

Ah right – not sure how I was meant to intuit that :)

Rod. Great details there (did those esci lancers i gave you get finished and join the ranks?).

Reading your thread makes me realise what a tremendous amount of hobby activity occurs outside the wargames press and the 28mm thought police. Us 1/72 guys don't get a lot of press, and maybe even less reapect but there are a lot of us out there having great times. Your conversions show the range of possibilities that perhaps the wargame world has forgotten about.

Great to read.

Marc

Has Rod got a blog?, I'd like to see his plastic soldiers.

In 1972 I ran a wargames club in Germany. There was also a photography group in the garrison, and they asked if they could take photos of a wargame as a project. They took quite a few photos, but by then I had replaced my Airfix Napoleonic figures with Hinton Hunt and early Miniature Figurines.

The only Airfix left were my Romans and Ancient Britons. The Roman infantry had their arms repositioned in front of their bodies and held in place with a pin. This was as a result of suggested conversions to Airfix figures in (I think) Military Modelling.

How good were those Romans? They had some foreign archers (Assyrians?) and the eagle bearer was superb. the separate shields were a great feature. Sometimes Airfix got it right…….

Yeah, remove shield, insert drawing pin (thumb tack for our transatlantic cousins), new paint job and Hey Presto! Carthaginians or peltasts.

Oh that was clever……….genius……now why did I not etc..?

Simpler times…

Paul Liddle wrote:

"Has Rod got a blog?, I'd like to see his plastic soldiers."

No, but I am thinking of setting one up. I will post on here if I do.

Rod

Marc said:

"Rod. Great details there (did those esci lancers i gave you get finished and join the ranks?)."

Yes, used with heads from Italeri French infantry to make Prussian lancers, mounted Prussian horse artillery and Prussian artillery drivers. Czapka heads were then used with those same Italeri French Infantry to create Polish Infantry. The grey Esci lancers are easier to use for such conversions since they are softer plastic than the otherwise identical blue Italeri ones.

Rod

Cool…

I hope you do set up a blog Rod, it would be fascinating to see your conversions.

Paul.

Hi Paul,

Inspired by your post, I have began to set one up using WordPress. I have just arrived in Spain and am here for the next 3 weeks, but would hope to have the basics set up within that time. I have enough pictures with me on my i-pad and laptop to start it off. I will post on TMP when it is up and running.

Rod

Cool +1

Great news!.