"Best 28mm French for 1812?" Topic

I was going to hijack the 1812 uniforms thread, but…

So, I've spent the past few years studying and painting Russians (deadhead has seen a bit of the artillery), and now that it's time to paint the French/Polish for Shevardino/Doronino, I realize I'm behind the curve.

For Poles, I've got some Murawski on order, and they seem like they'll do. I like the, campaign look, but we're not all in greatcoats thing.

For French, the Calpe figures looked great, but everyone seems to be in greatcoats. Is it cheating, or did they really go into battle like that? If so, then great--fast French. I have a box of the Perry plastic, but haven't been real excited by them for some reason.

Another thing is being able to eventually get high quality artillery + cavalry, so that seems like I'm primarily looking at Perry? (Elite is really not my style, though their ranges seem very complete.)

Thanks for any suggestions!

Greatcoats probably not until the Retreat phase. Marching east or west, I like Old Glory French. link

I think there's a consensus that the new 1812 uniforms did not accompany the Grand Armee in significant quantities.

I would go with Perrys. They are excellent sculpts, relatively cheap and they have figures for both sides of the 1812 'split'. They were certainly my choice.

You could go for the pre-1812 Perry metals for the some of the infantry. With the choice of shakos vs bearskins for the grenadier companies.

see below for such fusiliers (painted recently for Sharp Practice)

Are there any French plastics out there in Full Dress Shako?

I really like the Perry plastics as well. They usually keep the number of parts to a minimum making them quick easy to assemble as well.

On my list of desirable figures, if only I had the time, is the new range from Three Armies. They do pre and post Bardin and seem to mix very well with Perrys. Worth at least a look on their website;

link

This shot really does not do justice, but, for some reason, I cannot copy the painted images they show (which look great)

Yes, I even tried copying the colour images and putting them on my spare blog, but only the unpainted image appeared!
Very odd!

I agree though that they look very nice.

May I suggest Victrix link
Unlike the otherwise excellent Perry plastics, they don't have half in greatcoats!

Very odd--no images on 3 Armies show up for me--I'll dink with it later this evening. I like painting the Perry plastic Russians very much, but the French doesn't do it for me, don't know why.

Avanpost looks nice, but they're standing at attention.

Anybody a fan of Front Rank reinforcements French?

The new Reinforcements are major improvement in anatomy and proportions. The casting quality has always been superb. The snag is that they are noticeably bigger, even if less Hobbit like, than the usual 28mm stuff. Calpe they can mix with.

Victrix are great value and a brilliant source of parts for conversions. Oddly, even though they do later Artillery, they never did the Post Bardin French Line Infantry

Interesting. Yeah, FR casting quality has always been a big plus for me versus Perry.

I use FR Russian Reinforcements for my grenadiers--perfect fit with Perry infantry.

Personally I would mix and match Calpe and Front Rank, the new reinforcement packs.

I second the victrix range, you get loads for your money (60 figures for £24.00 GBP or less). They are a bit fiddly to glue together but you loads of choices of poses and don't come in great coats. The french come in pre-bardin, which go up to 1812, but really would have lasted on campaign longer. Victrix also do plastic artillery which are good and a bit cheaper than metal.
Of course if you like paying extra for metal, so you can scrape off the flash, and have to varnish them against chipping, and have less pose variety and be heavy, then I guess plastic might not do ;-)

Now that is a point I am not sure I have seen mentioned before.

There are metal figures. There are plastic polystyrene figures that you can saw, cut, glue and then there are the soft plastics of my youth (OK then came all those Russian folk, plus Italaeri, Revell etc.)

But metals are harder to start off with, when painting. That is so true. The lightest black spray and off you go, with hard plastics….job done.

Metals, maybe it is the natural shine, but they seem to need far more coats, while watching the detailed casting submerge. Then, sure enough, any contact later on and the metal shows through once more, varnish or no.

My recent experience with Adam's Brigade convinced me that plastic hard figures, basically each a small Airfix model kit, are potentially superb. Saul on the Road to Damascus……

Still resisting the softer plastics, however brilliant the work shown here. If these real artists can do that with 1/72 playthings, what could they do in TOTS?

Very nice painting there, Col Blancard!

I'd go with Calpe.

Old Glory – hands down! Best figures for the price – unless you have an unlimited budget to spend.

Price is not an issue. I wish I liked the Elite style of sculpting, but not for me, I'm afraid.

yes Perry pre 1812 would do nicely for 1812 and 1813

Decided to try a little of both Perry Pre-1812 and Calpe. Must say--orders from both were shipped very quickly. Otoh, what happened to the GBP? It's like $1.34 USD USD…

Brexit happened to The Great British Pound.

Some of us remember living in US in 1983 when it was $1.08 USD to £1.00 GBP………….ouch.

But of course that is good for exports as our products are cheaper.

But I'll stick with my EU friendly passport!

@deadhead I think the three armies figures are a lovely idea – but I think nearly there. I still prefer Perry. Here's an example of them painted (not mine!) ebay.to/2zhvo5Q

I did follow your link and I have to say it does surprise me that some large units sell as cheaply as is shown. Let's say £20.00 GBP for the box set (these are mostly plastics shown on e Bay of course), basing, painting to high standard, many hours of work at an hourly rate that will not fund the Orient Express. No huge profits to be made there!

Indeed, deadhead, I don't know how long it takes the pros to do a figure, but I can do 8 in a full day, so call that 1 hour a figure ? Even at minimum wage and not including materials that's GBP168 for a 24 man battalion, and I'm not as good at painting as the ebay guy. How does anyone make a living painting ? I suspect some of these are done in east European painting dens, where perhaps labour is cheaper ? They are still in the EU though, so prob. Still a min. Wage ?

Or am I just slow?

If you use Warlord French you can pimp the battalions out with Calpe and Front Rank Re-inforcement packs. Mixing in a few metal command, casualties and rankers to each battalion makes a difference.