French Line Infantry Taking a Pounding

So, I'm still alive. And, despite mentioning in my last post that I'm getting into Force on Force my painting in this direction has amounted to a few Taliban - partially completed guys with guns, and a few completed women in burkas (the quickest I've ever painted something - prime in black, block in the hands and area around the eyes, highlight with dark grey).

A few weeks ago I received a "mystery parcel" about the size of a paperback - I tried to work out whether I'd bought a paperback from Amazon or Ebay recently - but, upon opening it, it turned out to be 30mm x 30mm bases. I'd ordered them a few days before and had rather expected to get a big bag - I was most impressed by the packing. I was also rather concerned that I had over-ordered when I opened the package and dumped them into a bag!

Anyway, this meant that I could base the figures that I've been working on in a desultory fashion for the last six months or more. A French Line Infantry battalion that I took out of the "big box" and decided to take a crack at. Those of you who have read previous entries will know that I loathe painting French Line - way too fiddly for my ham-fistedness. And they are in firing line poses - which I'm generally not too keen on either. So I started these with rather the expectation that I'd give up halfway through in disgust. But I've got to say, I think they turned out rather well - certainly my best result so far.

Anyway, I used up the firing line figures and was still a bit short of figures to make a 30 figure battalion- so thought this would be a good time to use up some casualty figures (the pedants amongst you will notice there are still only 29 figures - if anyone complains then they probably aren't the kind of person I want to play with anyway). They are just on the bases to judge positions. I've possibly overdone it but I can't see these fitting on bases of infantry in march attack. Clearly, they have been in the fight for some time as they are dropping like flies.

I'm really pleased with these figures - although there was a lot of swearing involved in painting them (getting the red piping on them drove me bonkers). The figures are really nicely sculpted (as is routine with Mr Barton) and, by varying their positions on the stand you can get some variety in the bases.

I've also painted some more British line and French cuirassier (I'm not entirely sure about just what it is with me and French heavy cavalry). Figures are all by AB.