Napoleonic French

I recently completed these three battalions of French Napoleonic infantry and mounted them for the under-development Wars of Eagles and Empires.  Eagles and Empires is an adaptation of Wars of Ozz for purely historical games.  The initial version will be Napoleonic, but there will be supplements for other historical periods, such as the American War of Independence (AWI), Jacobite Rebellion, Crimea, and others.

Early Old Glory French Napoleonic infantry.

These figures are very early Old Glory figures.  These were sold with separate heads, and you could get them with bicorns or shakos.  At the time, I was building Davout’s III Corps for 1805-1807.  Almost half of his regiments were still furnished Royal white uniforms instead of Napoleonic blue uniforms.

I don’t know if these were Old Glory’s first 25/28mm figures, but they were very early ones.  I think I purchased these at Old Glory’s first Historicon.

Another view of Old Glory French Napoleonic infantry.

I have recently be remounting all of my Napoleonic infantry for Wars of Eagles and Empires from Empire.  I had painted three battalions of these figures.  In Empire a battalion of French was typically twelve figures.  In Wars of Eagles and Empires, French regiments are generally six bases; although, there is no prescribed number of figures per base.  The figures from Nick Cirocco that I converted from Column, Line, and Square were mounted six figures to a base, because that’s how Minifigs Napoleonics were packaged.

During my rebasing, I found a bunch more of these figures that I had filed and primed.  There were enough figures, when combined with the 36 I had already painted, to make three full battalions of them for Wars of Eagles and Empires.

I block painted the new figures to match closely the ones I had painted 35 years ago.  The result is passable.  I just love the look of big battalions!  May that is because of my dad’s collection of 54mm Britains that surrounded me as a kid.

I will be holding another Napoleonic play test this week, and these figures will be on the table.  “Buck’s Law” states that the first time you put new figures on the table, they usually get spanked.  We’ll see what happens…