Mother Russia!
Life is full of surprises… If you’d have asked me ten years ago whether I would collect Napoleonic French figures, the reply would have probably have been rude! Then along came the Perry, Victrix and Warlord plastics. I’ve collected quite a few packs of all of these, along with a healthy dose of HaT’s 28mm sets (Pity about HaT. They seem to have stopped their 28mm releases - they had Prussian Landwehr, Austrians and Russians in the planning stages). As I have testified to before in my blog, I love plastics - they are easy to convert and lightweight to carry. For me, the only disadvantage is that they can be fragile.
I recently did an inventory and counted how many French and Prussian ‘brigades’ I had. It comes to a grand total of twelve units of 24 infantry each (thanks to Dave Davies for helping me paint a good half of them). I then counted how many I have yet to paint - that came to far too many! I estimate six brigades of great-coated French alone await the brush… But those French are on the back burner - at least for now.
Looking ahead to future issues of WS&S (check out the editorial plan if you’re curious), we have a Napoleonic Russian theme coming up in about six months. We’ll be dealing with the whole of the period, not just 1812. I’m even tempted not to include any French infantry in the issue at all! Impossible you say? Come and see what I have planned…
As part of my future planning and such, I’ve been arranging articles and contacting people for photo shoots. One will involve taking photos of a game organised by Roger Murrow of Murawski Miniatures and his chums, all focused on the Duchy of Warsaw’s attack at Borodino. Roger asked me to take part, so now I’m now painting up some Polish and Russian units to field at the battle. This will also help with my participation in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, which I’ve rather neglected (must hurry to get points in!).
This is all by way of explanation why the French minis are on the back burner, and have been replaced by Russians on my painting table - something I would have never foreseen. The scary thing is I am quite enjoying painting them! Well, it does make a change from all that blue… Expect an update on progress in my next blog!
