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Saturday 1 February 2020

My Napoleonic collection: The French Army

By far and away the largest army in my collection is the French Army, which currently has 410 renovated figures.


Somewhat surprisingly, at present only 9.75% of the figures in the army are cavalrymen, but as befits a force commanded by a gunner, just over 12.5% of the figures are artillerymen.

I do have some more French cavalry awaiting renovation, but at present they are still in a state of limbo. When they are added to the current French Army, they will increase its mounted arm somewhat considerably.

4 comments:

  1. Hi, Bob -
    I was thinking this French Army was wanting Chasseurs-a-cheval and Dragoons, but it's a fine army, with a nice range of types. A bit heavy on the light infantry, maybe, but as most French light infantry were made up of guys who, as Don Featherstone once remarked 'were handed a musket and told they were in the light infantry', and hence they were indistinguishable in handling and performance from the line, it's scarcely worth ... mentioning...

    Cheers,
    Ion

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Archduke Piccolo,

      Because I’ve used Del Prado pre-painted figures from the WATERLOO LIVE! range as the basis of my collection, I’ve had to utilise what was available. I hope to get some more cavalry over the next few months, but in the meantime, I’ve managed to source some Dragoons from the AUSTERLITZ LIVE! range, as well as a small Russian army as well.

      I could have dealt with the imbalance between Line and Light infantry by doing some paint conversions, but as understand that the real difference between the two was negligible, I decided not to bother.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
    2. Some of my very first Napoleonic figures were listed in the Minifigs catalogue as 'Young Guard Voltigeurs'. None of them fetched up in my Guard, nor did all of them remain 'voltigeurs'. Some became line grenadiers... You couldn't even call it a 'paint conversion'.

      Delete
    3. Archduke Piccolo,

      I suspect that we all have similar stories to tell of our early days in the hobby. I always found that a thick coat of paint could conceal all sorts of things!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete

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