More 15mm Napoleonic French!

This is a recently completed 15mm Napoleonic French Army for based for the Lasalle rules. This batch will expand this customer's French forces. It includes line, cavalry in the form of lancers, and artillery with limbers.

15mm Napoleonics are one of our most popular items. There are times, though, when it sometimes feels like the movie Groundhog Day.  This was one of those orders. For some reason I could not get any kind of momentum built up on these. As a result, I ended up sinking almost another week into them. It doesn't help that it is tax season and I had to divert some of my attention to getting the taxes sorted out. Now that the taxes are out of the way things are a bit more relaxed here.

Here is the block of infantry. These are 4 battalions from the 92nd foot. He is using the company pom pom color and the flags to designate the battalions:

This order also included cavalry units representing four regiments of lancers from the 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th Chevau-leger regiments:

The lances still need straightened a bit more. I will handle that at packing time. I really dislike bending the soft metal numerous times. It tends to weaken it and makes them more prone to break. Since these need to be mailed to the customer I prefer to bend them around a little as possible:

Finally this army included artillery from the 16th Battery, 1st Artillery Regiment:

And a shot of the sub-commander for the army:

The figures are all AB Miniatures. Next up for this customer is a 15mm SYW Austrian army for the upcoming Maurice rules from Sam Mustafa. At least its a change from 15mm Napoleonics!

Another 15mm Napoleonic French Army

Just completed another Napoleonic French army. These are again AB Figures. Completing this job gets us much closer to catching up after Cold Wars.

Again the customer will do their own basing. I'm not crazy about showing figs without basing/ flocking as I'm never really happy about their appearance but here they are anyway.

And before anyone brings it up, yes, I know some bayonets and plumes need straightened. That will be done as they are packed for shipping. I was in a hurry to get the pics done as I needed the table space to work on some prep work for some other orders.

Voltigers of the Line

Light Infantry Voltigers

Voltigers and Casualties

Light Infantry

Line Infantry

That's a lot of white straps!

Extra Officers

The flag bearers all had their hands drilled out to accept pre-made flags, probably form the Flag Dude. The customer was handling this as well.

15mm Vietnam Commission: Helicoptors

Here's the pictures of the helicopters from the 15mm Vietnam order we completed for a customer. These are the models produced by Battlefront/ Wargames Illustrated. There was much clean up to do and assembly is not as easy as one would assume. The metal rotors are a pain to assemble being composed of 8 parts!

The ammunition belts for the 'Hogs' are really difficult to put on. They are made from metal and need to be glued onto the fuselage of the helicopter and then to the minigun. My big fingers made it even more difficult for me so Allison took a stab at this. She discovered that it is actually much easier to glue the end of the belt to the body first, let it dry, then bend it into position and glue the other end to the minigun. We use JB Kwik to ensure they stay put. The good thing is the belts do help secure the miniguns on the pods.

One of the gunners for the slicks does not fit inside the fuselage. I suppose you can glue him sitting on the edge of the door but I felt it better to put him in the fuselage where he's less likely to get knocked off. To make him fit, however, you must file off about a third of his head, part of his rear, and a bit off the bottom of his boots.

The decals are pretty thick. This makes them less likely to tear when putting them on the aircraft but makes them more prone to 'silvering'. Also, they don't like to stick to curved surfaces, even with using a decal softener. The shark's teeth were about useless and after attempting to get one to stick down I ended up removing it and just doing without. I could paint the shark's teeth on but it would take a ton of time and I didn't want to overcharge the customer. Also, some of the decals were misprinted, lacking red color and lettering! Battlefront's quality control is getting quite poor.

Rare earth magnets were used with the join of the helicopter to the base and to attach the rotor assembly to the body of the aircraft. This allows removal for storage and transport. I didn't bother drilling holes into the tops of the craft to sink the magnets down in. I didn't feel it was worth the time involved and and they can't really be noticed anyhow. Also, Battlefront's resin can be fragile at times and I wasn't sure how it would hold up to drilling and if something went wrong, we might not be able to get a replacement since these were limited production items.

The two crashed slick objectives.

The hog gunships:

 The slicks:

 All in all I think they turned out well. They are time intensive, however so I will have to adjust pricing on these if we ever do anymore in the future.

Napoleonic French Lasalle Army Finished

We've just completed a 15mm Napoleonic French army for the Lasalle rules for a customer. All figures are AB and the bases are from Litko. Flags are from The Flag Dude.