Miniature Figurines S Range FN 42s French Sapeur

Over the last couple of months two or three of the grognard vintage Napoleonics painting bloggers have been posting about unidentified French Napoleonic Sapper figures.

Very recently I acquired four of these veterans - true to form on had sloped off somewhere and gone temporarily AWOL.

Anyway, for identification or elimination purposes, I thought I would post this photo. I've also posted it on my Lone S Ranger blog for the specialist, but thought it was also worth posting here on Vintage Wargaming for those of more general interests.

UPDATE: I am glad to report their comrade has returned to the colours.

Miniature Figurines Ramblings

Foot Guard Grenadier in Shako Advancing

BN 54 (Intermediates) in centre, BN 54 s (S Range) on flanks

I thought I'd mention two activity threads I have kicked off over on the Lone S Ranger, as they may be of interest to some people here who may not follow that blog.

Firstly I have started trying to document the various types of S Range horses, provide photographs and chart their development as best I can; and

secondly, try to get to the bottom of the Miniature Figurines "Intermediates" Range, which seemingly was restricted to Napoleonic foot figures, was very short lived around 1973/4,  and is largely undocumented (see comparison shoyt at top of this post).

Georland - a bit of a rethink?

I realise it's been a very long time since I posted anything over on the Georland blog and the project has been firmly on the back burner for a while.

This has partly been because I had achieved that mythical state of "having finished" the S Range Franco Prussian armies I had intended to use for the project, and started on other things: then acquired quite a large number of additional S Range figures of various German states infantry and cavalry. This made me feel painting them up was another large project which I wasn't yet up to the challenge of starting.

So while I had (and still have) an intention to refight some of the Georland battles on the tabletop, it also dawned on me over quite a long period of time that maybe I didn't want to use the Franco Prussian figures after all for this. I am perfectly happy to have two good sized Franco Prussian War armies and use them just for that. I was influenced by this picture, a watercolour by George Keef in the Journal, entitled the Battle of Emburg (or Enburg, depending on your reading of the script)  dated 8 August 1873. A larger version of the picture appears at the bottom of the home page of the Georland blog.

The lines of red coated troops have brought me back to my original intention, which was to use my S Range Crimean armies, to achieve a similar look. I think the FPW option came about because George Keef's original soldiers were mainly semi round FPW figures, with the French providing the Georlan forces.

So while the Franco Prussian Germans will prove useful for some of the wars of the later Epochs, I am now thinking I might go back to British Crimean War figures for Georland, to achieve a similar aesthetic to this picture.

If I do choose to go this way I won't regard the FPW project as a sidetrack, as it stands on its own and without the interest in terms of Georland I doubt I would have got anywhere near as far with painting the figures, as I would have got distracted into something else. (And in fact while I have some further S Range Crimean Highlanders somewhere in the painting crew I also have some Hinton Hunt and Douglas British Crimean figures which will probably get attention before they do). I am unlikely to be happy using the Hinton Hunt and Douglas figures alongside S range ones, but will have to see. Also I have some very nicely painted Hinton Hunt Crimean Russian infantry somewhere which I must dig out sometime.

I also greatly enjoyed  assembling my collection of buildings from German railway scenery manufacturers, so I would also need to give some thought to whether to use these or the Russian style (and slightly larger scale) buildings I have instead.

It is all a bit hypothetical as I doubt anything will happen any time soon. I realise I need to do a fair bit of research for the Orders of Battle for any engagements I might want to refight, as although there is information in the scans I have of the last section of the Journal, they can be hard to decipher and may have lost some of their content to the scanner's margin settings.

But I think some good problems to have.

(I have also posted this update on the Georland blog).

FPW Staff

One of the issues with the S Range Franco Prussians is the fact that there is only one General figure per side and this doesn't help with the variety of command elements.

Before Christmas I bought a large bunch of Germans from the FPW range. Among them were some of the command figures from B&B Miniatures 20mm range. These are quite small on their scrubby horses but have their horse furniture cast on the figure, so if you put them on the larger S Range horses they match up well.

I then went and ordered some French staff to match. The Prussian picture above (top) includes S Range figures as well so you can see how well they go together.

The building is another pre-Christmas acquisition, a German HO railway building to serve as a divisional, corps or army headquarters.

S Range Field Defences

Following my last post when I unexpectedly acquired these along with an S Range Napoleonic Austrian Army I thought they would be an appropriate post here.

If you studied your S Range catalogue carefully you could find a section called Miscellaneous, which contained goodies including camp followers, generals of different periods, pack horses and oxen, and Napoleon sat at a table.

The above are FSD 1s and FSD 2s, Horse and Musket Period Field Defences, Chevaux de Frise - 60mm length at the back of the photograph - and Stakes - 55mm at the front.

These are heavy lumps of metal and I had never seen them before.

FSD 3s and 4s were gabions and fascines.

The Weigle has landed

I've had time for a quick first look at the Bruce Weigle 1870 booklet - not so much the rules as the historical information, aems and tactics stuff. This is excellent and all that I had hoped. Its flagged up a number of things I had thought would be significant but it was good to have them confirmed:

• the long range fire zone of French Chassepots
• the superiority in materiel, training, and handling of the German artillery
• cavalry's real value limited to scouting, pursuit, and cavalry v cavalry action
• superior command and control enjoyed by the Germans

While this helps me with thoughts for FPW rules it leaves me considering Georland rules in a slightly different light. Though George Keef uses FPW figures Georland was more like Britain so the specific advantages of eiiher the French or the germans probably should not appear. For example, the British Army rifle of the period was the Snider Enfield, which did not enjoy the long range of the Chassepot.

Therefore I am thinking I might need two versions of any rules, one with the FPW factors and another "vanilla" one for Georland use, which is more generic.

I also want to take a look at a few other sets of rules to see if there is anything else I should take into account/borrow. next stop here is going to be the late nineteenth century rules in George Gush and Andrew Finch's A Guide to Wargaming.

Looking forward to this...

... which arrived yesterday: Bruce Weigle's 1870 ruleset. It is for my twin tracked Franco Prussian War and Georland plans for this year. I have bought this for the historical information,OOBbs, scenarios etc it contains rather then the rules themselves.

I know what I want from my Georland rules (and I hope they will work just fine for FPW as well). I want something that will give a quick game and a reasonable period feel. For this reason I am looking to amend Command and Colors Napoleonics. I want to use this as the basis rather than Battle Cry as I think it will reflect European Warfare better. I will look to develop some simple amendments - I hope relatively few tweaks will be necessary, possibly infantry firing ranges and affect, French have more effective rifles, Germans have better artillery - can't believe it will only need that, so I have an interest at looking at other FPW rules to see if there are particular things to take into account. However, it seems unlikely to be that simple...

Ultimately I am after something stylised to fit in with the hex terrain, buildings, figures and basing I am intending to use.

Georland's enemies - Command

Prussian generals

Prussian and Bavarian standard bearers

I still have to decide what to do about flags. I want to be able to use the figures for Franco Prussian War as well as Georland. It is not so much an issue for the German troops but I need to decide whether to simply use French flags for Georland, or design a Georland flag  and work out a way of alternating these - possibly by converting officer figures which can accommodate different flags and poles by drilling out a hand to receive them.

Georland's enemies - the cavalry

The S Range Franco Prussian War list included a number of German cavalry troop types which all can be used for the enemies of Georland. The various units available to me are:

Prussian Cuirassiers

Prussian Dragoons

Prussian Uhlans

Prussian Hussars

Bavarian Chevauleger

Georland's enemies - the infantry

Prussian Line Infantry

Silesian Riflemen

Bavarian Infantry

Saxon Infantry (apologies for the blurred photographs)

Wurttemberg Infantry

One of the good things about the Miniature Figurines Franco Prussian War Range was the presence of figures for various of the German States allied to Prussia, mainly for infantry but also including Bavarain cavalry and Wurttemberg artillery. These national contingents give some flexibility when representing the enmies of Georland.

Georland's enemies - the artillery

Artillery pieces are by B&B and RAFM. The B&B Krupp gins have split trails, which I don't think are accurate, but I haven't been able to confirm this.

I acquired an Ebay lot of about 25 Wurttemberg gunners hence the over representation of their artillery arm - the first two rows of guns (and first four rows of gunners) in the picture above. In fact the Wurttembergers were the only German in the FPW range.

Prussian and Bavarian gun crews (Bavarians the middle of the three crews). These figures are conversions now available from John Cunningham. Most of the guns in this photo are RAFM. They have single trail carriages but the moulds are obviously well past their prime, with parts missing.

The Georland Army - High Command

Army Commander - so this will be the famous General Mercury. I am still thinking what to do His Imperial Majesty - possibly the same figure with a fancier paint job, and a larger oval base including escort and ADC.

Mercury with Divisional and Brigade Commanders

The Georland Army - Cavalry

I have been painting up and organising my various S Range Franco Prussian War figures, along with some Crimean figures which jointly form my Second Empire/Red Trouser French forces.

These are partly for FPW gaming but also for my intention to refight some of George Keef's campaigns from the 1870s and 80s as detailed in the History of Georland blog.

Figures are individually based on MDF (20x20mm for foot and 20x40mm for mounted) and then placed in movement trays accommodating six infantry in two ranks or three cavalrymen abreast. An infantry battalion is four companies of six figures and a squadron of cavalry two troops of three figures each.

Cpmmanders and some infantry unit command stands us circular bases of different sizes, showing different levels of command.

I'm going to photograph and post these over the next few days but here are the French (and Georland) cavalry for starters.

Spahis

Chasseurs d'Afrique

Dragoons

Cuirassiers

Commanders (including the famous General Mercury)

The Georland Army - Artillery

French Crimean War Horse Artillery

FPW gunners

Not the best photos I'm afraid, I will try to redo them some time. I also had difficulty with the straighten tool in photoshop for these two pictures.

They do display the basing and movement tray system I am using.

The guns are from the B&B Wargames 20mm FPW range. There are two different type of field piece, 4 pdr and 12 pdr.

There are also an S Range Mitrailleuse, two S Range Gatlings (which I may or may not use), and an Imperial Modellbau Mitrailleuse, available from the Hagen.de shop.

 I am currently awaiting more gunners of both sorts.

Drout's Artillery were one of the key units of the Georland Army and I suspect this will be represented by the Crimean Horse Artillery figures.

The Georland Army - Infantry

My Georland Army will use Minifigs S Range French figures, mainly Franco Prussian War but augmented by some Crimean War red trouser era (Second Empire). This seems appropriate as George Alfred Keef's soldiers were Franco Prussian War types bought in bilk in the 1870's, although his figures were German-made 40mm demi-rondes.

So we will start with these Crimean figures:

Line Infantry

Imperial Guard Infantry

Zouaves and Turcos (the same figures, just different paint jobs)

Then the Franco Prussian War Infantry units:

Imperial Guard

Chasseurs a Pied

Zouaves

Turcos (the same figure with a different paint job)

Naval Infantry

Voltigeurs

Line Infantry (three battalions)

I still have to further research the Georland Order of Battle and work out which units these figures can represent.