SOLD! For Sale: Painted FIW French for Muskets and Tomahawks

EDIT: These are now sold!

Dear readers, I have decided to sell my French for the FIW. This is a complete 200 points force for Muskets and Tomahawks consisting of:
10 Compagnies Franches de la Marine
1 Compagnies Franches de la Marine Officer
6 Canadian Milicien (Militia)
5 Huron allies (ie Indians)

22 models in total.

All the models are from Northstar, except the militia which are from Galloping Major. They are painted and based to a high wargaming standard by me. All the models are matt varnished.

I'm looking to sell them for £149 plus shipping from Sweden. Payment through PayPal.

To sweeten the deal I can throw in 12 unpainted FIW armed civilians from Redoubt Miniatures. For an extra cost, I can paint up these civilians to match the already painted miniatures.

Below are some more pictures of the miniatures. Please note, none of the terrain or movement trays in the pictures above or below are part of the deal.

If you're interested, please contact me at: jonas[dot]mockelstrom[at]gmail[dot]com

Thanks for looking!

The complete force.

Indians

Compagnies Franches de la Marine

Canadian militia

FIW French

As promised, here is a group shot and some detail pictures "in character" of the entire 200 points French FIW force for Muskets&Tomahawks. For more closeups, take a look at the earlier posts.

Huron Indians ready for the dirty work.
Miniatures from North Star.

The log cabin is a prepainted model from Pegasus. Prepainted? Yeah, to make a long story short, I ordered one of the unpainted Pegasus kits along with some other stuff from a certain pretty well-known Internet retailer. The other stuff arrived after a while, though some of it was out of stock and took more than a while to arrive. However, the log cabin was nowhere to be seen. After a long, long, looong wait (and a couple of gentle reminders) they finally sent me this. I couldn't be bothered to send it back so I kept it. I will probably repaint it at some time – those blue windows are pretty hideous – and make a new roof.

Compagnie franches de la marine with an officer lurking in the background.
Miniatures from North Star.

Canadian militia.
Miniatures from Galloping Major.

Overall I'm pretty happy with this bunch. Hopefully they'll perform nicely on the tabletop as well.

Have a great weekend everyone!

FIW French 8

Well, here they are – the final (at least for now!) unit for my French FIW force for Muskets&Tomahawks.

I struggled a bit with the war paintings, trying a couple of different patterns and redoing some before settling on the ones you see here. At first I wasn't too pleased with them but now I think they turned out alright. The Hurons apparently used purple, as well as red and black, for their war paintings but I saved that colour for potential future reinforcements ...

Anyway, here is a shot of the group from behind.

The miniatures are all from North Star.

As always it's very satisfying to complete a project, even a small one such as this. I have some work left on the movement trays, although these are a bonus and not really part of this project. When those are finished, I'll take some snaps of the assembled force.

Our first game is booked for Monday the 18th – I'm looking forward to the French's first outing!

FIW French 7

I had hoped to have the indians for my French force finished by this weekend, but as real life have been very hectic this was not to be. Some progress have been made though, as you can see. What's left to do are highlighting the clothing, the wood parts, some details (straps, bags, knifes etc) and of course the war paints.

My aim is to have them done by next weekend. Barring any unforseen interruptions this shouldn't be a problem. I hope ...

It will be good to have this project finished as it's been dragging on a bit too long due to illness and whatnot. Now I'm itching to get started on my Novgorod force for the Baltic Crusade project. We've already played a couple of games with Dalauppror's excellent crusaders and heathens, and I feel the heathens could use some heavy cavalry support in the form of Novgorodian druzhinas to match those Swedish knights.

Oh, and of course we should get some games of Muskets&Tomahawks going!

FIW French 6

Just when I'd beaten the stomach flu last week, I got hit with another cold that left me knocked-out for a couple of days. This sure is turning out to be a winter of sickness.

Consequently I've not made much progress on the indians for my French force for FIW. As you can see, only the bases have been drybrushed and the skin parts have had their first layer painted on. Models are all from North Star.

Let's hope I'm back in the saddle for real this time, and will be able to press on with these models in the coming week. Then hopefully they will be finished (or mostly finished anyway) by next weekend. Fingers crossed and all that ...

Have a great weekend everyone!

FIW French 5

This is the second unit for my French FIW force to be finished — the Canadian militia. The milicien were tough fighters who saw a lot of action due to the shortage of regular troops in New France. The red caps would have them originating from Quebec, although this coordinated system wasn't in place until 1759, when the war was all but over. But mainly, I just picked a colour that looked good and would make them easier to recognize on the gaming table! Four of them are dressed for cold weather in capotes — hooded coats made of thick wool, typical of this area and era.

I said in my last post I found the miniatures from Galloping Major a bit lacking, and as you can see they are not as finely detailed as the ones from North Star, but with some paint on them they turned out all right.

Here are some close-ups:

I experimented a bit more on the bases of these miniatures, adding some extra details, which I think looks quite good but I'm not "there" just yet. The movement tray in the top photo is a work in progress; I will add a bit more details to it. I also did some more detailing on the bases of the Compagnie franches de la marine unit, to bring them up to the same standard (sorry for the slightly blurry photo):

Now it's just the indians to do! I'm really looking forward to painting them, and to try my hand at some war paintings.

FIW French 4

Finally I've made some real headway on the canadian militia/milicien for FIW. There's still quite a lot of work to be done, but I've started on the highlighting – the flesh areas and the red caps are done – so I'm getting there.

The miniatures are all from Galloping Major Wargames and I have to say they are unfortunately not as good as the ones from North Star: the poses and proportions are a bit odd to my eye. However, it's the faces that are the biggest problems, they lack in details and just look ... weird. As the miniatures are not exactly cheap this was quite disappointing to be honest. Still, with a little paint on them, I think they'll come out good enough. The plan is to have them all done by the next weekend, then it's on to the indians ("At last!" I hear you say).

Finally a warm welcome to my new followers: Grimsi Grogs, James Brewerton and MiniMike. I hope you'll like the blog.

Have a great week everyone!

FIW French 3

This will be a short update without pictures I'm afraid, as this past week has not been very good hobby-wise due to both me and my son coming down with the flu. As a result I've not gotten very far on the unit of canadian militia, just priming them and drybrushing the bases. Although to be honest, the priming was done last weekend while waiting for the varnish to dry on the compagnie franches de la marines.

I've also drybrushed six of these nifty irregular movement trays from Warbases. Originally I planned to use them for Dux Britanniarum, but thought they looked good when Dalauppror used them for his Mohawks and I've also seen a couple of battle reports were they were used for Muskets and Tomahawks, so I thought I'd give them a go.

Now that I'm feeling better, it's back to the militia. Hopefully I'll be back with a new update during the weekend, this time with pictures.

FIW French 2

I've finally finished my first unit for the French and Indian War project, the Compagnie Franches de la Marine. As I spent some extra time on these, adding three highlights (or rather a re-applying of the basecoat and then two highlights) after the washes was applied, coupled with the many fiddly details, they sure took their time. I went for a new approach with the bases, giving them a little more attention than usual, to make them look more forest-like.

Both the miniatures and the bases came out quite nice I think, so in the end it was worth the extra time spent on them. I'm particulary pleased with the whites and off-whites on the shirts and capotes, even if there are always ways to improve my painting. I'll also keep experimenting with the bases as they still could use some extra details to make them look even better.

Anyway, here are some closeups.

 

All miniatures are from North Star Minis.

Now it's on to the next unit – the miliciens.

And finally, a warm welcome to my new follower CLAM. Thanks for joining up!

FIW French 1

Right, that's all the fun and games over with for now – it's time to get back to business.

As I wrote in my Projects for 2013 post, I will be doing a 200 points starter force for the French and Indian War rules Muskets and Tomahawks. After some back and forth, I settled on the following list:
10 Compagnies Franches de la Marine
1 Compagnies Franches de la Marine Officer
6 Canadian Milicien
5 Huron allies (ie Indians)

This is a (not very good) WIP shot of the first unit for project, The Compagnies Franches de la Marine.

The miniatures are all from North Star.

The "de la Marines" were, contrary to what the name might have you think, not marines, but rather colonial infantry troops under the command of the Naval department, tasked with protecting the fur trade and the civilians of New France. They were experienced in the small scale, guerilla like warfare, first practiced by their more local brethren the Canadian militias (milicien). These tactics were initially very successful against the numerously superior British troops, who used tactics more suited to the open battlefields of Europe, and gave the French the upper hand in the beginning of the war.

When posted in the wilderness, the de la Marines often discarded their impractical uniforms and instead adopted the dress of the colonists and of the native Americans of the area.

As you can see these are really nice miniatures, with a great ragtag look. To get some sort of unity, all the headgears are painted blue (except for the officer's tricorne). The only problem with the models are the details – there are so many of them it takes a good while to paint them all! I've also decided that since there are so few miniatures in the starter force, I will spend a little extra time on them and do an additional highlight or two, which of course takes even more time. To be honest, I'm beginning to get a little frustrated with the slow pace of this project – as I've now gone back to work I have to fit in my hobby time on the evenings. This is not helped by the fact that my opponent Dalauppror seems to churn out those Mohawk warriors like there's no tomorrow. But still, if I continue at this speed I should be able to have all the miniatures ready by our mutual deadline of the end of February.

Finally, let me welcome my new followers: Baconfat, Ellie Great, Justin Penwith, Lee Hadley, MrJ, Schrumpfkopf, TamsinP and Tony. Thanks for joining up! I hope you'll like the blog and drop by for a comment or two from time to time.