Vive L’Empereur

Another update from Andy … he has been busy !

To give myself some variety in my French Forces for the Maximillian Adventure (1861 – 1867) I have painted up some Artillery crew and Officers.

These are from Wargames Foundry’s Franco Prussian War (1870 – 1871) range; Foundry don’t do Maximillian specific artillery crew, but the FPW figures are close enough and preferable (to me) to the Crimean War (1854-1856) alternative.

Two of the Officers were painted up in Artillery uniform, these together with the six crewmen will give me the option of having two, four man gun crew in my French forces. The other two were painted as Infantry / Foreign Legion officers.

I used Games Workshop’s Chaos Black spray undercoat, followed by Vallejo acrylics. The flesh was base coated with Brown Sand, followed by Medium Flesh Tone.

The Artillery uniform is predominantly blue (Vallejo Dark Blue) jacket and trousers, with red trim (Vallejo Flat Red). Belts and gaiters are white, boots, cartridge box and scabbards are black.

Some of the artillery crew have slung carbines, these had Beige Brown woodwork with Gunmetal Grey barrels and metalwork.

The Infantry officers differed mainly in that the trousers were white, not blue.

Once the painting was done the blue coats and trousers were given an Army Painter Quick Shade Blue Wash, and the hands and faces a Flesh Wash.

The figure bases were done in the same way as the Mexican Peons in my last blog post and varnished with Humbrol Spray Matt Varnish.

I’ve previously painted a couple of artillery pieces for this game, but these are large field pieces. I also wanted a lighter piece, so bought a small mountain gun from Gringo 40. This had a very simple paint job. Black undercoat, Beige Brown carriage and Gunmetal Grey barrel.

That’s it for the French in Mexico for now, next on the painting table are some Viking Huscarls, but the French will get some Hussars before too long, they are in the pipeline.

Author: Brigadier Tony

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