Introducing: Armies of France – Third Edition!

It’s a wonderful day! Armies of France has now arrived on pre-order, and it’s not alone! For the first time, the French get a full book all to themselves, and loads of fantastic new miniatures. Let’s take a look at them all!

Armies of France is your comprehensive guide to fielding – what else? – French forces in Bolt Action. Inside, you’ll find, much as with Armies of Italy, three army lists, allowing you to field not only the French army of 1939-40, but also the Vichy ‘Armistice Army’ and Free French forces*! Alongside that you’ll also find the usual essential background information to inform your collection, and loads of awesome artwork and photography to inspire your painting and modelling.

A note about the Resistance: While Armies of France does include a couple of French Resistance units for use in the Free French list, these are explicitly not designed to represent the irregular forces typical of Resistance cells engaged in direct action – there simply isn’t enough room in the book for that! It’s a good job we’ve got an expanded Partisan army list coming in a few months, isn’t it…

Every book gets a special figure, and for Armies of France we really did umm and ahh over who it could be. Charles de Gaulle was an early favourite as an armour commander during the Battle of France, but in the end we decided to go with the man who would become (to date) the last Marshall of France – Marie-Pierre Kœnig! Kœnig would become legendary for his command of the Free French defense at Bir Hakeim in 1942, where his brigade held off five enemy divisions for over two weeks. Our figure depicts him in the thick of the action, running between positions under fire, and makes for a fantastic Platoon or Company Commander in any Free French force.

We’ll be diving into the full array of National Special Rules, unit entries, and more over the coming weeks in the usual Intelligence Report article series, but trust us when we say that Armies of France is shaping up to be an absolute belter on the tabletop. Of course, alongside every army book, we’ve been releasing new plastic kits, and this one is no exception. Armies of France is joined by not one, but three…

NEW PLASTIC KITS!

That’s right – three new French plastic sets have joined the book on pre-order! The ‘headline’ item is definitely the French Foreign Legion infantry platoon, which brings the legendary Legionnaires to the table for the first time. Outfitted in an eclectic mix of British-supplied uniform, wielding French weaponry, and ready for combat in the deserts of North Africa, these die-hard chaps give Free French commanders a seriously tasty option for their infantry.

The sprues are packed with weapon options and all manner of extra components, including (of course) the famous kepi blanc – look out for a Sprue Focus article in the not-too-distant future! They aren’t the only heavy hitters joining the range, though…

Rather than a plastic vehicle, Armies of France is the first book to be accompanied by the new plastic artillery and heavy weapons kits! For the artillery, it really was a no-brainer – it had to be the iconic ‘French 75’ light howitzer (with three different wheel variants, no less!), while the heavy weapons sprue features the venerable Hotchkiss M1914 medium machine gun, a medium mortar, and two different flavours of light mortar, ensuring French forces are never short on indirect firepower.

You’ll see the crew frame is designed to work seamlessly with our existing plastic French infantry kit. That’s deliberate, as this is the ‘core’ of the range, but the arms and heads of course also work nicely with the new Foreign Legion plastics. These new sprues have also allowed us to give the French an…

ALL-PLASTIC STARTER ARMY!

Designed to represent a defensive formation in 1939-40, Hold the Line! is set up to do just that. With no vehicles, but an expanded infantry core compared to other starter armies, and a lot of supporting firepower, it’s a great start to a collection, but also a viable force in its own right. If you want to try to repel the might of the Wehrmacht, look no further!