The new plastic French Infantry is out now, so here at Warlord HQ we press-ganged some… volunteers into each building and painting a squad, just to see what they would come up with. We gave each of our hobbyists two sprues, and the results were varied, to say the least!
Andrew Batchford’s French Infantry
Andrew, of Warlord Customer Service fame, has developed a reputation for turning out vast hordes of troops, of great quality, in little to no time. He recently painted a Commandos army for Warlord’s HQ store in two nights. Andrew’s Frenchmen are perhaps the most basic interpretation of the brief but are no less effective for it. “There’s an enormous amount of character to be found on the sprue”, said Andrew, “I’m particularly fond of the bandaged head and cigarette hand – I picked these out for my adjutant.”
Kieran Leishman’s Engineers
The French are incredibly quick and easy to paint, thanks to their greatcoats, allowing you to block in base colours en masse, before picking out the details. Kieran has ably demonstrated this using a largely one-colour scheme for his engineers that nevertheless pops thanks to the judicious application of washes and picking out of the details. Such a technique gives the engineers a bit of a weathered look, perfectly representing the rigours of battle, (and indeed, engineering!).
Marcus Vine’s Chasseurs à Pied
Upon receiving his sprues, Marcus (our resident Large Hat Enthusiast) immediately seized upon the notion that he would be building Chasseurs à Pied. The sheer number of different troop types that the new sprue is able to represent can yield a dizzying array of variety and can produce, on the whole, quite a colourful army – in terms of Bolt Action. Perhaps there is no unit that emphasizes this more than the Chasseurs with their bright blue headwear – and Marcus hasn’t disappointed with his take on these elite infantrymen.
Boris White’s French Foreign Legion
Boris combined his two sprues with British Commonwealth sprues from his own collection to represent the French Foreign Legion. In fact, the only French parts used were heads, helmets and weapons. That’s one way to interpret the brief! Still, it goes to show that the vast majority of Bolt Action infantry sprues can easily be used together to create something altogether different and unique. Who wants to do the maths on possible combinations of components? Anyone?
Jon Heeney’s… Alternative French Infantry
At no point did we tell Jon that he needed to paint a Char B1 bis as well – he was apparently over-excited at the prospect of the new plastics! Jon’s take was by far the most removed from history, instead using the French as the basis for an alternative take on a Konflikt ’47 army – and why not? In the alternative-history timeline Jon has concocted the Maginot line is still standing as a beacon of defiance against the Axis powers. Bloodied and bandaged, these guys look like they’ve been through hell, and they have the basing to match. It’s a simple but effective colour scheme that stands out on the tabletop. Their custom-made banner marks them on a tabletop, and Jon even went so far as to make the Char’s commander’s hatch match the beret colour.
Plastic French Infantry Out Now
The highly detailed new multi-pose plastic infantry can be assembled and painted as regular infantry, fortress troops, chasseurs a pied, engineers or colonial troops (Algerian, Moroccan & Tunisian), giving you a colourful army with plenty of variety and flexibility with which to face the German Blitzkrieg. Available as a 30-man infantry set or as part of the French starter army – a perfect way to kick off a collection!
2 comments
Bloody nice paintjobs !
Really love Jon Heeney’s one.
I really like when I see posts like this bc I save them to a folder for reference when I paint my stuff or commission a better painter to follow these as a guide.
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