Old Glory Napoleonic French Infantry

Three years ago my friend Wally, who ran a hobby store in my old college town, sold off all his Old Glory Napoleonics. I bought 83 bags from him for just $300, which works out to $3.60 a bag, and these were the old bags, with 100 infantry, 65 command, 30 cavalry, or 12 guns and 48 gunners.

Since then, I've been working my way through this enormous pile of lead. I traded some Austrians for some OG ACW figures, and I sold a few bags of Prussians, but I kept the vast bulk of them to paint myself. I'm more than halfway through now.

I know a lot of gamers don't like the Old Glory Napoleonics, and I have to admit that, after painting quite a few AB figures over the past few months, I'm edging ever closer toward lead snobbery myself. Still, the Old Glory figures are perfectly serviceable as wargaming pieces, and there are some real gems among their extensive line.

This bag is one of the good ones. At the beginning of August, I finished painting my Old Glory French in full dress at road march. I was planning on putting a quick, down-and-dirty paint job on these figures, but halfway through I decided to go in whole hog, using my two-tone white technique and even painting the red edging on the lapels and turnbacks. These 96 figures took just over 20 hours to paint.

96 OG French (click on any picture for a larger image)

They're not quite up to AB's standard, but they do look very nice. I've had some problems with OG and Battle Honors flag poles bending or breaking, so I drilled out the eagle bearers' hands with my pin vice and replaced the lead flag staffs with .020 brass rod. The I cut off the eagles, drilled a hole in their bases, and attached them to the brass rod as well.

OG French Full Dress Road March, detail

OG French Full Dress Road March, detail

OG French Full Dress Road March, detail

If you're interested in such things, I used craft paints for the whole project. Delta's "blueberry" makes a great French blue.

All my 15mm French Line

All my Napoleonic infantry get 3/4" x 1" bases for Age of Eagles. This basing also works for my tactical rules of choice, General de Brigade. I glue Wargames Accessories metal bases to the bottom of my Litko wood bases so that the figures will adhere to my magnetic sheeting for travel. I glue the magnetic sheeting to two 1' square floor tiles to give the whole thing a little stiffness. The 1' square tile rests firmly in a 12" plastic drawer, three drawers to a unit. It's a great way to get figures from place to place without breaking or bending them.

The big box o' French

As I looked over my French, I realized that I have painted figures from nearly every Old Glory pack. There aren't a lot of pictures of Old Glory figures on the internet, and 19th Century Miniatures seems unwilling or unable to give examples of their line, so you might enjoy seeing what different Old Glory packs look like.

French Infantry in Greatcoats, Defending

French Infantry in Greatcoats, Defending

My haul from Wally included three bags of French in greatcoats, one of fusiliers, one of elites, and one of command. I have about 40 painted bases. As you can see, I went with brownish greatcoats rather than grey (too boring!). Old Glory's idea of "defending" looks an awful lot like "advancing" to me, but here they are. These troops are seasoned veterans, having seen action in almost every Napoleonic game I've played.

Old Glory French in Campaign Dress, Charging

Old Glory French in Campaign Dress, Charging

These figures did not come from Wally, but from my friend Austin. He bought these before he erupted in full-on lead snobbery, then decided that they weren't worth painting. The figures are fine for my purposes, although their protruding bayonets make them difficult to rank up. I still have a couple hundred of these left to paint.

Old Glory French in Campaign Dress, March Attack

These were the first 15mm Napoleonics I painted. I think I finished these during the summer of 2000. Of all Old Glory's French figures, these are my least favorite. They have that infamous scurrying quality to them. Some of the bases are so small that it took some creative glue work to get them standing upright.

Old Glory French Infantry, Comparison Shot

Old Glory French Infantry, Comparison Shot

Old Glory has some trouble getting consistent styles from their different sculptors. The charging and greatcoat figures are noticeably smaller than the others, while the full dress figures stand very tall. Still, as long as you don't mix these figures within units, they do make for a nice mix of troops on the tabletop. I usually field all of one type within each division, which does make it easier to identify commands on the table.

July Painting Totals

I started the month strong, whipping through over 200 minis in the first two weeks. Then summer interfered. I haven't painted anything since. Here, then, are my painting totals for July.

10mm ACW Confederates, 100 infantrymen
28mm ACW Union, 92 infantrymen
15mm Napoleonic French, 24 infantrymen.

So that's a total of 216 figures this month. Not bad, but not the productive month I had hoped for.

Minifigs Napoleonic French Infantry

Sash and Saber ACW Project Chugs Along

It has been a few months since I started my 28mm ACW project, and I've found it slow going. I might have spoiled myself last summer with my 1809 Napoleonics, because these Union infantry made me feel like I was painting the same thing. Over and over. Each infantryman has, for example, five different shades of blue.

I finished my last eight sticks of Union infantry today and decided to do some basing. I'm using 3mm Litko bases with a 30mm frontage and a 40mm depth. This way I don't use much more frontage than I have on my 15mm figures, where each base has 25mm frontage.

All 212 Union infantry, ready to base

I use Elmer's School Glue to attach my figures to their painting sticks. It provides a good enough bond that they don't fall off, but it's weak enough that I can snap them right off when I begin basing. I use Elmer's Glue All to affix the figures to their permanent bases. I used to use wood glue, but whenever I decided to rebase, I was tearing figures off at their ankles. Glue All allows me to eventually break up the bases if I so choose.

All 212 Union infantry, based

An hour later all the figures were based. I have ten stands of regimental command and 43 stands of infantry. Tomorrow I'll begin flocking the bases, a much longer process.

Old Glory 10mm ACW Infantry

Last month this blog was all Napoleonics; this month, apparently, it's all ACW.

I've been spending a lot of time painting Old Glory's 10mm line this month, and I don't really have a reason to do so. I have large armies in 15mm for Fire and Fury. I'm working on a 28mm army for Guns at Gettysburg. So why am I wasting time on 10mm figures?

It's the look of the thing. If I were starting all over again, I would definitely use these figures for my grand tactical games. The infantry below are mounted on Fire and Fury sized bases, and they just look great, like actual bodies of troops.

And they're super fast to paint. I painted 20 strips of Confederate infantry last weekend--100 soldiers--in just under 10 hours. And I wasn't just slopping on the paint. You can see those figures below. Between the strips and the small size, these are very easy figures to paint.

Union Infantry

Union Infantry

Confederate Infantry

Confederate Infantry

The only big complaint I have about the OG10mm line is the flags. I don't like painting flags. But as these pictures show, I think they can look good. Remember that these figures appear at about four times life size.

More Sash and Saber ACW Infantry

I just finished another batch of Sash and Saber Union infantry. These add sixty more painted figures. Now I just have 32 more Federal infantry to paint before I start basing!

The twelve poses in this batch.

Close-up of some poses. All figures in this batch got dark hair.

All sixty painted figures. These took me about 20 hours to paint.

Backlog of figures awaiting bases. 140 down, 32 to go.

I'm working on the last batch of figures right now. Hopefully I can spend next weekend basing these up.

The Sash and Saber figures are beautiful and a joy to paint. And I got them for $.50 apiece.