Varnishing and Painting

Having forgotten to varnish all my figures up until this point I realized enough was enough these figures need to be protected. Acquiring matte varnish in Canterbury where I attend University has proven harder than I can manage, so I will have to make do with GW 'Ardcoat with a layer of GW Lahmian Medium over the top to take away the gloss.
With that purchased I decided to varnish all my completed figures at once.

picture includes currently the current 8 members of my next fusilier unit, and the next 4 who have only been basecoated.

Now I can be comfortable that these troops will suffer no damage on the way to the battlefield! I even dropped a base of Dragoons, but they fortunately landed base up and none of them were dislodged. I know, I was amazed too.

Because of the start of the new university term I have been unable to paint many figures, however I may as well post pictures of my army now accompanied by the new Grenadiers (admittedly still 2 men short of complete) as well as total up the % towards completion!

Over half way through my LaSalle army (not including extra 'attacking' units however I think) and over a quarter of the way through the complete Grande Armee Talavera army. Hopefully we will get the base LaSalle army done and its all plain sailing from there.

New Delivery and finished Grenadier Base

New Delivery

Received my delivery from Pendraken yesterday so I have even more lead to shift off my University desk, just in time for the new term.

2 packs of Fusiliers, 1 pack of Command squad members, 2 packs of Elite Infantry, 1 pack of 8pder Cannon, and 1 General.

The General is from the old Peninsular French Pendraken range, and I picked him up just to see how he fits in with the new range which is as of yet devoid of Generals. Sadly both him and his horse seem extremely small and slender and may stick out too much if placed near the other members of the army. I'm still tempted to mount him alone on a base to represent 1 of the 2 minor Generals the Grande Armee rules allow the French to include during the Talavera scenario. Mounted on his own he may be inconspicuous in his smallness.

Finished Grenadier Base

The Grenadier base I was painting in the previous update are now finished, however the crosses on the back of the bearskins may have a little tidying up done if I feel like it.

Sadly I'm 3 grenadiers short of the number needed for the second base, and pendraken sells them in packs of 30. I don't know what I'm going to do with the 27 I'll have spare if I order them, so I might see if I can nab 3 of someone who might have some spares themselves for less than the £4.50 from Pendraken.

Grenadiers & LaSalle

Grenadiers

Just posting the first 8 members of my painted Grenadiers.

Ignoring the anachronistic Bicornes on the command members, I have these guys essentially for free, they add a little character to what is an elite unit in the army.

My painting doesn't do the Pendraken sculpts justice, but they will look fearsome when massed all the same.

Hopefully these Grenadiers will be spearheading a daring attack in the not too distant future.

LaSalle

I mentioned in my last blogpost that I was building my army towards playing large battles in Grande Armee or Blucher when that comes out. I am however building the army currently towards playing battles in the smaller scale LaSalle before getting to that stage. 

This army will be in pure figures about half the size of the Grande Armee army for Talavera, and here is the army list showing the stage of completion.

Green: painted, Yellow: Possessed, Blue: Ordered, Red: Not Owned

The Grenadiers will represent a unit of Elite Infantry in the list, and I just hope the guys at Pendraken release some 1809 French Howitzers soon, or else I may have to order elsewhere, or use a different range's Howitzers as replacements.

Thanks for reading.

First Post - The Plan and the Progress

Hey guys and welcome to my blog.
I doubt anyone will read this, but what it will do is help to provide me with motivation to finish up my current wargames miniatures project.

This project is indeed the creation in 10mm figures of the French OOB at the battle of Talavera in 1809. This will be for use (currently) in the Grande Armee rules set by Sam Mustafa, or possibly with Blucher, however that turns out.

The army list for the battle of Talavera scenario - Green: Painted, Yellow: Models in my possession, Blue: Models ordered, Red: Not purchased. There's a lot of red left.

As you can see from the above image the French army alone will weigh in at over 600 figures, of which I've only painted up approximately 130, still a long way to go.
Despite this I am happy with the current progress of the army, they look intimidating already.

I hope you agree they look rather impressive all gathered together!

After I'm done with the French, I may move onto the Allied forces at the battle, unless I can find someone else to get them.

If you read this, thanks for doing so, I hope you enjoyed reading it.