French Foreign Legionnaires

I could say I’m painting these up because I recently picked up In Her Majesty’s Name… but that wouldn’t be entirely true… I DID pick up IHMN recently, and I did just start reading it, but honestly I really picked out these to paint next because… well… it seemed like the most fun thing to paint at the moment - which is really my motivation for most things - hobby-wise... or otherwise...

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

French Foreign Legionnaires from Artizan Designs.

Only 13 of these are newly painted, two of them were painted previously... like a year (or so) ago!



A couple more pics of the colour bearer (as I'm rather pleased with how he turned out!)

Actually, as I was just finishing these up and considering getting another unit of them out to paint, it occurred to me that I don’t actually have any HISTORICAL opponents for these!? I have to admit I think I picked them up thinking I’d use them in a semi-historical/fantastical African setting/ campaign involving competing adjacent colonies of France, England, and possibly Germany…? Or Belgium…? It was a loose idea I had a long while back – using a campaign system similar to the original Mighty Empires. Each European Power would have a small six hex colony/trading region/area of influence on the coast and could explore inland adding territory and resources, building trading posts and forts and mines and possibly laying train tracks… raising local troops or vying for regulars from the homeland and, ultimately clashing with the neighboring colonies… Anyway, the idea – like so many before (and since) – fizzled and I moved on to other things.

Or I might have been thinking I could use them on Mars in a Space:1889 sort of setting. So not really all that far off from what I may end up using them for in the near future (In Her Majesty’s Name - if it turns out to look interesting enough to set up a game).

Since painting these and having a look at the stuff I’ve got I got to thinking I need to pick up a few more (Oh, not right now… like, maybe next year! But this is how it happens!). I have two units of guys in sun helmets, and two in kepis. Except one of the units of guys in sun helmets is short one… and I have about five spare chaps in kepis… Now I could just have a few guys in kepis join the units of guys in sunhelmets and leave it at that… but I got to thinking; if I ordered four more packs of guys in sun helmets (four packs of four would be 16 more) I would have THREE units of exactly 15 guys in Sun helmets! AND if I ordered three more packs of guys in kepis (which would be 12 more) I would have three units of guys in kepis plus only two left over – and if one of those three packs was a command pack I’d probably have a couple of spare officers I could use as higher command (a C-in-C and/or staff officer if I were using Ever Victorious Armies).

Of course the mad (or maddest) thing about this plan is that, as I have mentioned, I don’t really have any genuine historical OPPONENTS!?

Perhaps it’s time to start painting Martians again…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Maybe more of these Legionnaires (I have two more units of these…). Or maybe some 1914 Belgians… or WW2 Soviets… or 1889 Maritans!?  or a giant Movie Mummy… or… gosh, who knows!? I seem to be all over the place these days.