David Kirk

FRENCH ARMY

Context

About 4 years ago I went into a games store in London to get out of the rain and came out with an Early Armenian army in 15mm and a rekindled interest in miniatures (I had collected fantasy figures in the early 80s). I have been painting historical figures and playing the occasional game since then. My main areas of interest are the Dark Ages / Early Medieval period in 15mm and the Spanish Civil War in 20mm.

6mm and me

I got a sample strip of 6mm figures from another manufacturer a couple of years ago and was fairly happy with the results when I painted it. So I ordered a couple of small armies. Unlike the sample, the figures that arrived had areas that didn't seem to depict anything - they were just vague bits between the details. My experience of these 'vague' figures in other scales is that I can make them look OK but they're no fun at all to paint. I've still got them somewhere - unpainted and unloved.

When I saw the Baccus offer my initial reaction was simply 'cool, free figures!' - so I sent a rapid email and was delighted to find that I had won an army. Then I started to think about what I had let myself in for. I already have the typical gamer's stockpile of unpainted lead, so what was I playing at volunteering to paint an army in a) a scale I have had bad experiences with and b) a period I know absolutely nothing about?

First impressions

I was quite relieved when the army arrived - I was picturing a mountain of unfinished lead, so the 16 stands of infantry and 10 or so stands of cavalry that actually came in the pack seemed much more manageable.

I was delighted to see that the vague areas I had found on other 6mm figures were not present on the Baccus castings - I could see exactly what Peter was trying to represent, and the most prominent areas (heads, hands, weapons) were quite exaggerated, which works well at this scale.

Painting

I decided to follow Peter's painting instructions (see the How To area of this site) for the most part. The changes I made were:

* I washed the castings with thinned black ink after spraying to make sure the recesses were well undercoated.]

* I painted the hands in GW Dark Flesh and then drybrushed with GW Elf Flesh - the fingers are sculpted boldly enough to be picked up most of the time.

* I painted a couple of coats when using bright or light colours (yellow, red, white) to get better coverage. Yes, this takes longer, but I feel the results are worth it.

I got the hang of 'scale colour' after a while - I found I was using the colours I would use for one of the last highlights on a larger figure in order to make them stand out. Next time I would use a lighter grey for the first drybrush (I used Coat D'Arms Uniform Grey but chickened out and added a bit of black - it would've been better without).

I used bigger brushes than I expected - mostly a size 1, with occasional use of a size 2 and a size 0.

The uniform guide on the Baccus site was absolutely invaluable. I wish other companies would do this as it makes it so much easier to try out a new period when you don't have to trawl through loads of books first.

The other technique I have tried on 6mm (that single stand mentioned above) was to undercoat them black, drybrush white and 'stain' them with washes or inks - it worked surprisingly well. I haven't got enough experience to compare the techniques yet.

Flags

I decided I wanted 2 stands of figures in each unit and painted them up accordingly. What I forgot to bear in mind was that I only had one of each flag in the painting guide that came with the figures. I ended up painting my own copy of each flag and painting over the original (and adding a little shading) to get them to match. The printed flags have a central panel to wrap around the flagpole - this is designed for a much thicker pole than these figures have so they had to be cut. Once I had attached the flags to the poles I shaped them to look wind-blown and painted them with thinned PVA glue to stiffen them in place.

The Experience

I usually paint 12 x 15mm figures in between 2 and 4 weeks, depending on other commitments. With this project I painted the 64 infantry (16 strips) in just over a week, painting for 1 or 2 hours per day. I felt comfortable painting 6mm quite quickly, though it took some time for the figures to look OK.

The Results

I'm delighted with the results I have achieved. I do feel that getting good results in 6mm is fairly straightforward, and the massed ranks look you can achieve is well worth it. It is still early days, but this scale is growing on me.

The cavalry are now primed and ready to go. The Baccus painting guide took me through painting the infantry step-by-step, so I'm interested to see if I can get the same results without any advice.

Cavalry

The cavalry are finished at last. These guys took considerably longer to
paint than the infantry as there are fewer identical figures, so it is not
possible to get the same kind of rapid production line processes going
(though with a bigger army you certainly could). The cavalry also have a lot
more equipment so there are more details to paint.

Painting techniques

I used the same basic techniques (black undercoat, grey drybrush, flat
colour) as suggested by the Baccus step-by-step guide that helped so much
with the infantry, again with a few deviations. I found the grey drybrush
really useful for picking out the details, but this time I went back and
picked out a lot of the grey coat material to give it more clarity. I
continued to go over most colours a couple of times to give them more
strength.

Horses

I always get bored of doing all that horse flesh in larger scales - it just
takes so long! These 6mm horses made a very pleasant change - base coating
just takes a few moments. I did do a little bit of shading on the horses as
I feel that they are large enough to justify it. I don't think the shading I
did (ink washing) worked particularly well and I would experiment with other
techniques next time.

Overall effect

I knew that 6mm armies are supposed to be good for giving the impression of
being real armies of 1000s of men. What I didn't know was that even a tiny
army like mine looks quite impressive on the table. The pack I received
contains 94 men (64 infantry, 30 cavalry), but when I set them all out on
the table to take these photos I was amazed at the visual impact they made.
Somehow these tiny troops look more impressive than the same number of 15mm
figures.

So am I a 6mm convert?

Yes, I think I probably am. I am not about to splash out on hundreds of 18th
Century figures as this period doesn't really excite me and I don't want
another unfinished project to compete for my storage space. What I would
love to do is a recreation of the battle of Hingston Down (838 AD) which saw
the Cornish and their Viking allies / mercenaries fighting against the Anglo
Saxons. I reckon I'd need a couple of thousand figures per side. This would
take me a lifetime in 15mm, but in 6mm I reckon it is quite achievable. I
have plenty of projects already in the pipeline so I'm in no hurry, but if
Baccus ever does produce a Dark Ages range I'll be reaching for my wallet.