F&I French Artillery

I have been a fan of F&I wargaming for quite some time. A number of years ago, a company named Galloping Major released a new line to support the period. I was a big fan of the figures (still am) and build two rather large armies for the period. When I put the armies together, they were all infantry. Sometime back, I picked up some support troops for the period and these included Wargames Foundry artillery crew and Sash and Sabre guns. The Foundry figures match up well to the GM line in size (GP has no gun crews), so I bought a few packs. I spent some time looking for gun models to go with the crews and finally went with Sash and Sabre. The reason being that they had the only guns that looked right from a size perspective. I find this a problem with most lines, they must make their guns too small. With the purchase, I had a section of artillery!

I have to freely admit that I did not paint the vast majority of my F&I figures. Since they were all heroic 28mm skirmish, I wanted them to be painted really well and I did not have the patience to hive that effect on my own. So, I send them off to Fernando in Sri Lanka for a “showcase” paint job. I was not disappointed and decided to do the same with the artillery crews. The crew models themselves are mostly without jackets and in small cloths, hence the heavy red paint jobs. These are all mounted on GW 25mm bases.

As for the guns, I decided that I would paint these myself. However, they just sat in a box forgotten assembled and primed for sometime…. While going through my primed stuff, I came across them. I decided that I wanted to paint something bright again (after doing so much terrain lately). So, I pulled them out. I had primed them grey already, so they were ready to go. I opted for the earlier red carriages and had some concern about coverage over the grey. However, I had recently purchased a few bottles of different red GW contract painted and thought I would give them a try! I covered the whole carriage in dark red contrast paint and let that dry. It gave a great shaded red effect. I then dry brushed the entire carriage in a blood red to brighten it up. All the metal fittings were painted very dark dry and hit with a black wash here and there to simulate black metal work. I hit the wheels with gunmetal to reflect wear. The gun barrel was painted brown then bronze and hit with a wash and then brass was painted over the raised areas. I hit both guns with Testors Dull Coat and then hit the gun and wheel rims with gloss coat to get the shine back. With that, I now have some artillery for F&I!

• Manteuffel