Trent Miniatures have a couple of packs of "revolting slaves" in their Later French Revolutionary Wars range, available in the UK from North Star. The range covers the Caribbean as well as north Italy and Ireland. I am not entirely sure who sculpts for this range; Mark Copplestone makes the personality figures but the rank and file stuff is clearly the work of someone else. I saw the slave figures and thought they might come in handy for the wiser reaches of the AWI. There is one pack of slaves with firearms and a second one with "armes blanches", i.e. swords and improvised weapons. These figures are clearly from the first pack, which contains 8 different figures. The North Star website shows "5 of the available figures", which is interesting because only one of those figures was contained in my pack - there must be at least 12 different figures and presumably each pack has a random selection. I find this sort of thing a bit annoying, because you might be after particular figures and when ordering mail order without the chance to inspect each pack you simply don't know what you're going to receive.
Anyway, the figures are nicely sculpted and paint up well. They are well detailed and some of the figures even have scars on their backs. I'm not too sure about the top hats that a couple of the figures are wearing - I have no idea whether this is a Caribbean thing or symptomatic of the figures being intended for a later period than the AWI. The figures are all based on 25mm squares, this being the size for skirmish bases under the "British Grenadier!" rules. The flesh was painted with one of the new Foundry palettes, "African Flesh 126". The range gives you a choice of 3 African palettes; "North African", "Dark African" and this one. To be honest, I have no idea which peoples and tribes are more suited to which palette. The "Dark African" paints are almost black and I did wonder whether they would be more suitable. I will probably paint up the second pack of slaves at some point and will keep an eye on the Trent Miniatures range for anything else that might work for the AWI.
8 figures. Painted March 2010.
6 comments:
Nice work Giles and it's good to see some of your miniatures again.
Cheers
Christopher
Da bruthuhs lookin' to put a cap in Mssr's derriere! Great figures Giles - I saw a great print of some Poles attacking Toussaint's revolting ex-slaves. I believe it was a pretty grim rebellion that saw thousands of black slaughtered (by their own as well as the French) and thousands of European troops (like the Poles) succumb to disease but and interesting one to wargame nonetheless. This is the first I've seen of the slaves figures - are these the first of a planned range?
Cheers,
Doc
These aren't revolting at all. I find them quite lovely :-)
work Giles, an it's nice to see something different.
Maybe you could ask Nick at Northstar if he can arrnage for the option of purchasing one of each variant. I mean if they want your money than they should make arrangements to appease the customer.
Helen
Doh! The first word of the first line should start with "Great."
Apoligise,
Helen
An unusual and very attractive set of figures! I have been contemplating some French in the Caribbean stuff and, like you, wonder what period they are supposed to be.. When were Top hats invented?
Post a Comment