Arrival of Magister Militum order.... and putting them aside.

Well, my Magister Militum arrived for my napoleonics, following my initial order of Austrian Jaegers that arrived several weeks ago.

And the verdict is....

I don't like the figures for the French.


While I do appreciate the variety in poses that you get in the Magister Militum packs... the sheer lack of detail or should I say, the shallowness of the recesses in the details makes it so that painting them is an absolute pain. Its to the point that it reminds me of painting 6mm figures, with the time it takes to paint 10mm. Maybe my painting technique is off, it could be quite possible.

Regarding the sculpts, like mentioned above, I like the variety in poses. Its a bit too bad that they're skinny compared to the Pendraken sculpts, and regarding cavalry, the proportions of the horse's head compared to the legs are just... wierd. Feels like monstrously gigantic heads compared to really skinny legs, which is a huge minus.

This was a bit of a surprise as I had expected something closer to the my Austrian Jaegers I had bought from MM, which I felt had the detail and the variety of poses I was looking for, and being a bit 'beefier' to be comparable to Pendraken.

I guess the Napoleonic French line of MM is just an older line and the master mould is getting tired.

I'll be setting aside my MM infantry for now, and focus on painting up the generals and fill in the gaps of my Pendraken collection. It's just too bad that Pendraken has a fairly long delay for the orders to be shipped, but looking at how its expanding steadily, I can't fault them and honestly, having painted 6 battalions worth of infantry and 5 regiments of cavalry... the wait is worth it, as the quality is really top notch for 10mm.

You just have to make sure to plan your projects well in advance.



In other news, experimenting with MM infantry has led me to the discovery of French Infanterie Legere blue - a tone of blue that has been elusive and eluding me for quite some time.

I've been base-coatinng my french infantry with Kantor Blue, followed by highlights with Alaitoc Blue. The Legere's blue is infact the Alaitoc Blue with a Nuln Oil wash applied over, with a slight highlight of Aloitoc blue. So I'll be doing that for my next batch of Legeres... of which I keep a bad habit of wanting to paint despite trying to force myself not to.

Well, my next batch of Legere will just be one single battalion for the "Elite Infantry Brigade" project.

I think my Voltigeurs from MM I'll be donating that to my gaming partner who's also been itching to start Napoleonics - as I wont be using them. I might also donate my Eclaireurs de la Garde pack as well - I'm just not a fan of the MM sculpts, and would rather the Pendraken ones.