Figures

As said earlier, I am mainly interested in 15mm and upwards figures, so I will not do smaller scale figures.

But to complete the information:
As far as I know, there are no 2mm figures although, but I have never seen 2mm figures in the flesh, I doubt that you can see the difference between 7YW or Napoleonic figures and French revolutionary ones. But I stand to be corrected.

In 5/6mm I know that Adler - http://home.clara.net/adlermin/ - has a French revolutionary range but the enemies are scarce (only starting in 1802). Maybe some other figures could be draftes in.

These ones are from the Adler early imperial French in bicorn range. Other ranges of the Adler series could be drafted in; Austrians in helmet  for the 1799 campaign in Italy (although the helmet probably was only really introduced in 1802), German 7YW figures for the 1799 Russian etc etc.

Heroics and Ros 1:300 figures has no French revolutionary range , although some figures (french in bicorns, Spanish etc) could be used. The same is also true for Baccus figures. http://www.baccus6mm.com/  .

In 10 mm only Pendraken http://www.pendraken.co.uk/ has a small French revolutionary range (Austrian and French infantry) but here also figures from other ranges could be drafted in (eg the 7YW Prussians or the newer AWI German troops could dubbel up as Russians for the 1799-1801 period). Also, the American militia are perfect  for the vendee. They are great 10mm figures.

Next time I will look at the larger figures.

Dutch schoolplates

In Dutch schools, pictures were used to visualise historical moments. This one by Isings, shows the French advance into Holland in january 1795 across the frozen river "Lek".

French voluntaires

I saw some pictures of French voluntaires units. Thought it could maybe of interest to someone. Although in a "romantic, 19th century style, they give a good portray of revolutionary soldiers.

Order of Battles

Everyone knows how difficult it is to find Order of Battles of some wargames periods. The French Revolution is no exception.
Some years ago, I did find the website of George Nafziger and bought a lot of the OOB's of the revolutionary period.
As with every source, you have to check the information with other information you have but as George gave his source on most of the pages of the OOB's it could be done. Where I checked them I found them correct. But of course, they are as good as the source mr Nafziger used to collect them.
All in all, I like and will use them.

But now, George has given these OOB's to the "Command and General Staff college" who put them on their website and the OOB's can now be downloaded (and for free I have to state). The link is:
 http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/nafziger.htm

So a big thanks to mr Nafziger for this move.

The French revolution (2)

While on the subject of Youtube (what would we be without it??), another filmfragment about the revolution.

Although maybe not all the uniform information is correct (eg the French regular army still existed at the 1792 Battle of Valmy and was clothed in their Bourbon white uniforms), it gives a great picture of the revolutionary period. Oh, and it is proven to all wargamers now that overhead artillery fire is possible.

As the revolution gained momentum, the heads of the Royal family were chopped off.
Here, the execution of Marie Antoinette.

The French revolution

As said, I like the French revolution as a wargames period.
The be precise, I like the earlier years (1792-1795) of this period the most, but the later period (1796-1801) has also its attractions.

So this blog will be a long and maybe advanturous journey to accomplish the task of building up the armies of the revolution. And a difficult one it will be because on this moment I even don't know which figure scale I will chose, only that it will be 15mm or 25/28mm.

I admire people who game in smaller scales (6 and 10mm) and I have seen beautiful games in these scales but one way or the other they don't have the same attractions to me as the above mentioned scales. 20mm would suit me, but there are no metal figures for it and plastics......., well, are plastic.


Trying to find a good name for this blog, I came accross some French Revolutionary songs. Le Marseillaise every body knows (and is still the French national anthem). But a more agressive song of those earlies years is Ca ira. From an old French movie, this is Edith Piaf while storming the kings palace. A Youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9VoRmjxvPs

But of course, the Marseillaise (or in fact more correctly "Le chant de guerre de l'Armee du Rhin" or marching song of the Rhine army)  has to be included when blogging about the French Revolution.

The above is from a 1938 french film via Youtube.

And then of course we have Marianne, which for me always symbolised the revolutionary period. But: the painting is from the 1830 revolution, not the 1789 one.