Painting is back to normal

For the last few weeks painting has been a chore, not because I lost my painting mojo but because the heat made the paint go off far to quickly.  I still managed to get things done but only by dint of avoiding trying to work at the hottest part of the day.  It was the same problem with glues for basing  blink and it had gone off!  But as of this last few days we have had some very welcome rain and temperatures are actually below the seasonal average so painting is back on.

However, to paint I need good tools and I'm reluctantly coming to accept that my favourite paint brushes are coming to the end of their useful lifespan.  I can't complain they have served me well for over a decade, but their ability to hold a point has gone.  These were my first Kolinski sable brushes and to be honest they were inexpensive, given their quality, at under £5.00 a brush.  I bought some brushes from Rosemary and Co a few months back and those are very nice but I bought too many size 1 and not enough zero's or smaller.  I have to say though that I am impressed with them so far, as the points hold well even after a lot of use, and they clean fairly easily.

In respect of my painting output I have had a lot of MDF come across the painting table in the shape of the Commission Figurines Napoleonic stuff I bought at Joy of Six.  I have painted all of the British Foot I bought there, most of the French and I'm now working on some of the French mounted Dragoons.  Finding uniform details, especially for mounted types, has been a steep learning curve for someone like me with only a passing interest in the period prior to starting this project.  I used to have a hardback Osprey compilation on French Napoleonic Cavalry a few years ago but foolishly, I got rid of it as Napoleonic's were not my thing ....Doh!  Note to self never throw away reference material.

Valour and Fortitude updates

Just a quick heads up to say that the updated version of Valour and Fortitude (Version 4) is now available to down load from the Perry Miniatures website.  I have read through it and the changes are fairly minor with one exception.  Skirmishers are now automatically treated as deployed which is dealt with by giving an extended shooting range to eligible units. That means that many units now have a short and long range band rather than a single range band. Units which opt to use volley fire use the short range as they are considered to recover skirmishers first before firing (well shooting your own lads is unsporting).  Artillery also has two range bands, the short one to represent the use of cannister. Some other rules have been clarified, to deal with some issues the player base brought up.    The one exception to minor tweaking is the big reduction in shooting values for Napoleonic troops. Units which might have had a shooting factor of 3 or 4 now have a factor of 1 or 2!  This change seems to be to reflect the use of very short range fire which is part of the close assault combat.  In this it is doing the same thing Altar of Freedom does and considering assaults as a mix of short range fire fights and bayonet charges.

I don't think the changes change my view of the rules as being what I'm looking for they are still fairly simple but have subtleties hidden in the special rules for each army.

On the painting front I now have eight battalions of British painted and based along with five of French. I have French Dragoons on the painting table so I'm nearly ready for a test game. The British are line infantry with a half battalion of rifles, while the French are three Line and two Light battalions.  I have placed an order for more figures to include some that will become Portuguese and some skirmishers and commanders.

Now me being me and being unable to help myself I have made a couple of changes to the rules as written (in keeping with the spirit of the rules though, honest!).  Firstly I'm basing battalions on a single 60 x 30 mm  base.  Secondly I'm using slightly less figures per battalion than the minimum that the rules recommend.  It doesn't make a huge difference as the rules don't count figures other than to consider if a battalion is larger or smaller than the norm.  My British have 20 figures in two ranks, while the French have 30 in three ranks.  This makes depicting open order tricky so to do that I will add a 60x 15mm base of open order figures to the front of the battalion to show that status.  For march columns I will just place a marker showing the front of the column and put the battalion base at right angles to normal so the 30mm edge becomes the front.  While that means that the figures would be facing the wrong way it is a quick fix until I mount some figures in a column formation.  I'm not sure how the rules deal with the various different attack columns frontages yet but I will get my head around it eventually.  For the moment to depict an attack column I will place the 60 x 15 base at the rear of the unit. I am slowly learning about the period as before Joy of Six I didn't know that attack columns could even be on different frontages or when they were used.

One other thing I have learned is that you get an awful lot of infantry for £4.00.  Even with base costs and estimated painting and texturing costs the troops below came in at just under £6.00 all in.  Skirmish bases are not textured yet as I need to add some firing skirmish figures to each base, which should be with me in the next few days.  Flags are home printed and slightly over scale.  MDF bases from Warbases and flock, sand and glue from my existing supplies.

£4.00 for two packs of infantry gives me this!

Best Napoleonic fact I have learned so far, is that Marshall Massena lost the battle of Bussaco because he was too distracted to coordinate the attacks of his three divisions.  The reason he was distracted?  His mistress was flaunting herself topless in a hussar uniform!  I suppose that would do it.  I haven't learned which regiment of Hussar's uniform it was though.

Thoughts on ...Valour and Fortitude Napoleonic rules

Yes, alright it's yet another new rabbit hole, I know I promised not too, but they were free.  You know free, my favourite price point and all that.  It's Napoleonic's that historical period that I don't do, except that now there is a distinct possibility that I'm going to be doing them.  In my defence I'm doing it on the cheap and in 6mm (well you have to be able to see some of the uniforms) but I haven't become a button counter, honest.

The rules don't come as a book so there is no front cover to show you!

You know how it is, the figures looked nice at Joy of Six, they were cheap, oh so cheap and just one purchase couldn't hurt, could it?  Next thing you know I'm looking up Italian uniforms for the Peninsula War.  Which are white, by the way, I mean which genius thought that one up?  How did they ever think they could keep them white in the field, what with black powder weapons, and mud and blood and such like.  Mind you it will make painting them easy when I get to them.

On a slightly less over-excited topic though: the rules.  As you might know I have tried Napoleonic's a couple of times and simply couldn't find a rule set that clicked with me.  So while I was wondering what to do with nearly 400 MDF figures I started searching.  A couple of sets caught my eye but none of them were quite what I wanted.  Then I hit on Valour and Fortitude (lets call it V&F going forward) they use battalions as the combat formations but can be played with brigades as the combat unit with very little change and others have done that with no problems.  They have the right level of granularity for me and I could download them for free so if I find I don't like them all I have wasted is some printer paper and ink.

The rules are fairly simple, the core mechanisms are contained in four pages (three really as the first page is just the definitions), plus a page for a QRS and another two for optional rules, even then most of the optional rules cover changes for different scales.  On top of which, each army has a separate two page list of unit types, unit sizes and special rules, plus a fate table.  Game play is IGOUGO, with dice controlled brigade activations, the play sequence is Fate > Fire >  Action > Melee.

The fate phase is where the fate table comes in.  This is a set of thirteen events or traits that are triggered by drawing a playing card each turn.  Some are used at once others can be held onto and used in a later turn.  The effect of the cards is not huge and doesn’t look like it would have a huge impact on the game play.   Next up is shooting and units which have now decide to  shoot cannot take an action in the next phase.   The action phase is where units may choose to move, reform, double, retreat, assault or rally.  Any action requires the unit to pass an action test, although some fate cards can overrule this.  Double is used to bring reserves forward and does what the name suggests, allows a longer move.  Reforms allow changes of direction and or formation and can be combined with movement, while rallies can remove hits.

I keep reading that the rules feel like Black Powder light, but can’t comment to that having never played Black Powder.  All fairly straight forward really.  It's the Army sheets which add the granularity and flavour.  These cover most of the popular Napoleonic armies and minor nations, plus ACW, AWI and British Civil Wars. The rules and all the other free stuff can be downloaded from here Valour & Fortitude - Perry Miniatures.  These are currently (Late July 2026) the 2nd edition, version 3.1 but there is an update to Version 4 due any day now.

As soon as I have enough troops painted and based I will run a solo test game with my usual explanatory sub sections.  That may be a while as so far I have painted four French battalions and only one British one, no cavalry or artillery.  In fact I haven't even bought any artillery yet!

More MDF Napoleonics

Next up on the painting table is a test unit of the British Infantry from Commission Figurines MDF range of 6mm figures.  Unlike the French figures these are not cut with shouldered muskets.  I prefer the shouldered figure outline as it gives more shape for the eye to grab hold of at arms length but it probably makes the figures a bit more robust.  My British unit will have less figures than the 30 man French one.  I'm going with 20 figures in two ranks to show the 'thinner' British line formation.  It also makes the pack go further!

These figures are trickier to paint than the previous French offerings as I have to paint in white cross belts on to the contrasting red coats.  The nature of the MDF figures means that there is almost no relief for the paint brush to follow, so that needed a steady hand and a good eye, which at my age is a big ask!  I had to go back with the red to tidy up in some cases but eventually I got them as I wanted.  OK lets be honest, almost as I wanted.  The picture in my mind's eye is always neater than I achieve in reality but I long ago learned that the difference between the two is what drives me to improve (and should be ignored when necessary).  Next time I might try to add the cross strap for the back pack as these look very 'chocolate box soldier' like.  It's probably the lack of anything which suggests the lace across the coatee's chest area that is the issue but I can't think of any way to paint them which wouldn't end in a messy splodge!

You can see the blockiness of the figures in this shot

I went with a white undercoat and first painted in the red coatees.  This stage can be as messy as you like, as everything done after this stage will tidy it up.  Grey trousers for the majority came next with the officers getting white to help set them apart.  Remember that these are painted in right up to the waistline as the coatees were cut short at the front.  This was followed for black for shakos and boots.  Then it was time for the detail.  Black backpacks and cartridge box, mid blue canteens, light grey blanket roll. brown muskets and (gulp) white cross belts.  Last was flesh to the faces and hands, your choice of turnback colour and the plumes.  It sounds a lot but other than the cross belts it is just a dash or a dot of colour where required.  The only other thing left was to paint in any shoulder straps.  It was at this point I realised I hadn't painted a drummer in reverse colours (oh buggah) so back to the painting table had to go.

It's an OK paintjob I'm sure I can do a better job with practice.

A little bit of tidying up  on the shoulder straps might help with the overall look.  I did think about adding Skirmishers to the base but decided against it for two reasons. Firstly that having a separate narrow strip that could be placed in front of the base as required might be useful in some rules and second, I haven't bought any skirmishers yet.  MDF bases are going to help with the survivability of the figures so an order will be on it's way to Warbases in due course.

For reference I found the Baccus 6mm painting guides helpful along with several painting blog posts I found online (especially Steve's Balagan).

MDF Napoleonics

So after my trip to the Joy of six show, I promised to show you my attempts at painting Napoleonic infantry.  Specifically some French infantry.  So here they are.

You can easily see the difference in colour between the undercoats used.

I had to change my normal painting style for 6mm figures as these are laser cut MDF.  Because of this, they take paint in a different way to metal castings as it soaks into the MDF.  I tried two different styles of painting, one was undercoating in white and the other in black.  I then block painted the flesh, clothing and weapons. I also added a home drawn and printed flag.  I  know this is oversized but I think recognising the flag is important at smaller scales.  I picked out some of the laser engraved detail using a very fine indelible black ink pen to give definition.

If you look carefully, you will see some of the blue coats are darker than others. Those are the figures which were undercoated in black. I'm unsure which undercoating style gives the best result, especially at anything more than close range viewing. The figures were fairly easy to paint. For those under the coated in black a stripe of white up the centre of the front of the body for the vest and turn backs and breaches with blue added to the edges is the bulk of the figure painted. It's the same system for those undercoated in white but without the need to overpaint the areas which will end up white.   I think I will stick with the white undercoat system and buy a bottle of Vallejo Prussian Blue to offset the lightening effect of the undercoat.

What really makes them pop is adding the fine detail. This includes things like turn backs on the sleeves, shako plates, pom-pom colours, backpacks and blanket rolls.  Unlike metal figures, I have not given them an ink wash as there isn't sufficient sculpted detail for the ink to pick out. At the moment these figures are not varnished but I am considering using a spray on varnish to give some protection.

Picking out some detail really helps bring them to life.

I have based the figures on cardboard (as a test) and used my normal texturing system of fine sand topped with patches of flock.  Currently, these are on a 6 cm x 3 cm base, but I’m still unsure as to how I will base them going forward as I am not yet sure which rules I will use.  That said I prefer the large unit look of this batch to the smaller base I tried first.  I think these are rather nice given that they are essentially 'thick' flats.  There is enough detail from the laser engraving to help show the edges of clothing so that gives a guide for where colours will change.  At arms length they look very little different to their more 3D metal cousins, unless you squint along the lines where they look more 'blocky'.  However, at the price point these little chaps come in at they are hard to beat.  the unit shown above consists of 30 figures and I estimate it cost under 50p including basing materials!