Character Figures and Settlers for the FIW

Conquest Miniatures put out a nice little blister of the main characters from the Last of the Mohicans, also released by Warlord Games. I had fun painting these up as characters to join in my Sharp Practice games.



The figures are a bit variable in quality. The women aren't very good in my opinion, suggesting the sculptor should get out more. Uncas and Chingachgook are fine, but Hawkeye and Magua are just lovely.



Magua is also available in a more warlike pose in a separate blister.

Magua notices a grey hair in the mirror...

Also from Conquest, here's a bunch of armed colonists. I really need to build a couple of farm houses for them...

4-Ground's Blockhouse for the French & Indian Wars

This is a nice piece of kit.



We are very taken here at Homunculorum Towers with playing the FIW with Sharp Practice 2, and that means terrain. Most of all trees, although we will also need a few log cabins. And to defend all those trees, what better than a lovely blockhouse from 4-Ground?



This was a great model to put together, with stacks of detail like opening doors and detachable (and loseable as it turns out) locking bars for the doors. The simple planky appearance of the real thing lends itself well to drybrushing, so I tarted up the model with fifty shades of grey and a bit of brown, textured the base and behold.



Those gunports were crying out for some firepower, so I picked up a blister pack from Crusader's pirates range from the friendly elves at War and Peace Games. They are intended to represent a French naval gun crew, but clearly military discipline is a bit lax in this bit of the wilderness.



The blockhouse gets a couple of enthusiastic thumbs up from me, and would be great to chuck on your table for AWI and FIW games.

Hurons!

The final part of my French wilderness force for Sharp Practice 2 is of course a couple of units of Huron allies. I'm really looking forward to using these in SP2 - the rules for moveable deployment zones should give their opponents something to think about.



These were lovely figures to paint, although very time consuming due to the individual details. Most of the figures are from the Woodland Indians box set put out by Warlord (which are actually Conquest Miniatures figures), with six figures from Northstar. Here's a stack of photos - I hope you enjoy them.

Coureurs des Bois and a Canoe

French forces in Sharp Practice 2 are allowed a single unit of Coureurs des Bois, rugged irregular scouts. As it happens, buying a box each of the Northstar French Wilderness Force figures and the Warlord Compagnie Franche de la Marine to make a core force leaves six figures left over, perfect to add some 'Runners of the Woods' to them.



What's a French and Indian Wars battle without canoes? Fortunately, Conquest Miniatures make some lovely canoes with different crews, so here's one from the Compagnie Franche de la Marines.



I'm not sure what function this will have in a game of Sharp Practice, but I might be able to use it as a Deployment Point marker or something like that.

Next up: Hurons!

Milice Canadienne for Sharp Practice 2

Along with the Compagnie Franche de la Marine, no French raiding force in 1759 would be complete without a couple of units of Canadian Militia. These are just Northstar and Conquest Marine figures, given a slightly less uniform paintjob, but under the command of an officer of the les Marins.

Putting Together a French Wildnerness Force of Sharp Practice 2

Sharp Practice 2 includes some army lists for the French Indian Wars. I decided to put together a French wilderness force, made up of a mix of Native American allies and Canadian militia around a core of Compagnie Franches de la Marine. This is an interesting and colourful force to put together, and can be assembled from three readily-available box sets.



The basic core force consists of two units of eight Compagnie Franches de la Marine, under a senior officer, two units of six Canadian militia, with an officer and two units of 12 native Americans, with a leader. Northstar produce a very nice French Wilderness force box set for Muskets and Tomahawks, which combined with a box each of Compagnie Franches de la Marine and Woodland Indians from Warlord Games (actually Conquest Miniatures) gives you exactly what you need, with six figures left over to serve as a unit of Coureur de Bois and an additional sergeant. There is a slight size difference between Northstar and Warlord, but they mix together perfectly well, in my view.

This post features the two units of Compagnie Franches de la Marine. The movement based are from , and I have gone for a woodlands theme with the basing. The tree trunks are a compromise - I wanted to evoke woods without having to move whole forests around the table like Birnam Wood, but hopefully they don't look too much like Ypres. What do you reckon?