Napoleon at War : First Napoleon Test Model

Finally got my Man at War Napoleonic figures in. I will admit, the figure quality is downright poor. I don't know why it's acceptable in historical miniatures to produce such bad figures - you don't see GW, Privateer Press, or any other big name mainstream minis company producing poor figures, and startup companies that do don't stay around for long, but it seems the historical market is just flooded with bad figures.

Sorry, rant over.

Anyway, I got this neat painting guide..."paint by numbers" as a local friend calls it. 

Basically, I'm really eager to try out the Napoleon at War rules, and I kinda like the idea of the period, but not enough to put any effort in researching or learning about it.

Anyway, here's my first test model:

I went over it with a light grey wash just to give it a bit of depth...it doesn't show well in pictures.

It did give a bit of pooling on the back right leg of the back right figure.

I think this quality will be passable for my purposes. It definitely doesn't look good close up, but I think it'll be fine in mass. I'm going to paint up the rest of the box to match...but then, I want to try a few other figure manufacturers. I've got a couple Essex and Old Glory 15s figs that appear to be much better sculpts, and more of a 15mm than a 20mm.

But, going back to my rant, I can't stand just buying random bags of figures and trying to figure out what I need/how many I need, combined with not knowing anything about the period, the pre-made Man at War boxes are really tempting, even if they are subpar quality.

We shall see what happens.

Happy holidays if I don't update before then.