Monday, April 4, 2016

My Tribute to Byron - Napoleonic French Unit Status Stand


I've known Byron from waaay back. Back to when I played (get this) the GW Fantasy tournament circuit (!) and he ran his own Rogue Trader series (the excellent 'WarCons'). Byron has been a Challenger since the fourth edition and, as many of you know, has exhibited some of the finest painting seen in the Challenge over the past three years.

This year I was a bit in the weeds with the administration of the duels, but Byron came to my rescue by offering to take them off my shoulders. I know it's been a bit of a struggle for him as he was not involved in the initial negotiations detailing the nuances of the various duels, but he's done a valiant job in maintaining the roster, keeping it updated, so participants could better focus on their targets. 

A few years ago Byron began to tip his toe into collecting and painting 28mm French Napoleonics. He's now at a point where he can field a small infantry brigade, so I invited him down this past weekend to get them properly thrashed on the tabletop (really, what's a 500k drive for a wargame amongst friends?). With this in mind, I thought I'd make him a casualty/status stand to add to his collection of Grognards. 

Seen here is a French line officer haranguing a grenadier drummer to keep up the tempo.


Both are 28mm figures from the venerable, but excellent, Foundry range, sculpted by the Perry's. 


Similar to my other unit stands I've created three sockets on the base to fit small dice to track unit status and a fin that can fit a unit identification label. It's pretty rudimentary stuff, but it seems to work alright and I find looks nicer than 'bare' chits or dice cluttering the tabletop.


Below are a few examples of previous unit stands I've done with their ID labels and how one of them looks with a sample unit (the small greyscale marker is to track things like 'Fatigue' or 'Disruption, depending on the system).

Examples of unit stands from my collection.

Thanks very much for all your help Byron! I hope you like these lads.