Finally got around to completing the last work needed for my next 500pts of Early War French - my Fusilliers Motocyclists platoon. I've had my eye on this platoon, and it's attending list, ever since I first bought Blitzkrieg a few months back. The issue was finding suitable figures and no one - not even Battlefront(!) - makes any type of French motorcycle figures I've found.
Enter True North's Belgian Motorcyclists pack. I ordered 3 packs for a full platoon from FRP Games for $24. Each pack comes with 4 motorcycles, 2 sidecars, 4 cyclists, and 2 sidecar troopers.
The Belgian uniforms are pretty similar, the main difference being they are somehow equipped with Pith helmets! I've found several source photos of French Motorcycle troops but they all differ in the type of headgear worn. Some have British-style helmets and others have a Fallschirmjager-style helmet.
Instead, I decided to give them all the venerable Adrian helmet, which was simply a matter of sanding down and rounding off the helmet and then adding a small line of Brown Stuff for the "ridge" on top.
Below is the HQ figure. Some of the riders have this odd pose, where they seem to contemplate "What bloody jack-ass thought pith helmets would be a good idea for combat troops in Europe?". So I added a guardrail and a small signpost. Apparently, French military maps weren't very good...
The second problem with these minis is none of the sidecars are armed. So I had to scrounge together some kind of machinegun out of Green Stuff and wire and the results are rather....lackluster. So I won't be doing any close-ups until they're painted, sorry.
All in all though, this is a nice little set of a fairly rare aspect of the French army not normally seen on the tabletop.
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