From Russia without love: Grande Armée retreating in 1812

Currently Bernhard, a wargaming fellow of mine, is working on a ruleset for Napoleonic skirmish games. More precisely it will be a game broaching the issue of the retreat of the French Army from Russia in 1812. To support this I decided to prepare a small force of scattered Frenchmen. I used parts from the Victrix Old Guard Grenadiers, from the British Line Infantry and some greenstuff to make these five fellows:

Some scattered veterans of the Grande Armée

Although I'm really humble with greenstuff, it was great fun to alter those miniatures. I'm very curious how they will turn out painted. However there'll be more conversions to follow. My goal is to get about a dozen of those guys which should be enough for Bernhard's skirmish game.

By the way Russia 1812 seems to be an issue for several professional manufacturers at present. The Perrys as well as Westfalia Miniatures will make some nice and impressive figures soon. Here are some preview pictures:

Perry greens for retreating French infantry (look at their site here)

An excellent Napoleonic sledge from Westfalia which should be available end of January (here is their site)

You all probably know the Perrys since they've been making excellent miniatures for years but have you heard from the second company?
Few of you must have. For example Michael Awdry from 28mm Victorian Warfare Blog excellently painted some of their funny rude Highlanders (here). However Westfalia is a very small Germany based manufacturer who makes very special miniatures and models which the "Great Ones" don't offer. The quality as far as I have seen is great and the atmosphere of the models is awesome. When you're interested in Napoleonics, then you should definitely have a look at their homepage (here).