Bolt Action French Army Infantry

Regarding infantry kits, the latest addition to the vast range for Bolt Action are the French Army Infantry boxed set, with a lot of options for different units. Let us take a closer look!

While this boxed set is meant to be used for the early years of war, you can assemble them for a lot of different lists, with the regular French Army infantry, fortress troops, chasseurs à pied, engineers or colonial troops (Algerian, Moroccan or Tunisian). While sharing the same uniform, the differentiation is made by the use of helmet / head gear, of which this box covers quite a lot.

As usual this Infantry boxed set, is a multi-part plastic kit with 5 sprues including 6 soldiers each. Inside you'll find a double-sided instruction leaflet, a small decal sheet and 25mm round bases with a small lip, priced at 35 GBP / 42 EUR RRP.

The infantry sprues are usually packed to the brim and this is once again the case. We have a high casting quality, with proper details and only a minor amount of mould lines. The parts are arranged in a reasonable way, not creating mould lines across faces or delicate details. Each sprue gives you 24 (!) different heads, with lots of options for gear and weaponry.

These boxes come with an overview on the parts, along with some further information on the unit. The only think usually lacking are some pictures from the side and back, to see how to add the equipment carried on the back.

There are six different poses for the bodies. This time without a flat body on the ground, but the usual kneeling pose and others standing / running. All wear the French army great coat. This could be useful for non-historic conversions as well, may it be GrimDark or generic Sci-Fi. I glued them to the lipped round bases supplied with this box.

Next are the weapons. I build another batch of six bodies and equipped them with the content of a single sprue. You get a lot of weapon options with this set and will have quite a few spares afterwards. I went with 8 pairs of arms with rifles/carbines, including one with a Viven-Bessières rifle grenade, one with the MAS 38 SMG, one with Châtellerault FM 24/29 LMG, and two sets for the NCO with (very French) a cigarette, pistol, pointing hands and binoculars.

Now we need heads for the 12 miniatures, and as mentioned above per sprue we have a total of 24 to choose from, Adrian helmet (with covered variants), Berets, Chéchia caps, Bonnet de Police Caps, Model 1919 kepi and wounded, along with single helmets for further variation. These head options are partially interesting to convert troops of the Free French forces in mix with British and US American equipment.

The faces have well done expressions and I build a few sets of three, with Chasseurs á pied / fortress troops using berets in the first picture and colonial troops in the second, using the Chéchia caps. The later can be used to create Algerian, Moroccan or Tunisian colonial troops.

Regular French infantry wore the Adrian helmet, and a 1919 kepi for the officer. The Adrian helmet can be used to convert further nations during early war periods, still using world war 1 equipment.

Now for the further equipment, we have backpacks and side bags, along with various tools, like a spade, bayonets, wire cutters etc. You have to try around a bit, to see how they properly fit to the belts and backs of the models. Partially I'd recommend filling gaps with green stuff or filing away overhanging material.

The Warlord Games plastic models are more of a heroic-scale, or at least hero-ish compared to the true scale of other manufacturers, like Perry Miniatures (second picture #3 and #5). The mix with metal miniatures of Warlords own range depends a lot of the age of those, as there are partially some very early Bolt Action (prior to the acquisition by Warlord Games) around, that are smaller and less bulky. The plastic kits usually mix quite well, in case you want to recreate captured equipment or something similar. Or in case of the French units like the Free French using British or American uniforms.

The miniatures build in this review split into two squads. Neat dynamic poses with lots of options.

Conclusion

At 1,40 EUR per miniature, you get quite a bang for your buck. Two of these boxes should be enough to get you quite a long way for your Bolt Action army with the French forces. With this kit being released, they even made an army box giving you some weapon teams / support weapons, and even a Char 1 B tank.

Great use of the plastic sprue, lots of weapon options and the various heads are great. Not only can you really create a colourful themed army from this, but use these for further conversions and even more specially themed armies. Really good value, I equipped the twelve miniatures build in this review with only a single sprue, only using the bodies from the second one.

Fit was not an issue; the details are properly casted and the clean-up of mould lines was rapidly done.

In case you want to know more about the French Army in World War 2, I can recommend the Men-at-Arms 315 and Men-at-Arms 318 by Osprey for the period of 1939 to 1945. This boxed set is meant for the French troops in Western Europe, in case you're looking for the French forces in the Mediterranean / North Africa, I recommend looking up the Perry range.

Bolt Action is a brand of Warlord Games.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.