QRF 15mm Modern French Desert Force

All,

Moving on to my next set of Modern troops, I'd previously completed a French force in Woodland camo, ready for worldwide deployment.  Here are their counterparts, prepared for action in the more hot and dusty locales.  The vast majority of this force is from QRF, though there are a few Peter Pig guys thrown in at the end (because they're wearing berets, and I wanted some guys wearing berets).  I'm happy with the force, lots of cool stuff to see; I ordered directly from QRF, and service (to include shipping) was quick and very reasonably priced.  The figures have a good bit of variety and character, with some really fantastic poses.  But there are also a couple poses that aren't so hot.  I think, mixed in and in the heat of battle, it's not really an issue, and for me, they're in there because I like the variety and want the various weapon systems represented on the table.  In any case, let's get to the photos.

The whole force, a platoon, of thirty-two men from seven different QRF packs (Leaders, Riflemen firing, Riflemen moving, Riflemen with FELIN, AT4s, SAWs, and Snipers) and one Peter Pig pack.  I painted them with a bit of variation: the base uniform, if you will, is the French desert camo uniform with desert camo helmet cover and desert boots.  But looking at images online, I found quite a few photos of places such as Mali and Afghanistan, that showed French troops with Woodland camo blouses (with desert camo trousers), Woodland camo helmet covers, helmets without helmet covers, and black boots.  So I mixed all of that in quite liberally to give the troops that 'lived in' look.  Of course, they all get my standard desert basing.  Let's get to the troops.

First up we've got two guys from the leader pack: an officer at right and his RTO at left.  I really like the officer pose, and if you can't make it out, that's a pistol holster on the front of his vest.

Reverse.  The RTO pose isn't bad, but that radio is pretty damn small!

Two NCOs from the leader pack.  You can see the guy at left has Woodland camo blouse and helmet cover.

Two rifleman with the FAMAS; I like the poses, and the optic on the guy at right's rifle.  The guy on the right has black boots and no helmet cover.

Reverse.

Another rifleman, firing.  The way it works with QRF is that you get eight figures per pack, and it's three different poses, broken into 3/3/2 per pack.

The next two French riflemen, with each guy wearing the full, correct, desert camo uniform, as luck would have it.  Here you can also see I went with my now-standard three different skin tones for modern forces.

Opposite.

Another rifleman pose, moving forward with muzzle elevated.

Next two guys, love the optics on the weapons, NVG brackets on helmets.

Reverse.

Two troops in the kneeling position.

Next up is the AT4 pack.  I really like the guy kneeling at right.

Reverse.  Yeah, I just have to put yellow on AT weapons.

And this is actually one of my favorite poses, the rifleman standing by, AT4 across his back, looking for trouble.

Then we get to the SAWs.  And I hate to say this, but I'm just really not happy with any of the SAW figures.  The guy at left looks like he's #@$%ing melting, with spaghetti arms.  The guy at right is actually okay, it's just the weapons themselves: they're out of scale, too small.

Reverse.

And then the other SAW pose.  Again, that doesn't look like a SAW, it looks like a belt-fed submachinegun, it's tiny!  And it seems to me this guy is too tall and thin.  Again, I'm happy to have the force, it's really just this one pack.

Lastly from QRF, we have the snipers.  Pretty good poses, a little soft on detail, and the guy on the left is missing the barrel of his rifle.

Reverse.

And then there are some heavy duty snipers.  I don't know what the French use, but apparently this is a .50 caliber sniper rifle.  I didn't want/need any .50 cal sniper rifles, so I carved on it a bit to try and turn it into a belt-fed machine gun.  Not all that happy with my handiwork, but I needed MGs.

Then we get to the Peter Pig troops, of which I used one half of one pack for this force (the other half of the pack went to the temperate force).  I gave them the green berets of the Legion Etranger, couldn't help myself.  Good, crisp troops, as always from PP.

Reverse.

And the final two guys, advancing with FAMAS at the ready.

I hope you dig'em; despite my critical comments regarding the SAW pack, I really do like the force for its variety in poses and the character, and I can't wait to find some time to get them into the fight.  The last piece of this is, I've got two QRF VABs (French wheeled armored personnel carriers) that are cleaned, assembled, and primed, that I need to get around to finishing.

V/R,
Jack