Bolt Action - Review: Gorgon Studios French Foreign Legion

A few weeks back I was checking out some of the Bolt Action online world and my attention was drawn to a new series of French Foreign Legion miniatures by a company I was not familiar with. The company is called Gorgon Studios and runs out of the US. It stocks various ranges of 28mm including Spartans and Old West amongst others but most importantly for us have a World War 2 range!

The range includes British, Norwegians, Germans, Poles and French Foreign Legion (FFL). Now remove yourself from the impression of Legionaries only in Kepi's roaming a desert trailing an empty water bottle, as the 13th Demi Brigade fought a campaign in Norway in an attempt to keep the Germans from the vital Norwegian ports. In 10 days the French forces pushed the Germans back to almost the Swedish border however the collapse of the French in the Battle of France forced their withdrawal back to England.

Traditional image of the French Foreign Legion

Gorgon Studios currently have 12 miniatures in the FFL range all sculpted to reflect the campaign in Norway with amazing looking sheepskin coats and Anoraks and armed with rifles. The range is currently limited to rifles and pistols only but I am crossing my fingers they expand it with SMG's and I am told by the company that an LMG pack will be available very shortly. Within a few minutes I had placed my order for all 12 miniatures and handed over Paypal details and cursed the lack of teleportation technology. The website is really easy to use and the presentation is top notch, big plus for the team at Gorgon Studios. The cost is very competitive at $9 USD for four miniatures and to ship to Australia it was around $15 AUD which is about normal from the US.

About 2 weeks later the package arrived and I was immediately impressed with the quality and sculpts. I have several squads of the Artizan FFL already which I rate very very highly and I found out that Mike Owen is the same sculptor, this really made my day.  I couldn't wait to base them and splash some paint on. They required only minor clean up with some mold lines and were ready to go.

The Commander and his escort

The paint went on so easily and with minimal effort they look pretty good, which to me is the sign of a great quality miniature.

A side of the French Foreign Legion you will rarely see!

Gorgon Studios Commander v Artizan Designs Commander

The miniatures from Gorgon Studios can easily be intermingled with Warlord, Crusader and Artizan troops but due to the range being only 12 miniatures compiling a force of these alone is not yet viable. I am going to run them primarily as veteran Alpine Chasseurs to add some nice flavour to my French forces.

The full squad of 12 all done and dusted

Overall I am massively impressed with these guys and will be buying more when they release them in the future, in fact it is really difficult not to buy some of their other ranges and start another army.