Sunday 26 November 2017

Rebooting the Reservists

What with the non-appearance of the rest of my Prussian reservists and all that fooling about with Austrians, it's become painfully obvious that I'd been going through a bit of a soft patch, so radical measures were necessary.

The solution, I decided, was to make a start on something I've been dying to do for well over a year, which is a battalion of Garrison French infantry. Those with very long memories may remember that I painted a test Garrison figure in the middle of last year. He's been sitting about accusingly ever since.


The Garrisons, I've decided, will be an 1809-ish era regiment, complete with fancy flank companies. The command group and the grenadier company will be first, not least because it was an excuse to do a few more conversions and some sword-forging on my rail anvil.

Getting the Garrisons prepared and out onto the painting table, I hoped, would motivate me to get back to work on my Prussians, and I'm very pleased to say this has worked. The Prussians have all their muskets and equipment blacked-up now, which means they're finally past the half-way stage. I find that painting always goes quickly after this point as the troops really start to look like proper little soldiers. The complete battalion is now not too far off at all.

WM

P.S. I haven't abandoned my Austrian project - I've just parked it for a wee while until I've made a little more progress on phase two. This needs two more battalions, a cavalry regiment and two gun batteries before I can claim to have reached the half-way point.

Sunday 19 November 2017

Amateur Austronomy

I know, I should be working on Prussians, but all this fooling about with Austrians has distracted me. I couldn't resist getting them all out to have a look at them and to decide which, if any, could be cobbled together into a battalion.

It turns out that there are 98 of them - enough for four battalions with a couple to spare. For those curious to know what 98 distinctly dodgy-looking Austrians look like, they are pictured below.

Bring on the Clones
There was nothing for it after that but to get out my small collection of genuine, factory-painted Alberken/Minifig Austrians by way of comparison. These particular examples, I believe, are:

12 x AN 1W: German Line Fusilier, on guard;
2 x AN 2W: German Line Fusilier Officer;
1 x AN 15W: German Line Fusilier Standard Bearer; and
1 x AN 4W; German Line Grenadier Officer.

The Albert and Ken's

The good news is that having had a closer look at the home-casts, I decided that there may be, just possibly, a dozen or so which are genuine, in which case they're probably examples of the Alberken/Minifig code AN 5 or AN 5 W: Hungarian (or German) Line Fusilier, advancing.

The last shot is a closer view of what is definitely not an original, what might be an original, and one of the AN 1Ws. Do you know, I think one could actually make something of all of them: even the one who seems to be half man and half goat, with a bit of soldering.


What do you think? Should I do it?

Incidentally, I've started to post up a few pages about how I went about painting  the first wee man. If anyone wishes to make any comments (complementary or critical: both are very welcome), proffer advice or ask questions, please don't hesitate.

WM



Sunday 12 November 2017

Kaiserlicking Good

I've been going through an idle patch over the last couple of weeks, which is why I haven't posted anything.

That being said, I've done a little bit more work on my Reservists and also been trying out another little project, which is pictured here. I'm not exactly sure what he is, but the leading theory at the moment is that he's a home-cast pirate of an Alberken Austrian. Early on in my project I acquired no fewer than 96 of these, so there's the beginnings of an army there if anything can be made of them.

If I can successfully create the command group, I may go ahead a paint a whole battalion. It's all part of my cunning plan to persuade my friend, DM, to take up Hinton Spieling. DM has a special thing for Austrians, and said that he just might give it a go if I gave a demonstration of how to paint them. Details about how I went about it will follow in future posts!

Best regards

WM


Edit: Bit of a brain fade there. My friend's initials are DF! Sorry, DF, although I'm sure you would be a very fine Dungeon Master also.