Russians Right and Proper

Painting in Humbrols can be a slow and tedious business. One weekend in every painting cycle is invariably devoted to letting the undercoat dry out properly, to be followed, if I'm lucky, with the skin tones for the hands and faces. The weekend after that is then generally all about blocking in the main colours and then letting all of that dry. Things don't really get serious until about week three.  Cavalry are even slower as I find that the horses and riders really need to be dealt with separately. It's only when the horses are finished that I start serious work on the troopers.

All this is my round-about way of saying that I haven't got a lot to show at the moment. All is not lost, however. A few weeks ago, just as I was getting started on my Russo-Germans, the Archduke sent me the following pictures of his glorious Russian Army. This was entirely coincidental, as I hadn't told him that I was working on Russians. 

The Archduke has been working on refurbishing this army for the last sixteen months or so, he tells me. The results are simply magnificent.

WM

Green Jarmins

Somewhat delayed by the ever increasing social whirl that is Wellington Girl's life, I present the 1st Brigade of the Russisch-Deutsche Legion, which was eventually to become the Prussian Infanterie Regiment No.30.

The Russisch-Deutsche Legion march on to the North German Plain...

I was a bit doubtful while I was painting these, but the final result is not as dour as I feared. It seems that the over-the-top flag has worked. They are also helped out a bit by their bright white haversacks.

...with snow on their boots and revenge in their hearts!

Even better, I think, is the nice contrast they make with the Field Battalion Bremen in what is intended to be a 4 to 5 battalion army based on Wallmoden's Corps of 1813-1814.

Wallmoden's first infantry brigade lines up to face the foe.

I think I need to make a start on  the cavalry of the Corps, however, before painting up any more of the infantry.

Have a great weekend.

WM

Command Decision

Lurking somewhere within many vintage 20mm Napoleonics collections are examples of the Der Kriegspielers command set.

Der Kriegspielers sold their command figures as a single set, described as #50: Mounted Officers. There were supposedly eight of them to each pack, but I suspect the eight contained therein may well have varied a bit from pack to pack as there seem to have been more than eight variants produced.

Five of the command figure variants are in the Hinton Spieler collection and are illustrated below:

Three are clearly recognisable as close cousins of the Hinton Hunt Russian, British and French generic generals figures. The chaps on the far left and in the centre, however, look like conversions of the Russian figure.

As these are the only Russian command figures I have, it seemed sensible to choose one for my Russo-German Legion commander. The chap who won this gig was the one on the left, seen vaguely waving his sword around. I thought he'd need a bit of tidying up first, however.

The result is seen below. The new head is from a recast Hinton Hunt PN 5 Prussian line infantry figure.  I used the body of this figure to make a Prussian Foot Guards standard bearer over two years ago and the head has been rolling around in my bits and bobs box ever since.

The main task was to transform his infantry shako into an officer's schmirtze. I did this by sawing off the top and then simply dripping a large blob of molten solder onto it. All it needed after that was a bit of filing and cutting.

He is to be Major General Wilhelm Daniel von Arentschildt, who commanded the infantry of the Legion in 1813 and 1814. Arentschildt was a Hanoverian soldier who had served in India fighting against Tipu Sultan, interestingly enough. He entered Russian service, however, after the French occupation of Hanover and was instrumental in the setting up of the Legion in 1812.

I haven't quite finished the rest of the battalion but they shouldn't be tooooo far off.

Ta ta for now

WM