Sunday 28 March 2021

Gunners Inglorious

Marshal Blücher has assembled General von Pirch's entire division to watch the Prussian artillery at gunnery practice.

With his beloved  Schwarzen Jäger all around him, Colonel Ludwig von Lützow is bursting with pride.

The gunners swing into action like a well-oiled machine, loading the shot...

...and then ramming the charges home.

Blücher gives the order to open fire.

Blücher: Artillerie ... Feuer!

The guns discharge simultaneously with a deafening roar.

It's all a bit too much for the sensitive intellectuals in the Königlich Preußisches Freikorps von Lützow, who turn and flee. Von Lützow is powerless to stop them!

Lützow: Körner! Eleonore Prochaska! Kommen zurück!

Blücher is furious!

Blücher: Lützow!!!

My sincere thanks to Mr A. Gentlemen for allowing me to fulfill my Lützower ambitions.

In other news, which underlines perhaps just how necessary it is to secure a powerful gunline, Mr Rob G in the UK  has sent me some sensational photographs of his superb 6e régiment de chevau-légers lanciers:




I think you've really outdone yourself this time, Rob.

Best regards

WM


Sunday 14 March 2021

Lützow Heavy Weapons

I've been terribly busy with various work projects these last few weeks, but as they've finally slackened off a bit I've managed to get some painting done.

Readers of this blog may dimly recall that Mr A. Gentleman very kindly supplied me with a set of wonderful Hinton Hunt Lützower infantry conversions a few years ago. "If you can bung me a few more," I said, "I'll turn them into gunners". I'm somewhat mortified by how long it's taken me to paint them, but here they are at last.

Depicted below are the other ranks. The first two figures, I believe, are conversions of a Hinton Hunt PN 21: Prussian Landwehr infantryman, marching. The third is a charging variant who I think started life as a BN 72: British Fusilier charging. All I needed to do with them was to pare off their muskets and substitute various artillery implements.



I think the the superb Lützower officer conversion which follows was made from an  AN 50: Austrian Artillery Officer. The only change I made to him was to solder on a new scabbard as the original had broken off. I may have overdone the length a bit.



Their gun is still in the works but when it's finished I'll show them all off properly along with the rest of the Prussian gun line.

While I was about these I decided to have a go at a Garrison Russian grenadier who was very generously supplied to me by Rob Young. Like the Garrison Prussian Landwehr Rob also sent to me, he's a wee bit bigger than a standard Hinton Hunt, but not disastrously so.

He's the first of what is to be a little Austro-Russian side project, which will be matched with a few Bavarians and other satellite units on the French side. I've been dying to do this for ages, so despite the fact that Phase 2 of my main project is not quite complete, a battalion of Garrison Russians is what's up next after the Lützowers are finished.


I can't quite articulate what it is that attracts me so much about Garrisons, but every time I get hold of them I find them absolutely irresistible.

Yours

WM