Vorwärts and all

Marshal Blücher signals a turn to the right

To celebrate the completion of the 2nd Leib Hussars. which is my first full, 12-figure cavalry regiment, I thought it would only be right and proper to have them inspected by that ultimate old hussar, Generalfeldmarschall Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher.

The figure is PN 60: Marshal Blucher, on horse PNH 1, and is another one of John Cunningham's very fine Hinton Hunt recasts.

The Marshal is wearing the blue and red cap that I think is correct for a Prussian cavalry general, but as was the case when I painted General Bülow, I'm not completely sure....

The Leib Hussars veer to the right as directed and thunder by

There aren't too many ways to paint his grey greatcoat and overalls. The flash of red lining under his cape, however, is based on nothing much more than the absolutely inspired version of this figure painted by Ian S. You can see him here on Ian's extraordinary Hinton Hunt Vintage Wargame Figures Blog. I just couldn't paint my Blücher any other way after seeing Ian's version.

A trio of Prussian generals admire the spectacle.

Blücher's completion leaves me with only one more Prussian general staff figure yet to do, which is the aide de camp figure. Anything after that and I'll have to start doing some conversions. Fortunately it looks like it should be possible to achieve quite a lot in this respect with a just a little head swapping!

Preußische Piraten 2

Readers of this blog may have noticed a tendency to flit from cavalry regiment to cavalry regiment without completing anything. I think this was partly because it allowed me to put off an an important decision, which was whether or not to have a go at doing any command figure conversions!

Pictured are my first two attempts, being an officer and a trumpeter of the 2nd Leib Hussars.

The officer was very simple, requiring no more than the removal of his carbine and a slightly different colour scheme.

The trumpeter, on the other hand, was a little trickier as the trumpet is constructed entirely out of solder using a technique known as "stringing". It was the noted Hinton Hunt collector and converter, Steve C, who told me how to do this. Steve's own words tell it best, so here they are:

"I use a 30 watt ANTEX iron with a taper tip. It took me years to get it right but I find the best way is to melt a non-fluxed plumbers solder wire onto the tip and let it build onto the tip until it's almost dripping off . This I think is the critical part.

Clean the figure to be repaired by filing and leaving a bright alloy surface, then gently touch the drop of solder onto the piece to be rebuilt, then 'tease' the iron gently away as the solder stretches. As soon as you have the required length of solder, press the joint into a wet sponge to quench it and it will harden the lead alloy straight away ready for filing to shape .

If you try to be too fast the solder just pulls away, if you try to be too slow you burn the figure away".

Steve's advice also woke me up to the fact that soldering iron wattage is actually quite important. Higher powered soldering irons are probably much too hot for work of this kind!

WM

Prussian Garde du Corps

DK 143 at the gallop

The First Squadron, Prussian Garde du Corps, are complete.

As the castings I need to finish the Leib Hussars are still in the post I should really press on with the second squadron.

A fine body of men

However, there is to be yet another pause in Prussian cavalry production while I deal with another wee project. All will be revealed in the next post.....

In the meantime, I've combined the hussar and garde squadrons to give an impression of what either of the completed regiments might look like. It's making the French rather nervous.

WM

Vive la France!

Preußische Piraten

PN 85: Prussian Hussars, One Piece Casting

The first squadron, (or is it one and half squadrons?) of the 2nd Leib Hussars are nearly complete. The second batch of six, I hope, will not be too far behind.

The question of squadron size has been pre-occupying me a lot lately. Although six-figure squadrons really look the part, in terms of figure ratios they may be a little excessive. Given that the infantry battalions have a ratio in the region of 1:33, six-figure squadrons represent almost 200 men,

Another reason for  adopting a four-figure squadron standard is that most of my cavalry are Der Kriegspielers, which tend to come in groups of eight as it was in packets of eight that they were originally marketed.

The problem with four-figure squadrons, on the other hand, is that they look a little too weedy!

The solution, perhaps, would be to adopt a variable squadron size depending on how many figures are available. It would certainly be the most economical way of using of the figures.

WM

Huzzah Hussars

It's been a slow few weeks on the painting front as my hobby time has been mostly devoted to experiments in soldering bayonets onto broken muskets, of which more in later posts.

However, I couldn't put off the cavalry forever, so opted for what I hoped would be some fairly simple Prussian Leib Hussars. I also really wanted to have a go at painting the rather menacing-looking Totenkopf badges worn by the Regiment onto their shako covers. The result is positively piratical.

Pictured is the single test figure I've completed so far, painted to represent a trooper of the 2nd Leib Hussars. I chose the 2nd Regiment mostly because I liked their red shoulder straps. However, the fact that a few squadrons were also present at Waterloo had something to do with it.

The figure is a very tidy John Cunningham recast of Hinton Hunt PN 85: Prussian Hussar, Charging. He's the first of what is intended to be a 12-figure regiment. I haven't fixed on a standard squadron size yet, but am leaning towards 4-figure squadrons rather than 6 as its easier to find 4-figure multiples than 6.

More hussars should follow in the next post.

WM