Bavarian Blues

I'm going to be busy with other things over the next few days, so this week's post is a few days early.

My commission is still not complete, and the reason for it is not totally unrelated to this chap.

The sad truth of it is that I've been captured by a horde of Bavarians. As they're going to require rather a lot of flags, I thought I'd better better find out whether trying to paint my own was going to be feasible. I should, perhaps, have found this out before succumbing to them.

So here is my first attempt. The figure is a Der Kriegspielers DK 174: Bavarian Line Infantry, at the Ready. I chose him because his musket was broken off at the hand and thus the prospect of removing the rest of it would be altogether less traumatic. I don't think I'd really have the nerve to hack into a perfectly serviceable figure.

I think there's definitely room for improvement!

I promise that there will be no more mucking about until I've completed the commission.

WM

A Whiff of Grapeshot

The small commission I'm working on is not quite ready to put on show, but all is not lost as the French artillery detachment I've been working on alongside it is almost complete. I decided to have a go at these as something was clearly required to deal with all those pesky Prussian cavalry

Three of the figures are Der Kriegspielers DK 22: French Line Artillery, 1809. The fourth man holding the rammer, however, is rather more unique, being a conversion of the Hinton Hunt figure FN 254: French Line Infantry Voltigeur 1807-1812, charging. Roy very kindly supplied this man as part of a swap for the Young Guard Voltiguers I painted for him earlier this year

The gun they are serving is a French 8 pounder which the chaps over at Warrior confirm was manufactured by them. I'm undecided about whether or not to repaint it, but may leave it as it is as the paint job is not too bad. I'm also not at all sure about what I would use for French Artillery Green as Humbrol doesn't seem to make this colour any more!

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!

Alberken Interlude

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio....

Although work continues on the Prussian Garde du Corps (and the hussars too, when I can get some more), I haven't got anything to show at the moment apart from an intriguing little bit of wargaming history.

Pristine in their shininess! Never been out of the box, I'd say

Pictured is a box of Alberken toy soldiers. I'd heard tell from the wonderful The Old Metal Detector blog and from a few other sources that Alberken (later to become Minifigs) had originally sold their ranges in boxes of ready-painted soldiers, so I was delighted to find a real example of something that is probably quite rare these days. What also made them fun was that they seem to have been produced at more or less the very moment that Alberken of Newark in Nottinghamshire became Miniature Figurines of Southampton.

..and so they emerge, blinking, into the sunlight!

The other reason I bought it was that the troops inside were French Old Guard Grenadiers (Alberken code FN 21), which you can never have too many of in my book. However, having got them out and had a look at them, I find that I don't have the heart to strip them down and repaint them. Before I came to New Zealand I was a military museum curator (which is just about the best job in the world, by the way, as long as you're not too fussed about trying to get a mortgage), and such an act would be sacrilege to a museum professional. What is more, despite being about 50 years old, they appear to be in absolutely mint condition. I wish I could say the same.

That strange tubular object is a pistol, I think!

Click on the pictures for a closer look.

Although the poses seem to be unique to Alberken, it is instantly clear why the appearance of this range led to the most almighty copyright row with Hinton Hunt.

Rare, interesting and  completely useless!

However, I think it's fair to say that they're not up to the Hinton Hunt standard. I've learnt from experience that there is often a lot more detail once the paint is off, but in this case I suspect that there is probably not all that much to be found!

So, not the solution to my Old Guard Grenadier shortage, but little charmers all the same.

WM

Prussian Rearmament

Worth a try. There'll be no árm in it!

I've been forced  to take a break from the Leib Hussars for a while due to the belated realisation that I was a couple of castings short. Reinforcements are on the way, but in the meantime I'm cracking on with another unit of Prussian cavalry. I'm hoping that it'll help me get over my cavalry aversion, which lingers on despite having completed three squadrons.

The implement of triumph or disaster approaches....

The unit I've chosen is the Prussian Garde du Corps. There were several reasons for this: it would give me much-needed experience in painting white uniforms; it would brighten up my otherwise sombre-looking horde of Prussian blue meanies; and it would give me another chance to play with the soldering iron. The figures I have for this regiment are 12 x DK 143: Prussian Guard Cuirassier.

Until a few weeks ago my only experience of soldering was a week's work experience in about 1982. The job was to remove components from old circuit boards. It taught which was the hot end, but not much else.

Having tackled the Swiss musket butt conundrum by simply constructing them out of blobs of solder, the next thing to work out was how to re-attach things that had broken off. I'd absolutely no idea how to do this before I started, so what follows was entirely experimental.

Just before I became entirely too overconfident!

As the pictures show, the problem in this case was how to re-attach a broken arm. There was no obvious way to do this apart for holding it next to the casting, applying heat and solder and then seeing what happened next.

What I thought I would try to do was "paint" a little bit of solder over the join with the tip of the iron, in the hope it would sort of seep into the crack and bind the two parts together. At first this seemed to go rather well. What is not pictured is what happened next, which was the sudden attachment of an enormous blob of solder over the join. This immediately set hard and looked impossible to get off without melting half the figure.

The patient (on the right) is restored

The only thing for it was to set to with a craft knife and a file to see if I could could get something at least vaguely resembling the original arm. It took about 15 minutes, but the result, I'm very glad to say, repaid the effort. The new arm even seems to be rather stronger than the original. All my DK guardsmen have been cast with a distinct "nick" in their sword arms which is definitely a bit of a weak spot. If you click-to-embiggen the last photo showing the old and the new side by side you'll see what I mean.

The next thing, of course, was to paint him. He was rather fiddlier to do than the hussars due to his much more complicated fixtures and fittings. The completed regiment, I'm hoping, will look quite fetching.

I got away with it, but more though luck than judgement!

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