I'm on a bit of a roll and getting some figures finished. And guess what! I've done some Austrians!
I eventually got round to finishing a 16-man unit of Austrian Jägers using Warmodelling's 18mm figures (I only needed 12 but went for a larger unit fe reason). I had started these on four figure bases but felt that this looked wrong, so split them to have two per base.
The figures themselves are not the best that I've worked on recently. Warmodelling were suffering from increasingly poor castings when these were purchased, which they are apparently in the process of correcting. I did order some Hussars from them but the quality of those was terrible - luckily their service is still good and I eventually got replacements, but if you want their figures I would recommend waiting until they are remastered. The jaegers may benefit from this as well hopefully, as pose-wise they are nice enough. Its just some lost detail that affects them.
These seem to be in uniforms which are possibly too late for Marengo, so will be replaced at some point with suitable figures in helmets, if I can find some with the shorter musket.
I've really enjoyed building my small Venetian force of 18mm figures. Some have been a challenge to source - the Ultramarini needing a bit of conversion work to get suitable figures - but the artillery would have been almost impossible until the lovely Austrian Grenzer artillery became available from Fighting 15s and the AB range.
These are wonderful figures. AB are usually great but the early Austrian range is so well sculpted that nothing can compare. And to make things better these figures paint up really easily as well. I'm painting some other figures now from a different company and the casts are nowhere near as clean and detailed, which makes the figures much harder to finish to a good standard.
The guns were also a challenge to source, basing what I was after from some re-enactment photos. These may not be accurate but finding other reference was going nowhere. Even a trio to Venice failed to turn up anything of use - though the museum that I wanted to visit being closed for refurbishment did not help. As the Venetians only had light artillery, and as they were allied to the Austrians, the choice of using some light 3pdr artillery from AB was the best choice.
So here are the two finished guns...
For reference I used these images that were sourced from pictures of re-enactors in Italy. Hopefully what I have achieved reflects the look and feel of the Artigliere Veneto.
So here is the little army so far. Its one of the most colourful armies I have so far. The next unit will be wearing something different again, and then the cavalry will bring even more colour.
