Oltramarina Schiavoni - Venetian skirmishers Part 4

The first unit of Oltramarina Schiavoni are now finished - a 12-figure unit in skirmish order. These have turned out really colourful and great little characters. Hopefully I'll get the chance to put these on a tabletop and see if I can put up a stronger fight against the invading French than the actual Venetians managed. As far as I can find out it seems that these were not inferior troops, nor badly trained or equipped, but suffered from a lack of conviction from the Venetian political leadership and from a lack of support from the Austrians.

I've also found a few more reference images and have artwork set up for the flags for at least the three battalions I have planned for this small army.

First, here are the figures...

So the next plan for this army is a full battalion of these in close order. I've converted all but a couple of these and they look good. Once I'd done a few it got really easy. I could probably have narrowed the hat a little at the top, and the red cloth should have had a yellow tassle, but for 15mm figures I think I'll stick with what I have.

One question I am asking myself though, is should I trim of the bayonets? All the images show them without.

Here's a great image of these troops fighting in close order (and taking quite a pounding!). The troops firing from the window look like the 16 Reggimento Treviso. The artillery in the background is interesting as well.

Oltramarina Schiavoni - Venetian skirmishers Part 3

I painted and based four of my Oltramarini figures as skirmishers as a tester to see how they work. The minimal conversion on these seems to have paid off and these are much better representations of this unit. I've now converted enough figures to finish off the skirmishers, plus the figures for a command base for a unit fighting as a battalion.

Here's the first few...

These are really nice figures to paint, with loads of detail and character. I'm not sure if the faces that look a bit dodgy are down to the figures, but I think its probably down to my painting.

As you can see these are a much better size of figure compared to the Essex figures.

Seen next to my AB Austrians and the other Old Glory Italians, my Piedmontese, these figures don't look as weird as the tiny Essex ones.

So I have another 8 to do for the skirmishers, and then I'll do flags and the 32 man battalion.

Oltramarina Schiavoni - Venetian skirmishers Part 2

After finding  and painting some figures for the Oltramarina Schiavoni that I was happy with, and after getting some very good feedback, I then decided that they weren't what I wanted after all. I felt they were too small and the single pose limited me to a couple of skirmish bases. I'd also spotted a picture online that showed this unit fighting as a full battalion and it appealed to me to do the unit as that and as the skirmishers.

I'd had a few suggestions for alternative miniatures and Seven Years War era Russian Pandours was one of the most interesting. I did a search online and saw that a few manufacturers had these, or had them planned. Then I spotted the Old Glory pandours and thought they were almost perfect. A quick check of the Timecast website, and I was confused. No Russian pandours! There were Austrian pandours listed, but nothing under the Russian list.

As this didn't make sense - there was a picture online of Russian pandours - I sent an email off to Timecast, and lovely, helpful people that they are, I had a reply within a few hours. The figures I were after had been re-listed as Russian Light Infantry Skirmishing. They had a bag in stock and were even good enough to give me a breakdown of what was included in the set.

I placed the order and two days later I had the delivery (although my daughter had a strange idea to leave the package on her bedroom floor - I only spotted it while looking for one of our cats).

The bag contains around 50 figures, comprising three poses of infantry, plus one drummer, one standard, and one officer. These are very nice sculpts. Full of character and detail. I've said before, when Old Glory are good, they're very good.

So how do they look? Here they are so you can see....

As you can see, they are a much better size for my collection. I'm a lot happier that these will fit alongside the other figures I have planned for this small army.

The main difference from what I want is the tall head gear, one of which has a large front plaque, almost like a Russian grenadiers hat. I took one figure (the one with the most bent musket) and quickly snipped off the top of the hat, bringing it down to the same size as seen in the images of the re-enactors. I cleaned the rough cut up and added a small bit of green-stuff, and it looked just right. A very easy conversion! So I did four more...

Sorry about the blurry photo. Hopefully you see the conversion better here...

These look like they will be perfect once painted and the head gear change is very simple and easy, so I am happy to do a battalion of 32, plus around 8 or more on skirmish bases.
I just need to find, or make a fictional/speculative, flag for these guys and I think I'll have another great looking unit.

Then I may think about the cavalry!!

Oltramarina Schiavoni - Venetian skirmishers in 15mm

While doing a bit of internet digging I discovered quite a lot of pictures of Venetian re-enactors in Napoleonic uniforms, so I've been researching the Venetian armies that fought (very briefly) against Napoleon.

Most of the imagery shows troops wearing Austrian style uniforms, mostly blue with white facings. But I also spotted some guys wearing red coats with dark blue facings and trousers. A bit more digging revealed these to be Oltramarina Schiavoni (or sometimes just referred to as Ultramarines).

Oltramarina translates roughly as "from over sea" and was the name given to Albanian and Balkan light troops that fought in the service of the Venetian, and other Italian, armies.

The re-enactors had really cool looking uniforms and I was inspired to try and recreate a unit of these. Here are some of the pictures I found...

 

There didn't seem to be very much in the way of easy to find contemporary illustrations, but I eventually tracked down this image.

 

I wished there were figures suitable for these, and while looking for something totally unrelated on eBay I spotted these listed as being Essex "Napoleonic Albanian Musketeers" on a Buy-it-now.

 

 

These looked close enough, so I placed the order, and two days later I had these drop through the letterbox. I painted and based two up this morning to see how they look, and they certainly work as the Oltramarina Schiavoni. The only issue is their size compared to other figures. I've also done some comparison images as well.

 

 

These are (from left to right) Blue Moon, Old Glory, Essex, and AB. As you can see, the Essex are tiny compared to Blue Moon and AB, but until someone does the correct figures I'm sure they are good enough.