I know. These aren't Austrian. Or French. And they didn't fight at Marengo. But I've had a pile of Cossacks sitting in the lead pile for a few years and for some reason decided that they needed painting. I could rationalise that they are for a future 1799 Suvarov in Italy project, which I have thought about, but they are really because I wanted to paint some Cossacks.
The figures I had were picked up cheaply from eBay and are from Old Glory. There were enough for two 12 man units, one of Ural Cossacks and the other of Peasant Cossacks.
Here is the Ural Cossack unit so far. I was advised that they had red lances, then told that the may not, but for now, they have red lances. Sorry if that's wrong.
Each set has a good mix of poses, and these are very well detailed figures. The Ural Cossacks have three or four poses, two holding lances poses, another that could be holding a standard (or icon), and figure with a musket or carbine (again, I'm not too sure about Cossack armaments). The officer is possibly from the peasant range. The Peasants have a good mix of poses as well, with swords and lances and various head gear. For both sets there are two poses for the horses, and these are suitably small - which looks correct.
Here's a picture showing the mix of poses.
While I was ordering the draught horses for my wagons (see last post) I had to make up the order to £10 as Fighting 15s have a minimum order, so I ordered a couple of packs of Cossacks to see how they compared.
The first set I opened was from Fighting 15 Miniatures, and are figures previously available from Oddzial Osmy of Poland. These are advertised as 15mm, come in four to a pack with two variant figures, and are for 1812. The horses are all one pose and its not a great pose. There isn't a lot of action on these figures - even though the figures are designed without the saddle they are still a little static. The saddle is cast on the horse and looks fine, but again with the single posed horse, they are all too much te same Plus they don't have lances - you have to supply your own. But they are cleanly cast, cheap, and they seem to mix size-wise with the Old Glory range.
As I said, these do not come with lances, but luckily I had a pack of Xyston pike/spear/lances that had been sitting around. I may even swap the bendy Old Glory lances at some point. Obviously these will need cut down to the right size.
I also ordered a set of Eureka Miniatures 7YW Cossacks. Now these are nice figures. They are also quite big as they are 18mm scale, meaning the horses don't look like steppe ponies. But as I said, these are nice. The riders are "split waist", which means the horses have legs attached and the riders are supplied from the waist up. They fit together extremely well, and with a few poses and horse variants, this should allow a good mixed posed unit.
Sorry if the pictures aren't clear enough.
So here are a few different Cossacks together. The Fighting 15s and Old Glory should mix quite well, possibly even in the same unit, but the Eureka, which are also for an earlier period, are maybe too big - even though they are the of those reviewed. These are (left to right) Old Glory, Eureka, Fighting 15/Oddzial Osmy. Next is the horses by themselves so you can see their relative sizes.
A while back I posted my Vendee figures on TMP, and among the comments was a link to Stonewall miniatures, a company based in Cornwall, and their range of 15mm Republican and Royalist figures - Les Carabiniers Cassique. You can find their site here... LINK
Unfortunately there are no photos of this range and a google search failed to reveal any information.
So I placed a small order: LCC05 Republican Mounted Generals; LCC22 Grenadier Command in Bearskin; and LCC12 Royalist Volunteers.
The figures have arrived, so here's how they looked...
The figures come in zip-lock bags with plain coloured card labels which are hand written.
The figures themselves are traditionally scaled 15mm, rather than the larger 18mm scale miniatures. They seem reasonably well cast, with a little flash. The detail is there but not great, so I'm not sure how, or if, my limited painting skills will bring out the best in these.
The Royalist Volunteers come in mixed poses, and these are quite interesting poses. There's even a multi-part figure with separate weapon - I'm unsure how well this will go together. I think these will mix well enough with the Alan Touller range although they are styled differently.
Here is a comparison picture. There are (from left to right) LCC x3, Alan Touller x2 and Magister Militum's Revolutionary French x2...
The next set is the Republican Mounted Generals. I had hoped these would give me suitable figures for my Marengo project, and there may be one I can use. To be honest, I'm slightly confused to what's what in this pack. There's an obvious general wearing a bicorne, a figure with bicorne and standard, one wearing a bearskin and another with a shako. Any help identifying what these should be would be great.
Again these are cleanly cast, but one horse (top left) has a poorly cats leg that will require some green stuff. Another is quite a small horse, with short legs, but these are not the worst mounts I've seen.
These scale well with other brands. Here, these are (left to right) LCC, Alan Touller, and Warmodelling.
The last pack, Republican Grenadier command in bearskin, I had hoped may have been suitable for Consular Guard, but these are for much earlier Grenadiers. I expect these guys should be wearing white uniforms. Not sure if I like these as much as I like the Royalist volunteers, but they may paint up nicely.
All in, I think this is an interesting range, and if I ever get serious about collecting the earlier Revolutionary period I will probably get more of this range. If the quality had been a little better I may have been more tempted.
While painting some of the new Blue Moon Austrian Generals I thought I could do a bit more browsing on the internet for inspiration, and I found some very nice pictures.
These were my favourites, from (I think) the Mollo Collection. I particularly liked the aides, so on my first Blue Moon base I painted the figures as these.
General
General Adjutant
Aide
Staff Officer of the Quartermaster-General's Staff
I also found these two images, that although they were possibly earlier than 1800, they are quite good reference pictures.
So, here are my painted Generals and General Majors....
The sets above are Blue Moon (left) and Old Glory (right).
These sets are Warmodelling (left) and Old Glory (right).
And here are the Blue Moon (right) beside Warmodelling (left). Those two brands match quite well in my opinion.
After painting the new generals and seeing them side by side with other makes they fit in really well, even though the figures themselves had looked smaller. The biggest difference that I now see when comparing the various makes is that the Old Glory figures seem too large and bulky, especially those massive bicorne hats. I think I may dump those figures as I complete the Blue Moon ones.
I still haven't decided who this base will represent, but here are a few more pictures to let you see how nice these figures are. I also think I need some practise on painting horses. I don't think I'm getting them quite right.
The postman delivered a nice bag of miniatures from Old Glory UK today - some Austrian German Grenadiers (a command bag and a bag of grenadiers), which was enough for another 32 man battalion, and also leaving me enough command figures to allow me to complete the last two Grenadier battalions when I get round to buying two more packs of grenadiers.
The other bag was the new Austrian Generals set. These were released along with Blue Moons French, 1809 British, Russian and Prussian sets, which include 10 generals and 10 horse each.
These are lovely little figures, which were cleanly cast and ready to paint with very little preparation (the Grenadiers had a fair bit of flash under their trailing arm - an issue that seems to affect all the Blue Moon miniatures). You not only get 9 different Generals, but also 9 different mounts. And very nice horses they are as well.
I feel that, as with the other cavalry figures I have from Blue Moon, the only issue with these figures is that they are very small, and seem smaller that their infantry counterparts. One based and on the table this may not be noticeable, but I've put together some comparison shots for you to judge for yourself...
These are, top row from left to right, an Austrian mounted officer from Old Glory, a new Austrian General from Blue Moon, a French General from Warmodelling, an Austrian General from Old Glory (I had thought this one was Battle Honours but I was wrong), an Austrian General from AB (this one is Revolutionary Period) and lastly, a French General (Murat) from Sho Boki Miniatures.
Here are the Generals side by side to give a better idea of sizes.
Left to right, these are from Sho Boki, Blue Moon, Warmodelling and AB.
As you can see the Blue Moon figure is a lot smaller, but as the horse is slightly larger than the other makes it may even out the overall height of the mounted miniature.
Getting ready for some more painting, and after a much needed break from masses of white uniforms, I've been picking up some more bits and pieces for my Austrian army.
I came across, and managed to win an opened bag of Old Glory's NAE8 Austrian Caisson.
Popped the bag open this morning and emptied out the parts. Everything was complete and flash free. I separated out the parts and what you get is two caissons, each with four horses and two riders.
The horses are quite small compared to the newer ranges, as are the riders. The riders are also wearing post-1800 shakos, so not really suitable for Marengo, but they are nice little figures with three (maybe four) variants.
I've quickly glued the wheels to the caissons - the rear wheels attach to a separate axle, and the front wheels attach to the from axle (I'm not really sure what the correct name for the front section of a wagon/caisson is). These all fit together easily and cleanly. There's also two small parts that I assume fit to the top/front of the caisson.
All in all, this is a nice little set, though quite small compared to newer figures. Sitting beside my other caisson they seem far to small, but they may look better once painted.
I'm looking forward to the forthcoming Blue Moon wagons and Caissons, which should be the correct size. Hopefully they'll do earlier riders as well as ones in Shako, so that I can have properly uniformed troops for the era.
Its been a while since I posted on my blog - work, children and other issues have been distracting - but in the meantime I've been working away on my Napoleonic collection, while being distracted from my main project of the Austrian army at the Battle of Marengo by Revolutionary French and some Vendean Revolution miniatures, and creating the flags for these guys.
The first post here is about my first scenic items for setting the stage of the Battle of Marengo. One of the most famous areas of this battle was the Fontanone stream, where the French unsuccessfully tried to stem the flow of the earlier Austrian advances.
Rivers and streams have always been an issue for me on wargames tables. Obviously a river or stream needs to be at a lower level than the surrounding ground, so how can this be realistically, and easily, be put on a table? Today, more than ever, there are many products for roads and rivers and other terrain, and some are not at all costly.
A quick search on eBay showed plenty of choice, and picking a very reasonably priced set, I placed an order and waited to see if what I received looked as good at what was advertised. To be honest I was expecting something cheap looking but with potential when I ordered from a small company called Small_Terrain, available here LINK.
What I received was a lot better than I had hoped for. Made from cut MDF and ready painted, these river/stream sections are ready to straight (or bendy) onto the table.
Here's how they describe their items...
"Made from hard wearing medium density fibreboard these river sections feature raised banks flocked with War World static grass and clump foliage, textured water effect, painted and drybrushed . Muddier river water colours can be painted at your request."
Here's how the pieces look as supplied...
My only real issue was the waters edge, where the blue paint slightly overlapped the earth banks, but to be honest, you could live with that.
I decided that, although these looked great already, that I wanted them to match the ground colours that I had on my figures bases, so I repainted the streams banks and the other visible earth. I've managed to source a cheap alternative to the Games Workshop Earth colour I'd been using - Wickes Chocolate Brown, available in a testor pot for about £2 and almost exactly the same colour as the GM paint.
First I painted the stream edges then filled in the rest of the earth...
Once the paint was dry I then drybrushed using a mix of the chocolate brown and a little white...
Then all that was needed was some grass tufts and some tall water weeds trimmed from a doormat...
This gave me enough great looking streams for the Fontanone, all for less than £15. All I need now is a bridge as the troops are struggling to cross the stream in an orderly fashion...
I may repaint the water at a later date. I recently visited Italy and have noticed that the water tends to be a lot less blue than what I have here, but the blue looks fine for now.
While reading Marengo and Hohenlinden: Napoleon's Rise to Power by James R Arnold I got the impression that the Austrian Army of that period was still in transition between the pre-1798 uniform and the post-1798 with the casquet hat still being worn. There is a picture in the book that quite clearly shows this earlier uniform being worn (though I am only assuming the artist got it right).
Then I noticed a picture in the Fields of Glory Napoleonic wargames rulebook that again features that earlier uniform still in use, but with officers wearing the new helmet. I'm sure the picture is from another Osprey publication.
So, with sources suggesting the earlier uniform I decided that some of my army should reflect this.
I already have the bulk of my German battalions started, with a few figures ordered to complete them, but I still hadn't started the Hungarian regiments yet, mostly due to the fact that only one producer of the larger scale 15mm figures makes Hungarian line infantry in helmets, that being AB.
AB are more expensive that the other ranges, this being acceptable due to the fantastic quality of the figures, so I had been holding off in the hope that Blue Moon, or another company, would release these (hint, hint!!!) at a more affordable price.
It eventually made sense that if I needed Austro-Hungarians, and if I was going to have to go with AB, then why not order the earlier French Revolutionary Wars era Austrian Hungarians? So that's what I did, only with a pack of Hungarian command in helmets to finish the 32 man battalion.
The order arrived today, so here is an Out-the-bag review of what I got...
The order had been for Hungarian Fusilier in Casquet Marching (AB-RKK07) x4 and Hungarian Fusilier Command 1798-1806 in Helmet (AB-KK91/93). The delivery was well packaged, as is always the case from Fighting 15's, the UK supplier of AB Miniatures. The figures were well protected with ample bubble wrap.
Rather than come in individual packs, the bulk order of 4 packs of fusiliers were in one zip lock bag, and the command in another.
So what did you get in the bags? The mix of Fusiliers consisted of three poses. These are packed randomly so I assumed it would be an equal amount of each. I had a minor gripe with the fact that there were far more of one pose than of the others, as you can see, but that's only a minor issue. The command set consists of six figures - one each of the three poses; officer, standard, and drummer.
I think it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. AB figures are the TOP when it comes to quality. They really do set the standard. The only flash issue is an easily removed bit at the very tip of the bayonet (though you need to carefully snip this off to avoid losing your tips). The features on the miniatures are well detailed and very realistic. The poses are natural, and the uniforms are accurate. The muskets are well defined and look like muskets and not just sticks with pointy bits. Just perfect figures. I hope I can paint these guys to the standard they deserve.
I think you need to see these beside other ranges to see how good they are, so here is a comparison shot. Sorry its a little fuzzy.
From left to right, these are: Blue Moon, AB, Old Glory, Warmodelling, and Warmodelling. Yes, the last two are both from the same manufacturer, from the same code, and out the same packet! I know not every person is the same height, but that guy is HUGE!!
I now have another battalion in the queue, so less typing and more painting is required. Here is what will be the first battalion of IR52 Erzherzhog Anton Victor Regiment, which will have bright pink facings. That along with the blue trousers should make a change from all the white.
The 32 man Battalion cost a total of £28 including postage, so that makes it about 0.87p per figure to build the unit, with a couple of spare figures leftover.
AB are available from Fighting 15s here.
