Cossacks - 15mm Old Glory

Back in March I posted a review and comparison of 15/18mm Cossack figures, and after picking these as my most "almost finished" unit they were quickly finished.

I've painted a few 15mm Old Glory figures recently and I've been really impressed by how well they come out. These are no different as they paint up really well.

I'm not planning on doing Russians, unless of course someone does Suvarov's troops for the Swiss/Italian campaigns.

The only issue I have with these figures is the bending of the lances. I'd replace these with steel lances if I had time.

15/18mm Austrian Cavalry Comparison Part 2

After I did the comparison post on Austrian cavalry it was pointed out that I'd missed some. Obviously I don't have every manufacturers figures to hand to compare them, but there are some that I did have that I forgot about including, so here is another comparison with other figures.

These are, from left to right in both pictures, an Austrian Hussar from Blue Moon, a Uhlan from Battle Honours, a Dragoon from Boki Miniatures on a Campaign Games Miniatures horse, a line infantry officer from Old Glory, and an AB general.

These are all roughly compatible, although the Old Glory figure and horse seem a lot smaller. For other Old Glory mounted figures I've remounted them on larger horses and they look fine, but this is a single piece casting, so maybe not the best representation.

The Battle Honours figure is a little small as well, but would possibly benefit again from going onto a larger mount.

Blue Moon's figure is by far the smallest of the separately cast riders, and although he's on a larger mount he still looks like a very small 15mm figure, especially when you consider that Blue Moon's foot figures are closer to 18mm than 15mm. The other issue with this range is that the horses are very thick through the body, so other figures can't sit on them comfortably.

So, the only range that I would like to have shown that is missing is the Fantassin/Warmodelling/Battle Models range.

Here's a link to the last comparison in case you missed it... LINK

Hopefully this is a help again.

LD3 Erzherzog Johann Light Dragoons - AB and Boki Miniatures

The 3rd Light Dragoon Regiment FM Erzherzog Johann Baptist is the first unit of my light dragoons that I've finished. I've used the brand new Austrian cavalry from Boki Miniatures for the troopers, AB Miniatures for the command, with horses from Campaign Games Miniatures (Boki supply the figures without horses).

I'm quite happy how these turned out, though to be honest I struggled with a lot of the detail. Sho Boki had some excellent detail that I couldn't paint with these old eyes and fingers, especially on the saddle cloth. I wasn't sure if they should have had white or green jackets as there is conflicting information as to when, or even if, the coats of every unit were changed to white, but my plan is to create 4 units, two with bicorne and two with kasket, with one of each in white and one in green. Here's the plan to ease confusion (it may not be 100% correct, but I'm hoping to show the variety that may have been seen in these units).

So here are the figures...

These are great figures and fit in really well with my collection. I've ordered more horses and Boki is planning to release new figures really soon, including line infantry officers, so there will be loads more mounted miniatures coming to my collection soon.

15/18mm Austrian Cavalry Comparison

Whilst I've managed to build a large contingent of Austrian infantry and artillery for my Marengo campaign, and have a few French infantry and cavalry units ready, I had been neglecting my Austrian cavalry.

With a few new releases becoming available it was the right time to sort this out, and a few orders were placed.

All the suppliers I received figures from provided a great service and everything arrived safely and on time.

The first order to arrive was from Fighting 15s who as the supplier of AB miniatures here in the UK. I ordered some Revolutionary period Austrian infantry, and more importantly for this post, their Dragoon command set. There are two figures in this set, an officer and a bugler, and these are as good as you would expect from AB.

The next order was from Campaign Games Miniatures in Barcelona, and was of a set of 12 Austrian Chevauxlegers / Dragoons in charging poses that had just been released. I think I may have been one of the first to order these. You can see these already painted in an earlier post with a full review.

Last to arrive was an order of Revolutionary period Dragoons in bicornes from Sho Boki Miniatures in Estonia. Supplied without horses, these mounted figures are designed to compliment the AB range. And they certainly do that, and the command set that I'd ordered from AB fit really well. They're on the painting table at this very moment, and will be mounted on horses from Campaign Games Miniatures (these aren't quite as good as AB but the cost is a lot lower, and you can order individually posed horses). The detail on these is great and the faces paint really nicely - those are done already. The moustaches are great! I also received a couple of free figures from Sho Boki as I'd won the "guess the figure" competition on TMP.

One of the freebies was a Chevauxleger with a peaked casket hat, which is as nice as the dragoon figures, though the head, or maybe neck, looks a little strange. It's maybe too narrow. I'll paint this one up and see how it looks.

So here are the unpainted figures for you to compare.

These are, from left to right, AB officer, Boki dragoon, AB bugle, Boki Chevauxleger, then 2x CGM Chevauxleger/Dragoons. As you can see they all mix very well in size and could easily compliment each other in the same army.

AB are available here.... LINK
Boki Miniatures here.... LINK
CG Miniatures here.... LINK

Jager-Regiment zu Pferde Graf Bussy

In the campaign of 1800, and especially at Marengo, Johann Maria Philipp Frimont, Count of Palota, Prince of Antrodoco, distinguished himself greatly as a cavalry leader, and in the next year became major-general.

As part of Frimont's brigade the Bussy Light Horse, or Jager-Regiment zu Pferde Bussy, played an important part in the battle. Consisting of 186 men in 2 squadrons, the Bussy Horse Jager regiment included many French emigres. During the battle, according to Stutterheim, the "Bussy Jager Regiment (émigré French) came on, galloped from the main road and fell into the rear of the Guard. This attack decided and ended all fighting. Many of the Guard were sobered down, the bigger part and four guns surrendered".

I was able to find very useful reference images for this unit, including Mollo and Knotel, plus Osprey.

 

For the figures I had a lot of choice, with most companies supplying suitable miniatures. As luck had it though, just as I was about to go looking, I got an email announcing Campaign Games Miniatures had just that day released their Austrian cavalry. They had a 12 figure unit available, so an order was placed and arrived a day or two later... not bad for coming from Barcelona.

These new figures are nicely cast, with no flash and minimal mold lines. The poses are reasonable animated, with my only issue with them being that the uniform under the raised arms looks a bit strange. Otherwise they are great, and a joy to paint. The set I bought included a standard, which probably is totally wrong for this unit, but I included it anyway. I'm really happy how these came out.

Les Carabiniers Classique - 15mm Revolutionary Range Part 2

My review of some the Les Carabiniers Cassique range was very popular and I was happy how the Revolutionary General painted up, so I ordered a few more packs from this 15mm range.

This time I ordered Camp followers and Priests, Camp Followers and Sutleress, and Republican Artillery, and as before the service was great from Stonewall Figures - the figures only took a few days to arrive after paying securely  with paypal through their website. Edit: I just noticed that on the packs it says Les Carabiniers Classique, and not Cassique as it says on Stonewalls website.

The first pack I opened was LCC11 - Republican Artillery. You get one gun and four crew in the bag for £3.50. There is no information to what weight of gun this is, or whether these are foot or horse artillery, but I would guess they're foot.

The figures and gun are well cast, mostly - unfortunately the leg fell off the kneeling figure. It was still there (you can see the leg sitting next to the badly wounded figure) so hopefully it can be reattached.

The gun goes together quite well. I have to assume its a heavy calibre judging by the size of the gun. Feel free to leave comments if you know what this gun is...

The next set opened was LCC 06 Camp Followers and Sutleress, consisting off "Dismounted hussar leading heavily laden horse and three Sutleress".

The three sutleress figures are very similar, and quite small so I couldn't see the differences until I looked at the enlarged photos. These should be reasonably useful, but the real reason for getting this pack is the lovely dismounted who is carrying a bag over his shoulder and has a horse with baggage draped over its saddle. Although the figure is a small 15mm figure, it doesn't look too bad and I'll be using this on a general base. The detail on the braiding on the uniform and pelisse looks good and should paint up very well - especially if your eyes and hands are better than mine are now.

 

Next we have LCC 07 Camp followers and Priests, which includes "Three Priests and dismounted cavalry officer with mount".

There are three different figures for the priests - but I'm not sure why these are in a Republican set. I would have thought these would have been better along with the Royalist sets. Again these are very small, with quite limited poses, but overall they are interesting figures.

The dismounted cavalry officer is another useful miniature, again wearing a pelisse, but with a bicorne. I'll paint this guy up as an aide or guide.

Of course its always helpful to see these miniatures alongside some other ranges, so here are some pics with AB and Warmodelling for scale...

I'm not 100% sure about this range as the quality seems to vary, and the little information that goes along with them leaves some of the figures a bit of a mystery, but overall I'm finding them useful little additions.

I'll paint some of these up and post pictures when I can.

Cossacks!! 15mm Comparisons.

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.

 

There's is some great info on Cossacks on a TMP thread here... http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=378273