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!!
I finally got around to painting the corn stooks I purchased from Timecast. These got quite a quick paint job - undercoat in a sandy straw colour, a wash of Citadels Agrax Earthshade, and a dry brush of the sand with a tint of stomne grey. I highlighted the ties around the corn stooks - even though these would probably have been twisted straw and the same colour.
I decided not to base these separately, but may do so later.
Overall they came out quite well and will add a bit of interest to a table top.
These are pictured with the Museum Miniature hay wagon and Vendee from Alan Toillier.
A while ago I picked up a book from a local charity shop, Napoleon's Army by Col. HCB Rogers. I've not had the chance to read all of it, but what I have read that is pertinent to the Marengo period is interesting though a little sketchy. There's lots of snippets that do more to spark curiosity about the era rather than actually explain it.
What I did like was some of the internal illustrations. I don't think they were produced for this publication as I'm sure I've seem them elsewhere, and there are no credits or sources. My favourite was this one, described as "Infantry in Italy, 1796".
The background buildings are great and I may attempt building some of those in the future. What I really liked were the haystacks, or more accurately Corn Stooks (though they probably had a different name in Italy. I had thought about making these myself but luckily hadn't got around to it when I spotted that Timecast actually had these in their catalogue, specifically in the General Scenic Items range, and available here. They come in 6mm, 10mm and 15mm scales, and at only £2.50 for a pack of ten (the website says 20 but that's obviously an error) the value of these was great.
I'd ordered a pack of Old Glory figures (sidetracked again - I'll post these later but they are SYW / FIW) and included these corn stooks in the order. That was Friday and on Monday they are through the door. How's that for service?
So how did they look? Absolutely fine.
They were well packaged, both the scenic items and figures in a secure bubble wrapped bag. As usual with Old Glory its a big bag of figures with there guns tangled and flag poles bent, but the price is great and there were no broken figures. A bit of care and all is fine with them.
The stooks themselves came well packaged as you can see, so lets pop them open and have a look...
So ten little resin scenic items. They are in different colours for some reason, the resin has a matt feel to it, and they don't stink like some other resin items do.
There are a few variants here. I was expecting them all to be the same, or maybe two designs, but there are quite a few different models here. I like these. They look like they will paint up rather nicely.
A closer look shows a few bubbles, which some may quibble about but I will easily be able to fill those. The bubble all seem to be at the topmost section of the stooks, but these are overall decent little sculpts.
So how do they compare to the figures? They are slightly small, but then most of my miniatures are on card bases that raise the figures. I may base the stooks to compensate, or maybe that will make them take up too much table space. Once painted I'm sure they'll add a bit of interest to the table.
Here's how they compare to some of my French in a quick attempt to recreat the image from the book. (Which reminds me: I really need to rebase those skirmishers)
Maybe not a greatly interesting blog post, but I sometimes feel little things like these make a tabletop game that little bit more fun.
Unless someone points out that Marengo took place in June and the corn wouldn't be getting harvested yet..... hmmm.
Oh, and here's another interesting image from Napoleon's Army. "Troops of the Army of Italy". I like the little wagon and wish we could get more things like that in 15/18mm.
Yet again, its taken a while from starting these figures to getting them finished. I started them away back in September 2014, so not quite a year in the painting. Quite a success for some of my figures.
As I said in Part 1, I am using Old Glory Saxons as Piedmontese as there are not are no appropriate figures available; these were purchased from Timecast UK. Old Glory are either loved or hated. My OG Austrians were great to start with but I soon discovered there are other better sculpts. These are obviously from a different sculptor from the Austrians and the details, faces, weapons etc are much better, but some of the walking poses are a little bit strange.
The main issues with the figures are the collars and the packs. Piedmontese had flat collars rather than raised, and I could find little evidence of blanket rolls.
Nonetheless, these painted up really nicely. I still have to add the flags, and although they are designed, I haven't been able to get to the printers. First my boy had chickenpox and now its my wee girl, meaning I won't get to the printers until next week. Rather than wait I wanted to post what I had done so far.
So here they are. They look a little bright, especially the blue, but that must be from the flash of the camera as they look fine in the flesh...
Here's a preview of the flags. They were created in Adobe Illustrator with a bit of shading in Photoshop.
I also found some reference pictures while searching the internet that I wanted to share. These are various Italian re-enactment groups. The one with the flag with the pale blue border is the La Marina Regiment.
According to James R Arnold's Marengo book, the Piedmontese had "Four National and ten Provincial infantry battalions". I will probably do the other four national battalions, and should probably add grenadier companied to these, but the "provincial" battalions are a little bit of a mystery, so any information would be appreciated.
