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.
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!!
