Artillerie à cheval de la Garde impériale - Old 28mm flats

Pictured above is a set of French horse artillery of the Imperial Guard, 2nd Empire.  Purchased on German eBay, they were sold as Heinrichsen and there's no particular reason to question that. They are the small figures prevalent ca.1860.

Bidding was light and I got them cheaply. Perhaps because the figures had been modified at least to some extent and clearly the bore brushes had been redone due to breakage.  Good idea but I think the previous collector erred in his choice of very light gauge wire. As seen below, I reworked this and of course repainted. I wonder about the figure at left, a bit larger and more dynamically posed, perhaps he's from another set.

 

And the "original" paint jobs below in comparison to my own rework.  I found also when I stripped the paint that the figure reaching into the pouch had been quite crudely modified with the pouch and hands cut away. Rather than tossing the figure, I repainted with his arms at his sides (see last photo). The figures as sold certainly have the period look of simple facture paint, but enough was changed that there's absolutely no guilt on my part about "colorizing Citizen Kane", a criticism once leveled against me at TMP for committing sacrilege by repainting antique figures.

As can be seen in contrast with the 33mm Rieche figure, the old 28mm's are quite diminutive.

And a couple of parting shots.

Rather statically posed soldiers but I do like the uniforms, a definite throwback to Napoleonic times. Too bad there's no mounted figures in this grouping, but likely some will surface sooner or later.

I had intended to post the 28mm Austrians next but as they're pretty mediocre, I'll put up some Rieche Franco-Prussian war sets soon.

Heinrichsen French Infantry - Old 28mm Flats

Here's a set of old Heinrichsen 28mm flats which I've gradually repainted over the months.  More about them on this previous post.  It's a bit embarrassing to see that I'd predicted a 3 week completion time for this unit at that time, now 7 months past. Not that they take long to paint, they don't. But I'd left them in the queue 3/4 completed until this month. Well, better late than never !

Yes, they are small.  This photo showing the vagaries of scale between musicians of the Heinichsens and Eureka Toy Town soldiers (ostensibly 28mm scale), is rather comical.

"I'm 28mm." .... "No, I'M 28mm !"

And as completed.

If I game with them, I'll need to mount them simply on cardboard bases as repeatedly knocking down the ranks like dominoes while setting up for the photos was an exercise in frustration. 

I do like the old school appeal of these figures, and as a lot were produced back in the 19th Century, there's enough old sets and castings still around to make a go of assembling both a French and Austrian army.  The unit sizes tend to run around 20 foot, 10 horse which actually suits horse & musket gaming in the Featherstone style rather nicely. Most of them are factory painted and can certainly be sent to battle that way for the near term. And Heinrichsen has re-issued a few things.

Next up, first painted examples of some Austrians in this same antique style of figures.  I also recently scored a very nice deal on a set of Garde Imperiale horse artillery on German eBay, which will effectively take care of the guns for the French side.

Old Heinrichsen French - 28mm Flats

The Risorgimento or Italian wars of 1848-1866 have been of interest to me for several years now, since first reading about these battles of which I had previously known nothing virtually nothing.  I've been looking for flats depicting this era off and on and the pickings seem to be slim when it comes to figures currently in production. However, the antique flats do appear on eBay and the Berliner Zinnfiguren Flea Market from time to time.

That's how I acquired this old set of French infantry.  Actually it took about 3 purchases of smaller groups to scrape together a minimal battalion of 21 foot plus a mounted commander.  As you can see in the first photo, the factory paint has seen better days. As indeed you'd expect given that the figures were probably produced when battles like Solferino were current news.

First of all they are small:

Nor have even the Germans been entirely consistent in scale over the years.  From left to right, old Heinrichsen 28mm & 30mm, Keiler, Rieche Brothers.

 

How do they look when stripped and repainted ?  Not too bad, I think.  Somewhat crude compared to the newer flats but they do appeal.  As you can see, the pose is the same but the men in overcoats are executed in a different style from the guys in tunics.  Judging by the shakos, they predate the Franco-Prussian wars. 2nd Empire experts can help me out here, but I'm guessing ca. 1855-1860 is about right. 

And on the plus side, their simplicity and diminutive size makes them the fairly easy to paint.  I'm painting them five at a time in assembly line fashion and should finish the battalion within three weeks.

 

 

1848 Prussians 2 - 28mm Flats

Finished the Prussian infantry battalion, 21 figures in all.  As mentioned in the previous post, they are old Heinrichsen castings, first issued in 1853.  Painted with acrylics.

I enjoyed painting these and the work went quickly on account of their small size and relatively simple uniforms.   I do plan to base them, knocking them down like dominoes a few times while setting up the photos certainly reinforced that as being the right approach.

Prussian Infantry of 1848 - 28mm Flats

Here's another set of old Heinrichsen flats, #3099, originally issued in 1853.  As can be seen in the above photo, they are quite diminutive.  Nominally 28mm, they measure 25mm from the feet to the eyes.  The quality of these antique designs never ceases to amaze me, could have been newly issued by a flats editor last year and no one could say they're crude or overly toylike.

The set contains 21 figures, an officer and 20 infantrymen in 4 poses of 5 figures each. That is, the two seen below and two other figures firing and loading. I got two sets so as to match identical figures in each rank which will make for two battalions when completed.  The small size of the figures makes the work go quickly even when painting them with reasonable care. Painted in acrylics.

There's a couple of enticing ways I can go with these 28-30mm figures. First, borrowing shamelessly from John Bertolini's "Great European War of 1850" concept, I could eventually make three armies, French, Austrian and Prussian (or German Confederation).  Old school rules like Featherstone's seem right for this.  Secondly, something circa 1900 with a Funny Little Wars flavor is another possibility.  Although shooting down my figures with a spring gun is off limits, no doubt less violent artillery rules could be substituted.   

Wargames Factory WSS Cavalry - Part 2

Completed the three sample Wargames Factory plastic cavalry yesterday.  From left to right we have three French horsemen: a Grenadier a Cheval de la Maison du Roi (the only use I can see for this head), line trooper and a dragoon.  I filed the front plate on the horse grenadier cap to make the dragoon head, not a perfect French dragoon's stocking cap, but the best I could do with it.

Not too bad, really.  Yes, the assembly is time-consuming, not all the poses you need are on the parts sprues and like the infantry you can take issue with some of the sculpting choices.  But if you don't mind gluing stuff together, the price is right.

To my eyes, the biggest flaw is the riders sitting a bit far back. This can't be easily helped, as they ride with bent knees right up against saddle holsters. Had these been placed a bit further forward towards the horses' shoulders, I think it would have helped the appearance.    That and the horses' legs look a tad short to me.

It's interesting to compare with these old Heinrichsen flats in 3/4 profile, the sword pose I wish could be made right off the parts sprues.

Wargames Factory WSS Cavalry - Part I

I assembled a few samples of the newly released Wargames Factory 28mm Plastic cavalry last week.  In the French style, we have from left to right, a Grenadier a Cheval, line trooper and dragoon.

The box art looks good, a nice computer rendering on the front of the box and a few assembled but unpainted troopers on the side of the box. Definitely an improvement over the infantry boxes where the uneven quality of the collector painting might actually discourage off the shelf hobby shop purchases (if indeed there's any actual "brick-and-mortar" store sales volume).

The rider sprues give a variety of arms and heads, but whether or not you'd consider them a "good variety" depends upon what your expectations are.  The basic tricorne heads are fine, a couple very nice new ones and two others carried over from the infantry.  Aside from that, it looks like the sculptor cut a few corners but making all the others (in threes) identical - tricorne officer, Austrian/Bavarian cuirassier, horse grenadier and an oddball suitable only for French Grenadiers a Cheval de la Maison du Roi.  This latter I don't mind as I plan to use them for my imagi-nation foot grenadiers, but otherwise they're of very limited utility.  The torsos are rather basic but look serviceable enough.

The left hand for holding the reins is good, you get a variety of right hands, but I'm not terribly enthused over the pose of the sword. Would have much rather seen it in the "present" position held upright back at the shoulder than with the arm outstretched in the "hell for leather" charge posture. And I'm not visualizing any way to fix that with the parts on hand.  I really wish WF had made a torso as a one piece casting with the right arm holding the sword in desired position. Oh, well. The rider's body, once you get it assembled, pops easily and securely onto the saddle.

The horses aren't bad.  The two halves snap togther with little visible seam and the tail assembly is a clever bit with a smallish disc shape at the base which holds the tail firmly in place once you glue the halves together.  Although I would have preferred one or two of the tails hanging at rest for the standing horse position.  The neck/head assemblies are a bit disappointing, there's a noticable seam where the neck glues to the body and the mane comes up short, leaving a somewhat unsightly gap. The other thing I don't like, three of the four heads are turning left or right, the only head facing straight ahead is on the extended neck (galloping pose).  There aren't many different gaits on the sprue but you can mix and match the left/right bodies to create some different looks. To my eyes, the horses look a bit weak in the hind quarters, but I think this is party an optical illusion created by the somewhat oversized cloak rolls.

For people who complain the infantry assembly is fiddly: "you ain't seen nothin' yet".  They'll be hating life once they start gluing these bad boys together. As for the bases, hope you like your cavalry at 25mm spacings. With these particular figures, I don't.  The bases in the photo are my own, made from sheet styrene, thin enough to cut easily with scissors. As the hoofs aren't pegged in any way (and indeed the various gaits probably preclude it),  I wonder about the potential frequency of horses getting knocked off their bases when being handled or transported. 

In the next post, I will show these examples as painted.

Wargames Factory Imagi-nation Battalion - 28mm Plastic

Finished the first battalion of the Wargames Factory multi-part plastic infantry.  As they're rather generic WSS troops, I thought they'd make a good foundation for an Imagi-nations project where you can build some nice troops to your liking and keep the button counters at bay.  Some have criticized the figures for the fiddly assembly.  Honestly, never found that to be much of a problem when for 2/3 of your soldiers: glue on the head, glue on the sword - all done.  Now as for building the cavalry, yes there will be solid grounds for complaint from those who detest putting small part together. But that's another topic.

Aesthetically, I'm pretty happy with the sculpting.  I did what I could to mitigate the "long neck" look which has been complained about.  I converted the legs and feet to gaiters, cut off the offending portion of the goofy upside down sword hilts.  The figures still look at tad bulky (although not consistently so), which I think can mostly be put down to the thick legs and the pose of the right arm. The latter could have easily been mitigated by moving the cartridge box back around towards the rear of the figure had the sculptor chosen to do so.

Anyway, without further preamble, here is the first completed unit of le royaume de Bourgogne (aka the kingdom of Burgundy), infantry regiment Chasselas.