Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Biedermeier Imagi-Nations Redux - 40mm



Where to begin yet another abrupt change of direction.  Following Castles of Tin must be akin to tailing a drunk driver: tire tracks across a lawn here, there a mailbox run over, further down the road a parked car sideswiped.  After finishing the Prussian battatalion, thought I'd reward myself with a change of pace. I'd been tempted off and on to give those plastic Napoleonic Russians a go, readers may remember these:



What to paint them as ?  It struck me that except for the Cossacks, the other three groups could easily make do for other European armies, aside from the Russians.  Such as Prussia for example. Now it occurred to me that I had a book of uniform plates depicting the Prussian army of 1830. This one, and one of the better quality color printing jobs ever done by Dover.


What struck me leafing through this neglected treasure again was how little the Prussian army had changed in appearance since 1815.  So, I had some cavalry to work with.  The cuirass is painted on.




Quite stylized of course, but not half bad.  Now if I can only find more, I can easily paint a unit of Cuirassiers, Dragoons and Hussars in the Prussian style. And, I already have a Creartec Prussian infantry mold which produces these two different figures.




Decent, although the French are more elegant. Going forward, I can see that I need to file the seam at the top of the gaiters to make the full trouser look more convincing.  The semi-flat Creartec are certainly the stylistic successors to Schneider with these Napoleonic figures.  Judging from photos, their 7YW Prussians appear more conventional although I don't own any of those molds. 

Here's the original map, and a world still waiting to be populated with troops. The Prussians will do nicely for the Grolschken Reich.
  

Waiting in the wings, some Createc French become Celticans and the Prince August Brave Tin Soldier drafted for war.

6 comments:

  1. Very nice! Great to see elements coming together.

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  2. Thanks, Simon. And I see you're going great guns on those Romans.

    Regards,
    Steve

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  3. I rather like the running infantryman, not so sure about the cavalry but I can see how they might grow on you.

    Looking forward to seeing the tin solidier, I'd thought about getting that mold a couple of times.

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  4. Thanks for the feedback, Ross. Yes, the minimal amount of comments may mean that the cavalry indeed does not impress. ;-) But I think they'll look good en masse.

    The tin soldier looks good and is simple to paint. Rather undersized for 40mm though.

    Regards,
    Steve

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  5. Is Prince August's "Brave Tin Soldier" 42mm? I have thought of getting that mold in the past but wondered about the scale.

    Regards, John

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  6. Hi, John. Sorry, I've been meaning to post about the Brave Tin Soldier but have been lazy to shoot the photos. I should get to it in a day or two, including a scale comparison shot or two.

    The short answer is, I think they're too small to integrate smoothly with 42mm.

    Regards,
    Steve

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