40mm Austrian Dragoons (2)

I know it is Tuesday, but Blogger is acting like it is Monday after a busy weekend out clubbing! In other words, Blooger is acting up, so here is the text that should have gone with the pictures in the preceeding post: As promised, I’m showing you the 40mm Austrian SYW Dragoon Regiment Sachsen-Gotha, resplendent in its red coats and light blue facings. The cavalry figures come from Chris Hughes at Sash & Saber (Saber spelt the American way – when I fenced as a youth a long time ago a Saber was a “Sabre” but that is the richness of the English language!) and they come with three different horse poses and three different cavalrymen poses and separate hands with swords in them. This allows great variety in pose and I think he has done a great job showing the movement of a cavalry charge. So far then, in his 40mm range, you can buy Prussian musketeers, fusiliers, grenadiers, some artillery and dragoons. In the Austrian range you can buy Austrian and Hungarian fusiliers and grenadiers, artillery and dragoons. I’m hoping, as he fills out this range, to see wildly charging hussars and more static Cuirassiers in reserve not to mention generals, grenzers and other light infantry.The Prussians being charged (the unfortunate IR 12 Erbprinz von Hessen-Darmstadt) are from Tridents AWI range of Hessians, which work perfectly for the Prussians. In the Kronoskaf article on the Sachsen-Gotha dragoons, they show a different lace on the horse furniture but I believe this lace might be a later-war detail. I have given them the plain red schabraque with yellow lace as I think this is more appropriate for WAS or early SYW. They also mention a completely different colour for the schabraques of officers (in this case green) and I think that too is a late war change but this time I kept that as it made a nice change and it might make it easier for these chaps to rally in the event of disaster. Still the way they are charging forward, one feels, perhaps, that ones simpathies lie more with the Prussian infantry about to be carved up. Lastly please look at the buildings in the background. They are 25mm scale and work well with the 40mm figures. Doors are the key – stick a 40mm figure next to a 25mm door and it looks foolish, but if there is no door visable then a large 25mm building will work with 40mm.

40mm Austrian Dragoons

SYW Prussian Infantry Regiment 34

This is one of my favourite Prussian Infantry Regiments, No. 34, whose chef was Prince August Ferdinand, one of Frederick's younger brothers, because of the jazzy flags. It was raised in 1740 from the Garde Regiment No.15 and from Garrison regiments one and two.

Again, the figures are a mix of Foundry, Front Rank and Crusader - mostly the latter.

Talleyrand SYW French Cavalry

Another French cavalry regiment - this time Talleyrand. There is very little information, no, let me re-phrase that, there is NO information that I have been able to find on the musician's uniform so I have painted it in dark red with red/green lace. Figures are by Front Rank.

Also done and ready to show you is a 20 figure Austrian Dragoon regiment in 40mm. I have ordered some 25mm flags, which I will need to re-scale, and then I'll post pictures here. These are from Sash & Saber.

IR 25 von Kalckstein

Another fine Prussian SYW regiment - in this case No.25 von Kalckstein. Figures are Foundry, Crusader and Front Rank.

The pictures are a little dark and I must apologise for that. When I put them through my normal process of lightening and sharpening (a rather dodgy and old piece of software that I continue to use because I know how it works!) it really hated the apple green and yellow colours in the flags and it threw a 'wobbly' which I was able to 'undo' fortunately. Oh, what would we do without an 'undo' button on our computers! Pitty there isn't one for mistakes made in our lives.

Beauvilliers SYW French Cavalry

This is Beauvilliers regiment of cavalry from the SYW. The figures are all by Front Rank.
Provincial and noble regiments present a problem when it comes to knowing the colour scheme for musicians. If they had been Royal regiments then one would use the blue and red commonly- seen dress. These regimental musicians were dressed entirely at the whim of their colonel-proprietors and, in this case, I have used the regimental lace (Isabella - a coffee brown - and red chains) to cover a coat coloured as for the rest of the regiment. It might be right but it probably is wrong - but, hey, nobody really knows.

28mm SYW Prussians

Brigaded together are my two favourite Prussian infantry regiments - numbers 11 and 12 (11 has the red flags). A total of four battalions, each battalion has twenty figures in it. This post shows a mixture of figures from 3 manufacturers - Foundry, Front Rank and Crusader.
In my view, they reflect the fact that people come in different sizes too. The most noticeable difference, in the top picture for example, is with the standard bearers - on the left is a shorter, stockier Front Rank figure and on the right, the somewhat taller Crusader colleague.

Still, I think they work well together and being able to mix figures from all three sources gives you greater variety.