25mm Romans and friends

I’ve always been a fan of most things Roman as you might gather from “Brutus” who stands guard over my table in a corner of the attic.

The next two pictures show three cohorts of 25mm Imperial Romans (plastics) from Warlord Games and the bottom two show some hairy Gauls or Celts from both Warlord Games and Wargames Factory.

All were sent off to Sri Lanka for painting so I claim no credit for them, although I asked them to paint them on their sprues so I just had the assembly and shields to sort out.

I was aiming to do a small scenario for Boudicca’s revolt and wanted them to duplicate for Crassus’ invasion of Aquitaine in 56BC and brief war with the Sotiates. But I’m not sure if I want to keep them as my real interest is the Punic Wars. To fund my Punic war purchases I would need to sell them so if anybody is interested in a total of 88 figures for £150 plus p/p, just drop me an email.
(PS the sale is for the miniatures not Brutus!)

40mm from Trident

Hello blogites! Well, I’m not sure what followers or occasional readers of a blog might be called, but ‘blogites’ sounds kosher to me. As you blogites will know, I’m a great fan of bouncing all over the place in terms of what I’m painting at any given moment of time. So in that spirit, I’m giving you a fair range of things over the next few days. This post is about 40mm SYW and the next post, tomorrow, will be about 25mm Ancients in plastic. Following posts this year will be mostly ACW.

Firstly, a 40mm figure from Trident’s AWI range. He is meant to be Lt. Gen. Wilhelm Von Knyphausen, a Hessian general, but I have painted him as a Prussian brigade commander (at last! A Prussian general) GM Emanuel von Schöning , inhaber of IR46, for my SYW army.

Patience, I’m told, is a virtue. Well in that case I’m well on my way to beatification. I’m referring, of course, to this endless wait for Chris Hughes at Sash & Saber to fill out the 40mm SYW range. So when Matt Shaw offered to get hold of this new Hessian character from Trident’s excellent and ever expanding range of AWI, I jumped at the chance to see how he would fit in. The second picture shows him next to a battalion of S&S. Please send me more of these beautiful sculpts.

Size-wise he is a fair bit larger than the S & S figures but the Trident figure stands upright while the S & S figures mostly lean forward. For a General figure I don’t see the size difference as a problem but for whole units I need to get a sample soon of the rest of the Hessian range to see how they will fit in. Furthermore these Hessians will, I’m told, be wearing gaiters so they are interchangeable with Prussians from the SYW.

Good work Trident.

Renegade's 25mm (or 30mm) ACW

Renegade Miniature are offering some brilliantly cheap deals at the moment - 25mm metal figures for £0.49p each which is only slightly more expensive than Perry's plastics (£0.42p each). Its a long time since metal 25mm figures were this cheap and on average most metals cost at least £1 each, or in the case of Foundry, around £2 each. But you need to buy Renegade's Regiment deals and, as you will see, there is a sting in the tail.

Firstly, the figures. These are the top two photographs. Nice and crisp castings and very easy to paint. I painted this battalion in about four hours. The mouldings for the command are less crisp than the rank and file and need a little work (perhaps the moulds themselves from which the figures come are ageing) but otherwise very nice figures. I bought three "Regiments" of 24 figures but because I want four battalions of 16 I also bought a bag of the command ACW8 (see lower picture).

Therein lies the problem. Note the number of standard bearers (2), officers (4) and drummers (2) in this bag of eight figures. When you buy a Regimental bag you get 20 rank and file and four command, which I expected to be one officer, two standard bearers and a drummer. But no, you get two officers, one standard bearer and one drummer. Fine for Confederates, who normally carried only one flag, but not for the Union, who normally carried two. So I will need to find standard bearers from somewhere else.

Lastly, please look at the third picture - size comparison. Sash and Saber and Perry's look fairly similar in size but Renegade are massive. 30mm to the brow of the head. As they are probably not mixeable together, I will keep all these Renegade figures together in the same brigade.

If I was starting all over again (and I certainly am not) I would be tempted to buy all my figures from this company as these bargain prices won't be around for too long.

Even more Hanoverian SYW Flags

Notes:
1) I have duplicated 3A Reden as I made an error in the coding the first time.
2) 8A Rhoedern has an unusual King’s colour of the Regimental flag with a white background. Both Kronoskaf and Niemeyer/Ortenburg agree on this.
3) 10B New Battalion carries two Regimental flags according to Kronoskaf.
4) 10A Post shows a disagreement in the sources. Variation one is as per Niemeyer/Ortenburg. Variation two is a Kronskaf interpretation.
Personally, my unit goes with the theme in version one.

Remembrance Sunday

Some more SYW Hanoverian flags