Wodensfeld Miniatures - SYW French

Along with the WSS figures John Cunningham of Vintage20mil sent me some Wodenfeld Miniatures of SYW French infantry. At first I wondered why, but after a couple of days I remembered that the French infantry keep the full coats right through into the SYW. It was quite a collection all well sculpted with lots of variants (something I'm unused to it 20mm)

For comparison here are a few with Revell SYW Austrians and the Zvezda GNW Russians. In general a good fit to either, especially as the drummer is deliberately undersize.

The same is true of the officer, shown here with Revell SYW Austrian dragoons, again a close match.

Always a good check, switching horses

Overall a very tempting set of figures, I'll certainly paint up the mounted officer to see how he works for the WSS

Douglas Miniatures WSS figures

Along with the Les Higgins Figures John Cunningham of Vintage20mil sent me some Douglas Miniatures for the WSS period

If, I like me, you remember the originals then these seem to be cast in better quality metal and there is more detail. That said they match the size and sculpting standards of their era. Strelets cavalry and Zvezda Infantry for comparison.

The Hessians arrive

These units provide a really fine show, I'm pleased with the way these have turned out and this completes most of the foot for my Austrian/Imperial army.
I have enough Zvezda figures left to create two more units and these will probably be Hessian Grenadiers (as the uniform is close enough) and a Saxon Regiment (as they were present at the relief of Vienna) From front to back the regiments are Schopping, Erbprinz and Anhalt.

Thanks again to John Cunningham who provided the extra details I needed to complete the figures (I already had the basics from Charles Grant's book "From Pike to Shot"). Inspiration also came from figures shown on the League of Augsberg forum.

The artillery is now underway, but the big question now is how to provide the rest of the cavalry, especially as I've used Zvezda for the foot and they haven't planned to make any suitable cavalry yet.

"Heavy metal" - M8 HMC

I have needed one of these for a while to support my US Recce Battalion. I couldn't find a kit or a robust resin version in 1/76 so I ended up buying this metal one at Salute. It is extremely heavy and convinces me not to buy metal vehicles (or figures) as a general rule.

For some more info see link

Too late for the big game

I bought this Airfix kit of the Austin K2/Y Ambulance for the big game this year as I wasn't certain who was providing it. In the event my table commander Tony had one, so this model has waited until now to be completed.

Now all I need is some ice cold beer in Alex to go with it!

Jacobites

Just seen that Strelets will produce Jacobites (Scottish Highlanders) in September, I feel an urge to invest already! I'll certainly uild an army I can use for both the 1715 and 1745 rebellions.

link

Ouch

I'm sure it happens to most of us, but while trimming a bit of plastic the knife slipped and ...
Seems to have mucked up my painting for a couple of days, but nothing serious.

It's been nice to see a lot of (still) familiar faces over on Bob Cordery's Wargaming Miscellany blog as he reports on this years COW. Before moving up north I used to attend but then found that with family commitments and the increased distance I couldn't attend anymore. Certainly a tempter to attend again, but I didn't see any comments about the real ale that seemed to run out by mid-Saturday.

The Hessians are progressing well and should be finished within 2/3 days, assuming no more mishaps