28mm Perry Miniatures Prussian Infantry- Steinmetz 1st Brigade

Here is the missing brigade for me to have all the Prussian infantry for Waterloo/Plancenoit.

12th Infantry regiment, with reserve black jackets. The flag carrier is a Hat Bavarian transformed. I glued a paper flag to the plastic. It is a little thick but passable. Officer and drummer also Hat Bavarians transformed.

24th Infantry Regiment, with reserve grey jackets.

The 26th Infantry regiment, not Steinmetz brigade but Kraft´s 6th Bgde, build and painted at the same time.

Detail of the command stand with a pioneer made of Hat body and a Perry head with  a beard in Greentuff. All other figures are also Hat bodies and Perry heads.

All flags in this post are conjectural and unofficial, as in theory none of this regiments sported any flag.

Hat-Perry hard plastic figures 28mm comparison

This post is to be read by people who like to buid armies and not for those who like to spread jealousy all over with their painting and modelling skills. If you are in the 2nd group, read no more.

 I´ve watched with a certain surprise, or not, in the last few years, the democratic birth of hard plastic 28mm historical figures: the scale of the "true" wargamers. Suddenly some "true" wargamers were painting and playing with inferior quality figures made of metal, when compared to the Perry Miniatures or Victrix plastic range for instance.

Well,  this "true" wargamers scale is constantly forgetting that besides Perry (the finest hard plastic without any shadow of a doubt), Victrix (the finest...also),Warlord (very,very good) and a few more I didn´t buy yet, there is another poor manufacturer who in the last few years produced hundreds of fantastic boxes of 20mm figures covering dozens of conflicts, and with an average excellent quality.

 More important to this short information of this truly yours, Hat also produce 28mm hard plastic figures (Napoleonic and early middle ages)! Yes, those you can cut and glue different heads and stuff, while the opposite is impossible in metal!! Some 20 boxes up to the moment!! Yes, it is true, they do, believe me!! Ok, their napoleonics aren´t as good as Perry´s. But hey, the Perry brothers are probably the best sculptors in the world so the competition is one sided. Also with surprise, in the main british two wargames magazines there isn´t a single word about Hat 28mm in the vast majority of their articles when they say something about hard plastic 28mm figures ("England will prevail", Churchill Dixit). Well everyone knows one of them is dependent and the other is independent, but both strongly and understandably ( I wish the same happened in Portugal...) defending their own cottage industries.

 Specially for those outside UK, Hat figures- U.S, but made in China- are easily available and  deserve a word, better, many photos. To my knowledge and humble opinion, Hat 28mm figures aren´t inferior to many metal manufacturers, and they are many times cheaper and easily available with French, Bavarian and Prussian infantry in different marching, in action, and command boxes, and with many more nations on the pipeline. Hat only loses when compared to manufacturers of the Perry Miniatures caliber.

Nevertheless, judge for yourself.

Perry Miniatures 28mm Prussian Infantry, left, Hat 28mm prussian infantry, right.

I mix Perry and Hat  figures in the same stand (see other posts) or even switch heads and I think Hat fits well with Perry.

Next photos are dedicated to Pedro Casimiro, the enlighter.

I know the photos aren´t good (I´m a great and humble modeller and painter but a lousy photographer) but in groups, small or big- as you can see in previous posts- Hat figures goes reasonably well with others. They are true 28mm figures and not 30mm as many tend to say.

Yes, I wish Hat produced them a bit larger, but they are cheap, realistic and very well researched figures, not to Calpe standards it is true, but figures you can paint easily and build armies with.

 And have fun, which is the most important aspect of our hobby.

20mm Hannibal´s army, Cannae 216 BC

Now for the Hannibal´s carthaginian army in 20mm- 1/72nd scale. Most of the figures are Hat, Italeri and Revell but there are also many metal Newline Design and even some 15mm Irregular Miniatures that look like 20mm as they are large castings . The figures above are the gauls, with some stands still missing for the full DBM battle order.

The spanish scutarii.

The Spanish caetrati.

The Balearic slingers.

Hannibal on his Belleus, Maharbal and some of his body guards (all Newline Design).

The Numidian light infantry.

The Lybian Phalanx .

The Numidian cavalry.

The Gaul cavalry.

The Spanish cavalry.

The elephants (Hat).

The elephants (Newline Design).

The battle order for Cannae, Cartaginian side. Light infantry forward; gauls and spanish heavies forward with the shape of a bow to absorb the roman 16(!) legions who always went for the center; the cavalry and the Lybian phalanxes to turn the flanks and rear of the romans: 50.000 dead romans in six hours!

The "bow" in a slightly better shape.

If you want go for my previous article on the roman side (8th of June 2011).

1815 Landwehr prussians (from French Hat 28mm figures)

Just some notes on this previously published photos.

Some more prussians. This ones are made out of the Hat French light infantry boxes, both voltigeurs and carabineers. As they have the pre-Bardin uniform period i bought them for nothing, just because they were new ( i do the previous period in 20mm).

So with some Greenstuff to their litewka and blankets and burned heads/shakos(Perry) to produce the schirmütze, you can have original Landwehr figures. This ones are for the Pommeranian regiments.

The mounted officer is a metal Warlord figure.

1815 Prussian Perry Miniatures 28mm

Here are my 1st painted Perry Prussian infantry 28mm. They are great figures, slightly bigger than Hat, and more detailed.

Painting process: apply a matt acrylic black spray all over figures; then paint faces/lips /eyes so you can talk to your soldiers individually (great friends they are, as they always agree with you); paint  always the darker tone first followed by the lighter tone (50% darker tone+50% white), at least in the uniform and larger areas. Start from the inside details of the figures (cloth) and end with the outside details (weapons and equipment). Two coats of varnish in the end separated by a couple of hours: gloss and then matt. 

2nd and 9th infantry Regiment (they woke up very early in the morning...).

In the middle of the 2nd rank you can see a Hat Bavarian sapper with a glued Perry head and Greenstuffed beard and rolled blanket.

Rapid Fire! 20mm - Dutch army 1940

Now for the Dutch 1940. Most of the figures are SHQ 20mm with a few Atlantic plastic with Esci heads from their British colonial set.

Scharzlose MMG; Solothurn 20mm ATG; 4,7cm Böhler.

Infantry battalion.

81mm mortars. SHQ and Irregular Miniatures who also has dutch artillery  in their Really Useful Crews range.

Bycicles and Carden Lloyd tankette (SHQ).

Marine Battalion. Most of the figures are SHQ but there are also some plastic figures from Atlantic with overcoat and colonial heads to look like WWII Dutch.

DAF 36 and DAF 38 (Retrokit).

75mm Mod. (Irregular Miniatures/ Really Useful Guns range)

Krupp 120mm (Irregular Miniatures/ Really Useful Guns range).

3,75 Krupp (Irregular Miniatures/ Really Useful Guns range).

1/72nd scale Roman Republican Legions

This army is still on its beginnings as my purpose is to build the 16 legions that faced the Carthaginian army in Cannae (next army to show, but as you will see it will take a little bit more pictures to show them all).

So here are the first 3 Roman legions. They are all based for DBM.

You can see Velites (near the camera), Hastati, Princeps and Triarii following in all legions.

Mainly Hat, with Odemars, Italeri and metal Newline Design figures and some officers, signifer and aquilifer from Esci.

Roman army on the march.