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.

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.

28mm Prussian army 1815

This are some photos of my prussian 28mm army for the 100 days campaign. This one shows Blücher and some of his staff (Perry plastic and Warlord metal).

6th Hussar. Perry french hussar with greenstuff on shakos. To make them more prussians i should have not included the pelisses, but i like them this way.

8th Hussar. Same as above, different uniforms that included the famous Death hussars all clad in black.

The landwehr are warlord plastic with some metals as command. Some of them have Perry Miniatures heads with shakos replacing the Warlord heads- the wonders of hard plastic...

2nd Elbe Landwehr.

Warlord Landwehr with Perry heads (the wonders of hard plastic i told you before...).

Lutzow freikorps (now 25th infantry regiment).

13th Inf. Brigade. Warlord Landwher and french Hat with Perry greenstuffed shakos and uniforms.

14th Inf. Brigade.

The next 3 pictures shows Pommeranian Landwher made out of Hat 28mm french carabineers and voltigeurs with Greenstuffed coats and blankets.

15th Inf. Brigade. This time the reserve infantry is marching Hat french with Perry british burned shakos modelled with the finger to make the landwehr headress. After some practice it hurts no more.

16th Inf. Bgde. Warlord and the Hat prussians for the Line regiment.Charge on those Französichen!

Next i will show you my French 28mm for this campaign.