1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 49) The 5th Westphalian Landwehr Regiment and some artillery

 

This Landwehr regiment concludes Tippelskirch brigade whose main line regiments were shown last week.

The figures are all Hat with a few old Airfix mixed in.The Airfix figures blend quite well and only the bayonet was added. 

Most of the Prussian Regiments didn´t carry flags and the 5th West.Ldr. most probably didn´t. Even so what is a Napoleonic unit without a flag? 

The artillery came from several sources: the limbers are Hat French Wurst system with some Evergreen parts for the triangular seats; the drivers got some Greenstuff in the shako for them to look Prussians; the gun is Russian Hat (the Prussian are the same) and the artillerymen are Zvezda Guard artillery with trimmed Kiwers.

Next: Kraft's brigade

The battle of Sekigahara 1600 in 1/72nd scale

Who didn´t go slightly crazy after seeing Ran or Kagemusha from Akira Kurosawa? I was for sure! And when Zvezda and Red Box started to offer the world their beautiful little figures (in fact more Zvezda than Red Box) you could finally play those big battles of the Sengoku period like Nagashino or Kawanakajima that you can also see in the movies Furi Kazan or Ten To Chi To or on the recent 2017 Sekigahara. The problem with Sekigahara is you need over 40 clans and with these 5 you almost fill the table. Its in fact a time consuming task this one of painting the Sengoku armies. Even so there is nowadays plenty of information on the period (just check Samurai Archives on the web) and plenty of miniatures easily available. What I do to speed up a bit the process is to spray the clan in its main color and go from there to smaller details. Its not working but may be one day :).

The figures are based and organised according to Steve Duncan´s Damyo rules.

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 48) Tippelskirch brigade

This brigade was made from 28mm hard plastic Hat miniatures turned into "20s", or kind of it. With the big Italeri figures in the middle, like the officer and drummer they play their part. The brigade included these  IR 2 and IR 25, this one from the famous FreiKorps.

The trick was to cut some 5mm from the legs, another 5mm from the musket and glue the bayonet back as these are hard plastic minis very easy to glue. The "en masse" look help to desguise the origin and the difference to an Italeri French unit is not that big.  Another thing that helps is the fact that these 28mm figures are far from the more widely seen and much bulkier Perry or Warlord being much slimmer and elegant. 

Another aspect that convinced me at having a go at this "downscaling" thing was that I built most of the French around Airfix French (big heads on these) and Italeri figures which in fact are branded 1/72 but are 24mm in height. So if ever they face in battle I hope these new Hat will face Italeri French (if they don´t it will be strange but what is done is done). 

I´ve seen worse... but don´t remember where. 

The IR25 was changed in order to have litewkas as uniform. The officer came from Hat Opolchenie box and goes pretty well with the bunch. 

The change can be made with Greenstuff but for this particular longer coats I found Superfine Milliput  better. 

Also added are these three batteries of Prussian artillery (two horse and one foot). 

The artillerymen are Hat Bavarian with their rolled blankets around the torso with new Esci and Italeri heads as the Hat Prussian artillerymen are some of their first dating from 1997 and a bit on the small side and too tall. But a funny thing that probably happened with these first boxes by Hat was that they tried to complement the existing ones from other brands and the Revell Prussian infantry must have had some influence on its design. 

Also from Hat came these old Prussian dragoons from 1996, again with small heads to go along with the Revell infantry. This is the 5th Dragoons regiment representing the 1st Cavalry Brigade. 

Next: more artillery and the 5th Westphalian Landwehr

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 47) Steinmetz brigade

 

The Prussians for Waterloo are an old love of mine. I´ve always enjoyed the simplicity of their uniforms and their performance in battle, even with Landwehr units making a good part of its force. My first atempt was decades ago while painting Airfix Landwehr and Esci Russians as Prussians. Then Revell brought real line infantry and a lot of boxes were amassed for the future, always afraid of Armaggeddon. Then cheap 28mm plastics from Warlord and Perry came up and many of 20s were given away to friends or the Revell ones became Russians, this time in opposite direction. Recently in my large exchange with TC I got many Prussian boxes that were increased in numbers thanks to Vinted. 

This first group is Steinmetz Brigade made of the IR12 (black reserve short coats) and the IR24 (grey coats). All figures but three are Revell. The flags are made up as most of Prussian units only got flags after Waterloo. 

The Prussian regular figures of almost all brands can give nice reserve infantry with short coats as the Prussian infantryman carried a lot of stuff on its back - bedroll, bread bag, ammo pouch and sabre - hiding the details of the back of the coat, something that maybe Revell thought about that and that may be a nice detail. So really no need for the Hat reserve infantry. 

Only the drummers, officers and flagbearers have the normal dark blue coat. In this stand the drummer is a converted Zvezda artillery Russian, the flagbearer is a Pavlov Italeri figure with new head and the officer is a Hat  artillery Bavarian also with new head. The first two got the bedroll in GreenStuff. 

These Italeri French Hussars became the 11th Prussian Hussar Regiment with GreenStuff added on top of the shako. 

Next: DaveM and Jeffers, two of my most dedicated followers will have round 3 of my failed atempt to convince them of the beauties of downscaling. 

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 46) Stubborn as a mule...

 

I´m not still done in trying to convincing you that the 28mm Hat Prussians can give reasonable 20mm figures. The work on shortening the 28mm Prussians continue but now I just saw how huge the muskets still are are they were also shortened. The way is to take around 5mm from the middle and re-glue the bayonet a bit down. Here the Hat figures are next not to the giant Italeri but with much more "1/72" Airfix line French and Hat Middle Guard. 

What I find nice in the Hat 28mm figures is that they have by far the slender bodies and smaller faces of all 28mm figures I had both in plastic and metal even if it was only Victrix, Perry, Irregular and Warlord. Its true that I received these guys by mistake but I on keep on thinking they can give nice 20 mm with these changes. The faces are the same size in all four figures even if the backpacks are bigger (as expected) in the 28mm figures. Of course if the correct 1/72 minis have been sent no (un)convincing propaganda like this would have been used :)

Half of the 60 figures of these 28mm Hat will go to the Freikorps dressed with litewkas. And this detail is important on applying Milliput on these figures as the backpack and particularly the sabre are detached from the body, something that will help as Milliput will be used to extend the bottom of the jacket. I thought about making the Freikorps from the Revell or Waterloo1815 figures but modelling the litewka on the waist of these figures would be complicated as it would tend to cover the sabre. 

Next: Steinmetz brigade now for real. 

1813-15 battles in 20mm for AoE and V&F - (part 45) Napoleon´s army at Waterloo

Next: more Prussians