Russia: 2nd Reg. Grenadiers

A very fast and intensive work is finished now with this splendid grenadiers of the Zaristic army. The figures are from a special serie of Matthias Manske, which proposed the russian army in summer dresses in several poses. I chosed a regiment´s composition to create a very special moment in a battle: just standing and kneeing and opening the fire, the first rank is getting heavy fire from the enemy - the nervosity should be visible in the faces and the officer is advancing to go to this hell....
I took 11 kneeing soldiers and one wounded, the second rank is a combination of standing soldiers and such they reload or tremble.

I talked with Steve Cady in our posts about the figures in 40mm and about my decision to concentrate on the Manske figures. As you can see, they have a very special behaviour, have different poses and can be combinated in a lot of different ways - so, creating a particular ambiance or showing a "moment" in regiment´s life is easy. This is for me - as half a collector and half a wargamer, the ideal choice: I don´t have any more the serial effect of the moulds of eg. Prince August or NMZ; I have a wide range of possibilities to compose a special effect. At the end, as you can see, I place them all on small bases for having them ready for battles. You will see in my soon posts the pics from our summer battle, when this Manske-figures will fight side by side with Prince August and NMZ-regiments.
Manske figures give me the choice to create a certain individuality in each figure. Also the way of painting is different to other 40mm figures and completely different to the 30mm-figures.
Enjoy the pics I took today very quickly - after 3 hard days of students´presentations at the University. Next week we will meet in Switzerland to fight the big battle.

Russia: Vengerskii and Slobodskii Hussars

Russia´s cavalry is now ready for the big summer battle - you can see the Slobodskaia Polka (slobodian regiment) showing an attack in the gallop during their manoeuvres in Regensburg, sweet boring Bavaria.... :-)
The slobodian regiment was composed by exilants from Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania - living in Russias western part - "New Russia" called, the region of south-western Ukraine.
I like their lightblue dolmans very much, they always look very fresh on the battlefield.
I hope they will survive the prussian bombardement...
Below the Vengerskaia Polka, the hungarian exilants´ regiment - also they were exilants from southern Hungary, some of them also refugees from the austrian monarchy...
Their blood-red dolmans are a good effect on the green-grey battlezone. The flag is showing an angel and in the style of an icon - its invented, I didn´t find any sources of russian hussar flags.

The figures are from Prince-August - the serie "Battle of Rossbach" - and  are the best figures of the serie.

"Вперёд в атаку!"

just a try with a montage - not too good...

aah!! in the center you see one figure of an old NMZ-serie

A try to show the speed...

France: Le général et son officier

Two of the newest pieces of the Matthias-Manske-Manufaktur are these riding officers "en reconnaissants", observing the battlefield.
I like very much the left one holding the telescope, which is a prototype, especially done from Matthia Manske. I thank him such a lot for this great work he always do with his figures.
Follow my next post, I will present you 2 other officers, they will be saxons..

France: train d´artillerie

Only some weeks till our annual battle, the french army is now well-prepared after an effort of reorganization of its artillery train. In the foreground you see a munition carriage, which I built in polystirol, added by some front parts of an old NMZ-limber and beautiful wheels of Matthias-Manske-Manufaktur.
It is the result of my research I did in the Marburger Digitales Archiv (http://www.digam.net/) which presents a lot of spectacular plans of our favourite century...
I re-calculated the measurements of a prussian carriage and added the typical, french details at the backside: the curved ladder, fixed above.
It is possible to open the cover and to fix it by a movable needle - but my construction is still a prototype and I will improve my technical system...
Below you will see the original map. Just enjoy now the pics I shot of my french train.

Originaltitel: Zeichnung eines 7 Grenad Wagens für die preussische reitende Artillerie - von 1790

http://www.digam.net/index.php?dok=6476&h%5B0%5D=munitionswagen

And, at last, a more dramatical picture of a french cannon (limber and cannon from NMZ)

Prussia: König Friedrich II. mit Stabsoffizier

I put some new pics now of this set because I wasn´t happy with the former images..

Dear readers - sorry for my late posting in this blog after a while of silence - it´s dued to the big preparations to our battle wargame in july in Switzerland, when we will celebrate the annual, big family-battles. We will meet at our relatives there and place our armies for one or two big battles, involving Prussia (5 reg.), Russia (6 reg.), France (6 reg.), Saxony (2 reg.) and - the first time - Sweden (4 reg.). It´s still in discussion, which armies will be allied and  in which combination - we will see. So, the last weeks, I was occupied with the new terraining for the battlefield (ground 2,50m of 1,40m)  and some artillery-trains. More about this later.

Today I would like to present you the figures of Frederick II. with his guard officer, mounted on horses. The figures are from Matthias Manske and again delicious pieces of his edition.
I placed Frederick on a round plate (as seen at the Alte-Fritz-Blog) to check the effect. The guard officer is placed separately to give him the freedom to move during the battle and to take more positions: officer of the 1st regiment or the guard of the king.
I did again - just for fun - a montage with some backgrounds - this time a bavarian landscape, taken a few minutes from my home.

Russia: Charkowski Hussars finished and rebased

My yellow hussars from the Russian army are already a couple of years old and almost packaged in dark boxes, hidden from daylight... They are figures from a - in fact - beautiful edition of Prince August, not completely threedimensional, but okay in the details. I painted them 8 years ago and now, I renovated them and placed them on new vignettes -  3 figures on each platform 7x8cm.

The "joltii gusari", called yellow hussars were located in the north-eastern Ukraine and changed their dolmans r.a. in 1760-62 into the black ones. I preferred this uniforms, but also because I am really a great fan of the Ukraine. 

Look at the banner; there is written "S NAMI BOG" - "god with us"-  and is a banner of the 16. cent. - but till now I couldn´t ever find any sources about the russian hussar flags. I chosed a religious one, inspirated by the orthodox iconic painting.

Saxony: Mortar Lafettenwagen

This is the second project of a Lafettenwagen, carrying a 16pds-mortar; actually for Saxony´s artillery. The limber is taken by an old NMZ-set, also the horses and riders. The Lafettenwagen is built in Polystirol and mounted on two wheels of Matthias-Manske-Edition.
I am not sure what kind of vignette I can create for placing this set. The whole ensemble has a length of r.a. 25 cm, so placing them on a rectangular vignette will be beautiful when standing in a vitrine, but for wargaming it could be to big and slow. Maybe I will place just the horses on a vignette - I still don´t know.