Little Big Men Studios have announced the release of Sabretaches decals for the Perry plastic Hussars.
From Stephen Hales:
I have just finished a sheet of Hussar Sabretaches to fit the Perry plastic French Hussars, I started these ages ago and only just found time to finish. At present I have only done the 7th, 8th and 9th regiments, but I will do other regiments sheets. I have tried to reflect the constant changing of the designs through the Napoleonic period as cash became an issue some designs became more simplified. So there are designs for campaign, full dress, elite compaines and trumpeters and officers were they differ from the troopers.
The image attached is low res version of the actual sheet.
The image attached is low res version of the actual sheet.
These look superb quality as you would expect from LBMS, and the officer and trumpeter sabretaches show the sort of attention to detail that really marks them out, great work!
They are priced at GBP7.00 plus postage per sheet, as noted only the 7e, 8, and 9e are currently available others are being worked on.
For more info and to buy
click here
You might recall last year I covered Sabretaches for the Perry Hussars when Aldo Stucco produced some fantastic graphics for Sabretaches for the 1er to 11e Hussard Regiments designed to fit the Perry Hussars. The big plus is they are free, the downside is you have to buy some decal paper, then print and cut them out yourself. Not really an impossible task but one where if you are lazy like me you find yourself wishing 'someone would do decals for these' even if it means paying for them, I know I did!
I have recently received three Hussard Regiments 1er, 6e and 7e and was in the process of getting some decal paper when a little birdie told me that commercial sabretache decals were in the pipeline (though not these from LBMS) so I decided to wait.
I don't think GBP7.00 for three regiments is an unreasonable price, I doubt it would end up cheaper if you did it yourself using the Aldo Stucco graphics. The only problem I see is that by grouping three regiments to a sheet it can work out quite expensive in total if you don't want those specific regiments. Assuming the sheets are eventually 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, I would need 3 different sheets to cover my specific 3 regiments which means GBP21.00 plus I end up with decals for 6 regiments I don't need! I suppose the answer will be to put the one's I don't want on EBay, I can foresee there being lively secondary market in these lol.
Steven corrected me and pointed out that the LBMS decals are in fact also non-symmetrical and were based off a scan of the Perry sabretache so they fit perfectly!!!
As they say you pays your money and you takes your choice, these are currently the only commercial sabretache decals available and are well worth it in my opinion, I have no idea when the other sheets will be available from LBMS though I think they are needed sooner rather than later to make it practical to use all LBMS decals.
9 comments:
I was trying to work out whether I could do a 20 man hussar regiment (with 3 man elite company, trumpeter, standard and officer) from 1 pack. Being a Napoleonic novice, I'm struggling to work it out: any thoughts, please?
Simon
Simon,
Strictly speaking no, but from a practical point of view I don't see why not.
Looking at the decals it appears that they provide a basic set of 14 which is fine as there are 14 figures in the Perry box plus they also provide at least one Officer and Trumpeter decal which gives you 16 to start with.
Now, late empire on campaign, in reality everyone would have had a black leather sabretache.
But I think part of the attraction of Napoleonics are the colourful uniforms so I have no problem in to some degree bending the rules a bit.
So I always have my three man elite company in full dress rather than campaign dress so I see no reason why you couldn't use the elite decal.
So that gets you to 19, one short, my suggestion would be grab another officer sabretache of which there seems to be some spare and use that for the standard bearer.
As I said I bend the rules a bit and actually I will use all the colourful full dress sabretaches because they look so good, I don't think anyone is going to call you on not using the correct sabretache so I wouldn't worry about it but if you really want them 100% accurate, then the answer is no and you will need two sheets to cover a 20man unit.
Thanks for that full reply, Robert! I couldn't make much sense of what was there, and that spells it out nicely. I can live wth one dodgy sabretache in a unit!
Cheers, Simon
SEVEN POUNDS! I know they need to recoup costs or else they're no worth selling but I doubt I'll be alone in the reaction "WOOOHOO fantastic!" almost immediately followed by "Oh...er...no".
It's a bit, but not too bad if one is doing 2 or 3 units (or one is a perfectionist!
My first reaction was 'ouch'!
But honestly LBMS are never cheap, and I think the pricing is pretty much what you would expect from them even though I guess they would be cheaper from another company.
However remember that a sheet has sabretaches for 3 Regiments and given there are only 12 Hussar regiments in total I doubt many people will ever have more than 3 regiments anyway.
Of course as I mentioned you can do it yourself for 'free' using Aldo's graphics, just buy some decal paper and print out what you need. That will save you a couple of pounds I guess but I know I am too lazy and I would never get it done, saving a couple quid isn't worth the hassle.
Of course in the future someone else might offer sabretaches (or not), and they might be cheaper (or not) but when? At the moment these are the only choices.
Robert, I'm curious abotu something. There appear to be 3 sets per regiment. If one set are for the line hussars, and one for the elites, what are the other set? Are they parade dress for the line?
It strikes me that the line versions are a lot more useful than the elites, as one needs seven times as many. It's a pity that there aren't a higher proportion of line transfers, compared to elites.
Cheers, Simon
My first thoughts are Officer, Trumpeter, Elite are self apparent.
Black is Tenue de Campagne, and the others represent Grande Tenue, for the 7e and 9e there is more than one, the fancy one is early and the plain one late Napoleonic, the 8e has only the Campaign version (though I have seen an example of the 8e - red with a silver border but it wasn't clear if this is a trooper or officer).
Anyway I also checked with Steve and he replied:
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What you have written is spot on.
At the time when I did the 8th that was all the reference I could find. However I have now found other designs for the 8th. A white crowned eagle on red bordered white around 1804, Also and Elite company very much like the 9th Elite company I have done, replacing the 9 with an 8. Also I have found an Elite company trumpeter design which is green, bordered red and silver with a silver crowned eagle.
For the 7th I have also found a plain yellow 7 on red for later troopers.
So once I have done all the designs I can find evidence for I may have to rethink the way I lay my sheets out. There are so many variations per regiment I may do single smaller sheets per regiment after all (They would be cheaper per sheet)
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What I would add is that AFAIK there is no definitive reference on sabretache's, we know they did change throughout the period, and we do know that particularly with Hussars regulations didn't count for much.
So its hard to be definitive, though there are some design's that you will commonly see on miniatures, like the 7e having green background for example.
Thanks Robert (and Steve!), that is brilliant.
Personally I don't mind 3 different regiments on a sheet, but if the sheets are re-jigged, I'd favour a higher proportion of non-elite transfers, as some of my regiments might be as big as 24 with 18 non-elite troopers.
They are a very clever idea...
Simon
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