Perry Prussian Artillery Greens

OK first its been a very, very long time since my last post, moving house at the start of December, work, xmas, and an illness all combined to stop me from posting for the last 7 weeks, anyway did you really miss me LOL, but now I am back and their will be a lot to blog about this year!!

So first up, Perry Miniatures have posted pics on their site of greens of their forthcoming 28mm Prussian Artillery. If you recall this is the range we first heard about last September which will be a mix of plastic and metal and will complement releases from Warlord Games.

The usual fare from the Perry's LOL. Nicely sculptured, love the running up poses particularly, somehow Prussian's should always be rushing around, hardworking and active don't you think!!

The guns look nicely executed as well and as this is Perry and not a certain other company, I have no doubt that the limbers will be along fairly shortly.

When will the plastic's appear? Hopefully it's not too far away, they did say last September that maybe the metals might be released first but I suspect they are going to be released at the same time now.

As ever I look forward to these and lots more in the Prussian range this year, these in particular are a must have.

I have no doubt this is going to be a fantastic year for Napoleonic's.

More Napoleonic Prussian Landwehr from Warlord Games!

Warlord recently announced the release of several new 28mm metal sets meant to compliment their Plastic Landwehr released last month.

You’ve eagerly grabbed our new plastic Napoleonic Prussian Landwehr with both hands so you’ll be delighted to see that we’re releasing more metal miniatures to support them! First up are these two mounted Landwehr officers. Utilising our Figure Head system (TM) of separate heads they’ll give you plenty of options to lead your brave boys in blue into battle.

Both of the officers will fit either horse and their heads are interchangeable and repositionable too.

Ok so the idea of plastic for the bulk of your army and then the 'characters' in metal is a good one and makes a lot of sense from many angles, I get it and support it. The set is priced at GBP 6.00 for two mounted figures which I think is fair these days for top quality metal. All good so far, however I really don't like these sculpts! No if, but's or maybe's here, the first figure, with the sword down, reminds me of Dolph Lundgren, he looks like he must weigh about 300lbs, all muscle, and is probably as wide as he is tall, the horse is a bit 'cart horsey' more something I would expect from a GW fantasy range rather than a historical one. The other figure with sword raised looks like his head has been slammed between two blocks of ice, at least from the pic it seems to be abnormally thin, like a throw back to the old Hinchliffe casting of the 70's, and the horse, well it look like a real butt clenching pose, maybe it has had one of those fabled pikes shoved somewhere where the sun don't shine, again I don't know whether this is just the camera angle but if so then someone needs to take a lesson in miniature photography quick otherwise this set misses the mark.

With EBob's horses available for licence there really is no excuse today for 28mm horses that are less than perfect these day's, and these are definitely less than perfect for what they are supposed to be.

and what about those 'Ironing Boards' they each have or were they meant to be scabbards? Something I might expect from Renegade in a moment of madness but surely they could do better here.

I bought the reason for the issues with the plastic set but I am really disappointed with these metals, there is really no excuse as to why they aren't sculpted to the highest standard, 'cartoony' is the phrase that comes to mind, sorry to say but I will give these a pass and wait to see if Perry can do better next year. Don't get me wrong on the evidence of these sculpts the 'talent' is there, it just seems to have been misdirected in this set.

And, of course, you’ll be wanting a few casualties to act as as markers in your games of Black Powder or to add a bit more flavour to your regimental bases…

This pack contains ten random casualties. Also included are four 50mm steel pikes and 6 separate muskets. This will allow you to portray your casualties in many different ways!

So what about these, 10 figures for GBP10.00 and these are what I would call 'low demand' items so I think that is very reasonable, no complaints at all. I think these are much better than the mounted set. Still, the poses look a bit 'stiff' and as I have said before I think really the pike is a waste of time from a gaming perspective. I am not sure how this would fit into a march attack battalion, though would look good in a more static firing line, but then again WG tout them as markers which is fine I think. So Ok, not wow, but worth picking up a pack from several points of view.

For completeness sake I might as well include here the one other metal set from WG, though not part of this release, it was announced along with the plastic set last month.

This pack contains 3 great models than can transform your Landwehr battalion into a mini diorama, or simply give you a differing choice of command.

It has two choices of officer, randomly supplied, and a "twinned" figure of a wounded ensign being supported by his Drummer comrade..includes flagpole and finial
Stirring stuff indeed!

This set contains 2 metal models, representing three command. The officer model is randomly supplied from the two shown. It also contains metal standard pole and finials. Models supplied unpainted. The paper flag is not included.

Though this set doesn't really fit in with the march attack poses I like them, I think very well sculpted, nice natural poses,  and something different, something you have not seen a million times before or is part of every other manufacturers range.

So a definite thumbs up on this one, you should grab it, you will find somewhere to fit it in I am sure.

Overall a mixed bag, one set a clear thumbs down, one a clear thumbs up and the other, worth having if not inspiring.

Report card reads 'flashes of genius but could do better'!

Steve Barber Models 28mm Pavlov Grenadiers - Part 2

If you don't recall these see last week's post here.

Well the package arrived today from Caliver having placed the order last Thursday, excellent service as usual from the guys!

Ok, down to the figures, 24 Pavlov Grenadiers from Steve Barber Models , consisting of 10 NR34 Advancing low porte, 11 NR35 Advancing high porte, and one each of NR36 Officer in bicorne, NR37 Drummer and NR38 Standard bearer. These were on offer from Caliver GBP17.00 post free world wide.

The figures are 'Foundry' sized, by that I mean a perfect match to the British, though taller than the (very short) Austrians, say about 28mm to top of head, thats a noticeable couple of millimeter shorter than the Perry Miniatures figures which are 28mm to the eye ball. Bulk wise they are similar to Foundry, that's a little bit 'fatter' than PM but not such a big deal.

Quality wise they are pretty good sculpts, even if not spectacular, again pretty much in line with Foundry but not quite up their with PM at their best.

If you collect Foundry then these are well worth taking a look at, actually an absolute bargain, I have no hesitation in recommending them. On the other hand if you are into the PM/Victrix/WG 'slim' 28mm then Victrix's new Russians are probably a better match size wise though they work out at double the price which is something to bear in mind.



Still waiting for the Perry Carlist civilians, it's been a week since the Brunswickers, ordered the same day, arrived,  think I will have to email them to see what has happened, though I have yet to loose a package in over 10 years. Unfortunately Caliver's were out of stock on the 95'th decals

Steve Barber Models 28mm Pavlov Grenadiers

Earlier this month Victrix launched their metal Russian 28mm range which included 1805-1808 Pavlov's, so I don't think it can be a coincidence that today I received an email from Caliver, 24+(?) Pavlov Grenadiers from Steve Barber Models GBP17.50 world wide post free! On the SBModels site all the Russian's are marked as 1812-1815 so not direct competition to Victrix.

You can't complain about a price like that can you?

Ok so this is a range I wasn't aware of or had forgotten about, just took a look over their site, the figure are a bit hit and miss, there are some great looking figures but also some not so great unfortunately.

These look great.

As does this.

But then these are not so hot.

Then there is the question what size are these, big 28's, small 28's "Perry" size?
They look to me without anything to measure them against, so I could be way off, "Foundry" sized.

.. and can't find a pic of the Pavlov's anywhere...


but the price is tempting...


So do they look like this, short or tall mitre?

Basically for me at this price it's worth picking up if they fit in with Perry sized 28's.

So anyone out their know what size they are, any comparison shots?

NorthStar buys Helion's 1866 Range!

A while back I posted about that wonderful "Seven Weeks’ War of 1866" 28mm range from Helion. I was keen on buying some of their figures for xmas but sadly as DuncanRogers of Helion informed me at the time, he would not be developing the line further and was actively looking to sell the range off.

That sort of killed of the idea of starting an 1866 project and took away the excuse to buy that 1866 book!

Well, great news today, NorthStar have announced they have purchased the range from Helion!

That should assure the future of the line, hopefully we will also see it developed further, in particular it was in need of some artillery to make the range viable. Not only that but NorthStar is a great company to deal with, easy for o'seas "customers" like me to deal with and their service is excellent. When I buy online although my first choice is Caliver, second is NorthStar.


UPDATE:
I noticed a comment posted by Nick from NorthStar on TMP:
Last week I took ownership of the 28mm Seven Weeks War range from Helion.

The range isn't on the North Star website yet, I want to go through the moulds, get things organised and hopefully have it all photographed before putting them online.

But if you are a customer looking for reinforcements, please drop me an email at northstar.figs@ntlworld.com. I can get figures cast for you now before we get the stock built up and re-launch the range officially. I will also keep to the Helion price, unfortunately when they join the North Star website there will be a price rise.

Any feedback on the range from existing customers is very welcome, I do intend to add to the range, I'm already talking to a sculptor about artillery.

If you've seen the prices on the Helion site, a price rise is maybe not a surprise I guess, NorthStar don't do "free world wide postage" so for a start so that +20% .... I guess we are looking at Crusader/Artizan level of pricing, though I hope they will keep the discount for larger units. Bad news and good news you can say...

Feels like xmas - The Prussians Arrive

Well yesterday the man delivered by spanking new iPad, so I got to play with that for a while before my boss told me to start getting productive with it.

Then today the postman turns up with 3 packages no less, two from Caliver and one from Perry. That's 4 boxes of WG Landwehr, a box each of Perry Dragoons, Hussars and British Infantry and last but not least 12 Perry metal Brunswick Hussars.

There was a note to say that the WG-PRU-WGN21 metal Prussian command would follow ASAP, so that leaves my 40 odd Perry Somatens somewhere in the air I guess.

The Perry metals were fairly well bashed, the horses were at least, and not in transit either, it's taking a fair bit of deft pressure to get the horses straightened out, careful not to end up breaking the legs in the process. Otherwise, an excellent set which I am looking forward to painting, especially after seeing this video, if only it were that easy.

The Landwehr box consists of 3 pack's of 3 sprue's, each with 3 figures and 2 sabre briquet's (wonder whether an axe would have been a better choice), so that's 27 foot, and one pack of 3 metal command, an officer, drummer boy and standard bearer (with pole and finials), to make up the total of 30 foot.

There is a four page flyer included in the box, covering the background of the Landwehr and brief details on facing collars. This sheet also contains 11 flags, and is printed on thickish paper, well thicker than the Perry sheet's.

The metal's are very nicely sculpted and cast, as good as anything the Perry's might turn out on an average working day. I like them.

The plastic's are so 'Perryesque', if that's even a proper word, even down to the little circular base, to be honest if someone told you they were from Perry you wouldn't really argue with them. However this set aims squarely at the gamer rather than the modeler, each figure is a single part, not the multipart's we have seen so far, and as such they are simply perfect for the average gamer, a little bit of cleaning up to do where they were cut from the sprue and then these will be ready to undercoat.

That not to say there isn't some downside to producing single part figure's, apart from the obvious lack of variety  imposed by not be able to pose a single part figure there is also an impact on the casting. Front and back the detail is excellent no complaint's, side-on however, as with any and all plastic's, then detail is lost, these figures hide that, to some extent, as these areas are under the arms, covering the side of the pack and part of the torso. Also, as an example, the bedroll on top of the backpack should curve down in an arc to the neck but that would cause an 'undercut' which you can't have in a plastic figure so it cuts straight from the top of the pack to the neck, making it look a bit 'blocky', this problem could be side stepped if, like the other sets we have seen so far, you had produced the backpack as a separate piece. The other issue which has been noted before is the 'boxing glove' hands. It is true they are a tad oversized and combined with some loss of detail they do look a bit 'boxing glove' like. I will say it is nowhere near as bad as it looked in the original pics, though its hard to understand why it wasn't fixed, but it's not really a big deal. All this said put them together in a unit and you will not notice any of these issue's at all and that is the point with this set.

I do wonder though whether the 'gamers' who clamored for the single piece figure may change their mind's somewhat when they see the end product.

One thing to note here, the set does not come with the Renedra bases as all Perry figures do, so you will need to provide your own. For me this is not an issue as I use my own bases anyway, so the Perry's bases have been superfluous.

In terms of their objective to produce a set of Landwehr for the gamer to get on the table in short order I would give this set 10 out of 10. They may lack in the variety of poses we have come to expect of plastic's but that was intentional and will be welcomed by some. I would liked to have seen more variety at least with separate heads but to be honest the forthcoming releases from WG should take care of the need for some variety in battalion unit's. FYI as Paul mentioned yesterday about the forthcoming releases, 'Some of the metal Prussian models will be released before Christmas - if not everything you've seen so far (and some you haven't!).'

I don't believe these are a challenge to Calpe, the difference in size/bulk alone in my opinion precludes using them to replace Calpe, however I would and will gradually phase out my Foundry Prussians as WG and Perry fill out their ranges. If 'Perry' sized Napoleonic's has a place on your gaming shelf then I would say this set is a must have.

An update from Victrix

Victrix have cleared up where they are at on various projects from their announcement:

This is just a quick update to keep you informed of our current production schedule.

We are a bit behind on our release date for the Old Guard Chasseurs at present and the 2 sets of French 54mm, Grenadiers and Voltigeurs. We were expecting the Chasseurs to be out in September but we had a few unavoidable delays during the summer months. We are currently a week or two away from getting test shots of the Chasseurs and 54mm test shots should be following a few weeks after that. We think mid November will be a realistic release time for the Chasseurs and late November for the 54mm.

These delays have had an inevitable knock on effect with the release dates of the Greek Hoplites and the Austrians. The Greeks wont be out this side of Christmas, we are looking at getting them out as soon as possible in January. The Austrians are next in the queue after the Greeks but no firm date yet. Disappointing news I know for all of you have been waiting eagerly for the Greeks to be released. Even more disappointing for us! But rest assured they are being released and they will be some great sets, full of character and positional options.

We will be showing off some pictures of the Austrians next week. The sets are looking great and we can’t wait for these to be released, Bob Naismith has done a really lovely job on these miniatures.

There will be 4 initial releases for the Austrians.

1)      Austrians in Helmets. These can be used from 1805 to 1809

2)      Austrians in shakos. These can be used from 1806 to 1815

3)      Austrian Grenadiers. 1805 to 1815

4)      Austrian Landwehr. These are in Corsican hats and can be used for the Volunteer battalions, Landwehr and Militia of 1809 to 1814.

These sets have a battalion of 36 in a box plus a plastic mounted field officer and flags. We have chosen to do these in March attack poses and have a nice balance between easy assembly whilst retaining the options for adding character to your units.

We will look at Hungarians in future releases.

We are currently working on the metal Command packs for Russian Grenadiers and Pavlovski command plus flag sheets for the Russians

Being positive about things for a moment, the Austrian specs. sound very good, covering the mid/late period, there is I am sure a huge demand for 1806-1815 Austrians, I certainly will build an entire army if they release them. Line, Grenadiers and Landwehr are a good start but we need more, much more, cavalry, artillery etc. but good to hear at least Hungarians are planned though how many years in the future? Not much to say on Chasseurs,we have seen the Grenadiers early in the year and these are just really a variant of those, a good set, excellent sculpts one of the best infantry sets to date.

It's also good to see that Victrix have heard people's views on the 'assembly' issue but are still trying to seek a balance between speed of assembly and customization, hopefully they will steer clear of the WG style 'one piece' design but I think two or three piece is fine.

However I guess reading between the lines we shouldn't expect the Austrians until June next year and Victrix are just so horribly unfocused you wonder if you start building an army with them will much of it ever appear.

Example, for 6 month's now we have been waiting for a limber team to accompany their British Artillery set but to no avail, and I for one will not buy even one set of their's until they do have the team available. Tell me just how much and how long does it take to produce 6 horses and two riders ? If they hadn't produced the limber I wouldn't be complaining but they did and it makes the current set a 50% waste of money and leaves a lot of existing customers well and truly stuffed. I will admit a couple of month's back I did consider having someone sculpt the team for me but that's shear madness! How can anyone have faith in the Victrix line if you are just going to produce bits of units and then move on to something else and maybe leave people with half complete units for several years.

Last xmas I bought some of their 54mm British, I thought it would make for an interesting skirmish game, and they spoke about producing 54mm version for all their sets going forward, so I waited for the 'opposition' and waited and waited, now here we are 12 months later the second set finally appears and my Brits are still packed in their box, I would sell them but I doubt they are worth the postage, I have long since lost interest in this project and faith in Victrix so I won't be buying the new set.

How can you release some early Russians infantry one moment and then the next moment announce you are working on late Austrians, and in so doing dash any hope on seeing an expansion to the range for at very least a couple of years. Even though I think early Russians were the wrong choice in the first place having done so they should be expanding that range to at least enable you to build a viable force, I can only see them shooting themselves in the foot in just releasing a random and unconnected unit every 6 month or so.

It would be different if the figures were compatible with other ranges but they are not really compatible with either Foundry or Front Rank style figures, these small 28mm Napoleonics of Perry, Victrix, and WG are only compatible with each other and as such it makes it important that a range is coherent with at least some cavalry and artillery early on, otherwise people wont buy the infantry as they have nothing to make up an army to play with.  Just look at WG, they release something and very quickly there are 'add ons' available and you know they are hard at work trying to round out the range as quickly as possible

But not Victrix, hopeless is the word that springs to mind when I think of Victrix these days!

What makes all this so frustrating is that the work that Victrix does release is so good, really excellent sculpts and well executed in plastic. If this was Wargames Factory I wouldn't care, their quality is by and large so poor that you wouldn't want to buy it anyway but that isn't the case with Victrix, you actually do want to buy their stuff, your just put off buy the way the company apparently runs it's business.

I know it can't be easy establishing a new business and there must be reasons for them doing what they do but I can't see it, and I don't think they are making the best use of the obviously limited resources they have in hand.

The only hope is that they some day see the light....

More Prussians coming from WG

Warlord Games have previewed some new Napoleonic Prussians to go with their recently released Plastic Landwehr:

Oh, come now – you didn’t think we’d stop at plastic Napoleonic Prussian Landwehr did you? Take a butchers at the new sculpts for this range which are due for release in the not-too-distant future…

These dynamic casualty miniatures are just the thing to mix in with your regiments for a gritty dose of reality. The poor fellows have been knocked off their feet! These would also make for excellent elements in a cinematic diorama. In the pack will also be two dead landwehr – great to use as casualty markers in your games of Black Powder or to add to your bases for even more atmosphere.

Check out our Landwehr at trail – the separate right arms gives you bags of variation whilst retaining a uniform look to the unit. We also have Landwehr pikemen on the way too…

Well great news!!
They look very interesting to me, great looking sculpts, and interesting to see that after the 'one piece' design of the first set these are multipart, well at least two piece's anyway, but that's enough to give you a lot of scope to make your units look more life like and not just a bunch of robots. If I recall correctly the Pike armed Landwehr would only be appropriate for some of the units and the first half of 1813 only, by the middle of the year they were all properly armed with muskets.

Personally I like this compromise between the 'one peice' design of the first set and the mega multipart design of say Victrix's sets, though I think on balance I still would like separate heads as being able to slightly change the head position adds a lot.

Of course it's a trade off isn't it, the more pieces there are in a figure the longer they will take to assemble and some of those Victrix sets seem to take forever to assemble, but they do also allow you to create a variety of poses and make units look more life like. The 'one piece' design is quick to complete ideal for the wargamer who wants them on the table today but they don't really allow for much opportunity to customize.

I think this set has it 'just about right', I am impressed and surprised in a way, I sort of expected WG might just settle with the one box for now and then release a small bunch of really expensive metal figures as they tend to have done in the past, well I can't wait for the 'not-too-distant-future' to come around!

But I guess it will be after xmas.... but you can always hope!

Anyway I am still waiting for my Landwehr sets to arrive, hopefully they will be here in the next day or so, however I did receive the Prussians Flags today that I ordered from Solway Crafts, these are their new 'linen' flags, I will post about them in a day or so and hopefully put up some pics.

WG Prussian Landwehr Now Shipping!

Seems they're here at last!

NorthStar have them already, so I assume that Caliver does as well, and that all the small orders will be shipping as well in the next day or so.

Here is where being o'seas is a pain as I will have to wait a week or so before having them in hand.

BTW I noticed today Caliver are doing a 4Box deal for GBP57.50 free shipping world wide, worth taking a look at if WG's 6Box deal is too much for you.

At the same time WG are releasing some complementary metal figures. Below is a 3 figure command pack which retails for GBP5.00, from what I understand this is different from the 3 metal command figures that come in the box with the plastic set. Click the image for more details.

Miniature Design Studios Warbands are back

OK so this is a Napoleonic's blog but about once a month I end up doing one 'off-Topic' post and this is the one for this month!

Miniature Design Studios are a fairly new producer of 28mm white metal miniatures, exclusively focused on ancients. They first appeared on the scene, if I recall correctly, about 18 months ago and had these great 'Warband' deals which worked out around 50p per figure and with their postage being only GBP5.50 worldwide they were an absolute steal, a complete no brainer. Last year the range was also expanding very rapidly and they seemed to have some momentum behind them.

Anyway the figures are all the 'small' proportionate style 28mm, actually very similar in size to the WG plastic ancients, that also should make them compatible with GB's and Immortal's new plastic ranges I believe. Overall they are a pretty good quality, I see them mainly as a cheap way to bulk out an army, whilst perhaps not being the best they are good enough for that purpose. The Achaemenid Persians, Sassanid Persians, Berbers, Celts and Saxons were excellent, I don't think you can find fault with them, the Picts and Greeks were IMHO howlers. I also quite like the Berber cavalry, I would have preferred to see EBob horses but these are not terrible. To be honest these days any 28mm producer who needs horses should just licencee them from EBob, you have less work to do, we getter better horses who can complain.

Then at the beginning of January they abruptly announced a new pricing model and the end of the 'Warband' deals, it effectively meant that prices had doubled overnight and ever since they went very quite with no new releases, I had started to think they were probably dead.

Well just as abruptly I have noticed this week that the 'Warband' deals have returned and once more you can buy their range for 50p per figure. Not only that but they have announced that they will soon be adding new figures to their range, with Hittites, Celts, Picts, Saxons and Israelites getting specific mention.

If you are in to ancients, or want to add some variety into some of the new plastic ranges take a look, at GBP25.00 for 50 figures the 'Warbands' have to be worth at least a try don't you agree?

Prussian Landwehr available for pre-order now

The Warlord Games plastic Prussian Landwehr are now available for pre-order, priced at GBP17.00 for a box.

From their announcement:
Pre-order plastic Prussian Landwehr! We’re expecting to release our new plastic Napoleonic Prussian Landwehr early October and now you can place your pre-orders! As ever we’ll be sending pre-orders out first so you’d be mad not to take advantage of this!

This boxed set contains 27 plastic Landwehr and 3 metal command. It also contains metal standard poles and finials. Models supplied unpainted. Head here to pre-order them today!

As usual this set can also be ordered from Caliver Books for GBP15.00 with free worldwide postage if you spend more than GBP16.50, hard to beat that deal.

eBob releases new 28mm horses

I noticed this news item on Tabletop Gaming News .

eBob has added six new 28mm horses to his online store. 
These figures come with integral saddles and reins and are also available with a commercial license.

Here are a few pics from eBob's site:

These, as with the other horses that you can find here on eBob, are really intended for commercial use, not for your average gamer wanting a couple of extra horses, though there is an option to buy this particular set without the commercial license for GBP21.00 for 6. If you have been following this blog you will probably recall that our good friend Uwe Ehmke is using eBob's commercially licensed horses in his Wurttemberg Chevauxleger's.

They are not exactly cheap at GBP65.00 each (with commercial licence) even for the 'professional' sculptor but the quality of these sculpts is without equal and the cost I guess is really meant to reflect the hours of time you would otherwise have to spend sculpting your own, though it is still a significant investment I guess for a hobbyist sculptor like Uwe and it does make you appreciate how cheap the figures we often buy really are. There really is little excuse for anyone producing 28mm mounted figures these days with sub-standard horses when eBob has this super range. There are a few manufacturers that immediately spring to mind who could use these to 'improve' their ranges.

As usual eBob's sculpts are simply outstanding! It's interesting to note that these come with built in horse furniture, in the past they haven't, the argument I believe is that without furniture the horse is suitable for all periods whereas with furniture you are locking them into a limited number of periods, I assume eBob has done his homework and see's a profitable demand for these. To me they look like they are suitable for Napoleonic's with obvious customisation required to reflect specific saddle details, though I do wonder whether they can really fit all, I suppose you can always file down any saddle that is to big. The manes are intentionally short as eBob states "The manes are short/cropped to allow for commercial users to add the mane as desired. It's easy to add a mane - much more difficult to scrape it off the neck once cast."

Can't wait to see these appear on some Napoleonic line in the future.

If you are thinking of picking these up for personal rather than commercial use remember that they are going to need customisation with 'Green Stuff' to make the horse furniture match whatever use you need them for.

A couple more shots of the eBob horses, and cursorily posed with a Renegade figure if I am not mistaken.

Perry Plastic British Hussars 1808-1815

Yet more plastic from Perry Miniatures,  I don't drool nor do I wish to sell the kids and plastic is way too cheap to make a dent in my wallet but I will say that as ever they are beautiful sculpts.

This time they have gone for a one piece torso plus legs but with separate arms. As I have said before the Perry's seem to squarely target the gamer rather than the modeler with their plastic sets, allowing some customisation but making it a simple job to assemble. People have said the modeling market is bigger than the gaming market, at least they do in 1/72, but I guess the Perry's know their customer better than anyone and they have been pretty successful to date so who can argue against them. Personally I am all for the less is better approach so this suits me just fine.

Alan Perry says these are the first of the plastic British Cavalry! So more to come, I must say for the life of me I can't really see the point of doing British Cavalry in plastic. Perry have covered most of the British units already in metal, and nice figures they are too, anyway you only ever need such small quantities of British Cavalry. Either making a mould for plastic miniatures is way cheaper than anyone realises or the Perry's have so much money they can afford to just do all this for the fun of it. To be honest I would have thought it would have made more sense financially to do some Prussian cavalry in plastic rather than British.

The horses look like the French Hussar set recycled, not that that is a bad thing, the Perry's have horses pretty much on a conveyor belt by now. Alan say the pics cover 4 of the 6 horse halves, well one thing I would really like to see them do wit those final two halves is a standing horse, though I won't hold my breath as we seem to be missing the standard horse at full gallop with all the legs together. Cavalry actually spent most of its time on a battle field stationary rather than charging around so why not at least give us that option and also that pose would work great for light cavalry skirmishing, firing the carbine from the saddle, worthless or not.

Anyway all that said like many, I will without question pick up a box or two.

There's no release date for these as yet.

These, amongst other things, are on my worktable at the moment. I'm showing them to reassure you that I've not forgotten the British. This is will be the first of the plastic British cavalry sets. You will be able to represent British, KGL and Hanoverian Hussars with this box.

There will be 14 figures in the box, including an officer and trumpeter. The torsos are fixed to the overalled legs, unlike the French Hussars, but have separate arms again (unlike the French). I'm probably going to leave the haversacks and canteens off, as they were often worn under the pelisse. This would then allow you to cross-fertilize the British bodies with the French to produce Brits in breaches and French in later overalls, if required, and also allowing variations in arm poses, too. There will be enough arms to make all the figures at the charge or shouldered. The heads will include the unpopular early tall fur cap 14" in height (!), the later shortened fur cap, peaked shakos, and the peaked fur KGL/Hanoverian caps. The useless Paget carbines are covered and lashed to the saddle front. Shown here are four of the six horse halves which will be in the box.

Now my obligatory moan/worry about Victrix, isn't this yet another nail in the coffin for those guys? As Victrix struggle to get any set out the door Perry seem to pop up every 5 minutes with yet another set and eliminate  one more segment that Victrix can target.  Soon all that will be left for them will be the least popular armies and periods and how are they going to make money from that?
I really can't believe that Russian/Prussian/Austrian are more popular in 1805/07 than 1812/14, and anyway with Perry covering French/British/Prussian 1813-1815 surely late Russians or Austrians would have dove tailed right into that new demand. I just don't see them selling the early sets, mind you if Victrix are going to only produce the sets no one wants then I would love to them do a Spanish Infantry box next, and aren't the Spanish just perfect for a plastic set, lots of variety needed around a basic torso.


Don't forget we already have the following British Cavalry in metal from Perry.

Its fair to say we don't have the Peninsular equivalents of these units, so I guess plastic Heavies, at least, are inevitable but you do scratch your head in wonderment when others are struggling to make any profit at all, the Perry's can effectively cannibalise there own existing metal lines. They truly are a law unto themselves.

Napoleonic Catalan Somatenes/Spanish Guerrillas in 28mm

So where do we source the Catalan somatenes for the action at Bruc (or for that matter Spanish guerrillas in general) in 28mm.

Perry Miniatures:
Officially tagged for the Carlist Wars but they will do just as well for Napoleonic era. Check out CAT23-CAT29 and civilians CAT15/CAT16 (Carlist Wars - Carlist Forces).
36 figures in range  GBP1.00 each (but you buy as a set of 6).

Front Rank:
If you don't mind your insurgents looking large and a bit overfed!
Very comprehensive 100% wargaming range, beautifully sculpted.
38 figures in range GBP1.05 each

East Riding Miniatures:
Designed by Jim Bowen
I have not seen these personally, from the pics they don't look quite up to Perry and FR standards but comparing painted to unpainted is never really fair and they look much better than Redoubt.
12 figures in the range GBP1.25 each.

Redoubt Enterprises
20 figures in the range GBP1.10 each.
Redoubt figures are generally on the large size.
Personally they look too poor quality to be considered but YMMV.