Unmarried Zulu's or Napoleonic Austrians anyone?

Hoi,

Just a quick post to let you all know that HäT has put up a duo of crowdfunders for 1:32 Austrian Napoleonics and 1:72 Unmarried Zulu warriors here: LINK.

These sets have been in the making for quite some time and to fasten the process, HäT has now decided to go the way of the crowdfunder to bring them to the wider public.

While I have no use for 1:32 figures I have ordered some of the Zulu's which are Unmarried ones at this moment not available on the market in correct attire anywhere.

For about $15 you would be getting 60 Zulu's! Yup I am in ;-)

Cheers Sander

Fusilier Regiment Nr. 40 von Kreytzen;

Hoi,

It has been some time since my last post, this does not mean I have been idle however. A lot of garden-work has taken my time and I have been in the process of expanding my 28mm real-estate. Looking around the "man-cave" 7 unpainted MDF lasered buildings spanning from the Dark Ages to contemporary days, are scattered around the place. These are not the subject of today's post however, I will report on them later.

No, for this update I will show you my latest 7YW Prussian regiment. When the new HäT MAC sets of the 7YW Prussian Infantry became available, I bought heavily into them to recreate the British army active at Minden and the rest of that campaign. So heavily in fact that I have ample figures to spare and could not resist depicting some Prussians as well. This, the 3rd of these, is the 40th Fusilier Regiment von Kreytzen. Why? Well because of the pink vests and breeches. They are just so darn colourful, this is exactly why this period is so cool to paint!

OK so without further ado, let's go to the pictures:

The pink turned out a bit more purplish as I would like to, but all the same: I like these quite a lot!

Next post will be concerning the 28mm buildings if nothing else happens in between ;-)

Cheers Sander

Final regular posts for the AHPC!

Hoi,

Yesterday the final duo of regular posts for the AHPC have gone online. I decided to go out with a bang and post two point-bombs in order to gain my 1500 points target. One could use the links below to see these.

Post 1 Napoleonic Points bomb

Post 2 Star Wars Points bomb

Equally happy with finishing all of these mini's, painted over a longer stretch of time, I can now conclude the Challenge. I am contemplating whether I would like to enter the last bonus round theme or not since the deadline is due tomorrow already... perhaps I will.

A more complete round-up of this year's Challenge will follow later, since I am pretty much convinced that Curt will ask us to write up a "all miniatures painted during the Challenge post" after the final conclusion of the event itself.

In the meantime, the latest batch of miniatures for my Dark Ages Dux Britanniarum project arrived from the Beast yesterday so I am over my head in Anglo-Saxons, Norsemen and Carolingians more on those later as well!

Cheers Sander

Barrage!

Hoi,

For another update on my progress in painting my Challenge targets you can see quite a lot of Great War eye-candy over at the Challenge blog HERE.

Cheers Sander

Some more Grey...

Hoi,

As I promised to keep you posted on the progress of the brigade of Napoleonic Prussian Reserve- or Landwehr Infantry here's the first finished battalion. Basically I have enough figures to depict 5 battalions. The first I had already painted some time ago. I gave the regiment yellow facings and while thinking about which colour to give the next 4 battalions, I stumbled along the excellent Mont Saint Jean site. There I found that these regiments had several battalions in the field, distinguished from each other by their shoulder-straps. So I decided to depict another battalion of the regiment already painted (with the yellow facings) and do the other 3 units in different facing colours.

Here they are.

As you can see the miniatures are HäT except for the drummer and the two other troopers on the command stand which are Revell figures.

Cheers Sander

At them Scots Greys!

Hoi,

Recently I had a bit of a luck on "marktplaats" a Dutch version of Ebay. I obtained two lots of 1:72 plastic toy soldiers. The first lot was a set of Airfix British Guards which I held to be the one trooping the colour. The set had been on sale for some time with no bids to name, since I'd like to have a set of both the Colour Guard and the Band, I put in a bid of €2,- and this was duly accepted...

The same vendor offered several o9ther lots including a set of Napoleonics. In this lot where a set of Italeri French dragoons, Revell Life Guards and Guard Chasseurs, an Airfix Napoleonic Highlanders and a set of Airfix French Napoleonic infantry including one gun. My bid of €10,- for the lot was also accepted...

When we came back from our Holiday in Switzerland, the envelope was awaiting me and I went at it sorting all the sets out. Unfortunately, all the sets are missing parts and the Airfix Guards set is actually a combination of both the sets and pretty incomplete at that. That said I will try to do my best to turn them into something nice.

But I first started with something else. For some time I have reached the conclusion that the Revell Life Guards are pretty much the best set of British heavy cavalry for the Napoleonic Wars. Therefore I have decided to represent several regiments using these figures and with the set out of this lot I had a try in converting them to Scots Greys. The heads used are mostly from the inadequate Italeri set (really bad poses and totally the wrong horse furniture) with the 3 command figures sporting HäT heads. The bandaged head is a Bruno Arnal piece and very nice!

Now before you start commenting about it: I know that I made a mistake by using the Life Guards horses for the Greys but seeing as I have no others here at present, nor know where to get some more, I went with these. And since I was blaspheming anyway I also made the chequered border along the shabraques blue... Yeah I know, but at least it looks spiffing!

Without further ado:

Cheers Sander

Bring in the heavy guns!

Hoi,

Well I suppose most of you will be longing for a historic post rather then the DW or other Sci-fi stuff I've been posting lately so here we go: I only had two artillery bases for my British Colonial Army based on the HäT colonial artillery set, these sport medium to light field guns and so I needed some more heavies. Therefore I combined several sets (Italeri ACW guns with HäT Colonials and Napoleonic Mariners) to create these two bases of heavy guns, enjoy!

BTW: it wasn't until after making these pictures that I noticed I need to blacken the muzzles of the guns they're still blue... yes I'm very much ashamed!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Ixnay on the Hombre" by The Offspring

Green- and Blue Jackets

Hoi,

The next instalment in my HäT testshot- extravaganza: here are some of the Colonial British Command and infantry sets mixed up. I painted some to resemble the Royal Marines (or Blue Jackets) and some as Rifle Brigade (Green Jackets).

Rifle Brigade Command:

Marines and Rifles:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Black Ice" by AC-DC

Here come the lobsters!

Hoi,

A short while ago I indulged in the testshot sprues of 3 HäT sets, to whit the Peninsular British Command set, The British Colonial Command set and the British Colonial infantry set. The former is now finished and here are some pictures to wet your appetite. The heads are separate and what is new is the fact that the heads do not come with a peg, but the peg is fastened to the body while the heads have a corresponding gap. This gives you the option of making a pre- and post 1812 uniform or a mix. Also included is a head with, what I initially thought to be an undress cap. As it turns out upon closer examination it is actually a Scottish Kilmarnock with chequered band and all. Well I painted as an undress cap anyway.

The mounted officer:

Officers on foot:

Other ranks:

BTW: have you discovered the two glaring mistakes in this picture? Yep the serg has no rank chevrons and the drummers has no shako plate, I will rectify this asap.

Here an alternative head swap for the serg:

Cheers Sander

Listening to "Rock in Rio" by Iron Maiden

Les grenouilles bleu! Part II

Hoi,

Here's the second batch of French Marines for the Crush the Kaiser project:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "To Mega-Therion" by Therion

Les grenouilles bleu! Part I

Hoi,

The Christmas Holidays are gone and past, and boy did Santa bring me lots of nice stuff! More on that in a later post first up and long overdue is a post on my latest project. While I am in the process of finishing the Napoleonic Polish Grenadiers for Uwe, I came to an agreement with Paul and Ian from Crush The Kaiser games. They blew me away with their demo game at the Crisis in Antwerp last November. It was a huge West-front table peopled with  20mm plastics and some metals. They fitted right in amongst all the 28mm mainstream "big boys" and in my honest opinion looked far better then most... Now for their next project, of which I am not going to tell too much here, they'll be needing a 60 odd French Marines or Naval Infantry. Since I did a conversion way back when the Early War French Infantry from HäT was released we decided I'd have a go at these. Here's part one of the WIP of these figures.

Below are the regular privates with green stuff bonnets, quite a lot of work to be honest...

To get a bit more diversity I converted most of the command figures, I used weapon arms from other HäT sets (WW1 American Infantry and Colonial Indians) and so head-swaps with WW1 Airfix Brits.

Finally up are two painted test figures. If you take a look at my original conversion (see link above) you'll notice I used a darker blue for the uniforms this time and also did the equipment in the regulation black leather as featured in The French Army 1914 by André Juneau.

I do hope Paul and Ian are content with these!

The Crush the Kaiser project is very much a project born of love for the hobby not a commercial firm as such. Therefore progress on website and rules might be a bit more slow then you'd be used from a professional firm but all the same very much worth your while!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Everybody Else Is Doing It" by the Cranberries

Kilties Waheeee!

Hoi,

Some time ago I mentioned having gotten some of HäT's Great War Scottish and Indian Infantry, well here are the first WIP pictures.

First up is a picture of the Scots WIP, I have added some scenics to almost all their bases varying from barbed wire up to German backpacks.

Next are tow conversions to add to the mentioned WW1 sets: an Indian officer made by head-swapping with a Colonial Officer and a a guy playing the bagpipes made from a Colonial piper.

Watch this space for more news!

Cheers Sander


Listening to: "Shenanigans" by Green Day

E20 is here!

Hoi,

Today my order of HäT E20 releases came in and I am quite happy with them. What did I get? Well I'll tell you. First off are a box of these two sets:
8191 Zulu Warriors and 8271 Dervish Warrior, I have no intentions of building huge armies for them but I do have Colonial British troops and would like to use these for skirmish games in the jungles or desert. 

To top this of I got two sets each of 8235 WWI Highlanders and the 8236 WWI Indian Infantry.  

Now let's analyse these sets. The Zulu Warriors and Dervishes are both part of an ongoing series, there are Dervish camel-riders and NNC troops to accompany them. Therefore it's no problem to me that both these sets only include 8 poses. They'll suffice for my purposes. The Zulu's are armed pretty much as expected with assegai's and clubs coupled with shields. The Dervishes present a decent mix of rifle armed and close-combat armed individuals including Kiplings famous "Fuzzy-Wuzzies". I can supplement them with ESCI command figures and so create a little warband to attack my British skirmish patrols. A set of British Colonial infantry is in the works so we'll be having heaps of fun in Darkest Africa in time. 


The Great War sets are a great bunch too. Both sets feature subjects unseen before in the hobby. The Indian troops can be used for a nigh uncountable amount of theatres of war and are thus very useful. The Highlanders are dressed in mid war Western Font gear and while I have enough chaps for an elite company in the Great War game now, I'll probably end up doing an entire battalion in the end. Some conversions are needed though, both sets lack officers so I'm going to have to create those from other sets. Some head-swaps will probably be enough. But the helmets of the Scots I would like to feature pompoms and covering so that'll mean I have to get out the green stuff...


I'll keep you posted on any developments...


Cheers Sander,

Listening to: "Passchendaele" by Iron Maiden

Avatar

Hoi,

When Arthur was born the nice chaps at HäT provided me with an all-new avatar for their forum:

I really like this one, as it seems it's rather hard to get hold of... Anyway it fits in nicely with all the avatars down below on my blog. It would actually be a great idea to turn them into sew-on patches for my HäT gear but it's simply too expensive...

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "The Black Album  by Metallica

The Prussians are Coming!

Hoi,

Today brings you some pictures of HäT's Prussian Reserve Infantry  When starting out I really was convinced I'd be able to paint them up in one evening, since they wear a very straight forward and simple uniform. It turned out to be a bit different because the level of details and the amount of kit they wear is pretty hefty.

Anyway without further ado here we go:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "the Lord of the Rings" BBC radio audiobook