More Prussians ~ Musketeers

This week I've finished the musketeer battalions of the 5th Line Regiment (4th East Prussian). I finished the first battlion a while back and started on the second but put them aside. They they sat around waiting to be finished for about a year or so. Now they're finished.

The figures are the boring Perry plastics. They look okay and they are affordable but they are pretty boring. I'd much prefer an "advance at the port" pose which I think looks better than the marching pose. The flags are from Flags of War. I very rarely purchase flags and prefer to make them myself but this time I bought them (I don't know why). Nice flags though! I bought them some time back.

Now below there's a couple of photo's of the second battalion. I also took a few pics of the first battalion but the light changed in between shots and the pics came out awful. This is a shame because the first battalion is painted better than the 2nd. I once again played with the AI Generative Fill tool on photoshop to add a background to get rid of the window and blinds behind the table.

And that's it for now. I'll get on to the fusilier battalion soon but first up I'm going to try my hand at some 10mm Napoleonic's to see how hard they are to paint, how long they take and how they look as a battalion.

Cheers,

Ian KH

Prussian Jaegers

I've added to my Prussian skirmish line and decided to put all of them out on parade for a photo opportunity. I have quite a decent array of skirmishers (21 bases) with plenty of variety in their uniforms. I also played around with the new AI Generative Fill feature in Photoshop 2024 to block out the wall and window that sits behind my table. Quite an impressive background for a few seconds of work.

I'm currently putting in an effort to finish a Prussian line infantry regiment (the 5th) but I took the time to finish these volunteer jaeger. Like many figures, these troops have been sitting on my painting desk for some time. They were half finished and dusty. They are from Warlords and, in my opinion, they are pretty crappy figures. That's one of the reasons why they gathered dust for so long.

On the other hand here are some more volunteer jaeger in Tyrolean uniform. These figures are Perry and they're very nice. These are from either the Brunswick or Austrian range. When I got them there were no Tyrolean's in the Prussian range so I had to adapt.

Here are some of the other troops in my skirmish line. The guys in black in the centre of the photo below are part of my Lutzow's Freikorps. There are only three bases strong but I can add one or two of the jaeger bases to bring them up to strength. The Freikorps is one of my favourite Prussian formations.

Here's another use of the Photoshop Generative Fill tool. For this one I asked it to generate a background featuring Napoleonic Prussian troops. It came out pretty well.

These two below come from the Perry Prussian infantry boxed set. The top lot are just the basic rifleman figure. All the same pose and pretty boring - But they do the job. The guys below are conversions made from the same rifleman figure. They are Guard Jaeger and they were made by using bits from some Victrix French infantry and the Perry French Dragoon set.

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And last but not least, here's another little chap that has been half painted and gathering dust. He's a Reaper Bones figure that I got a couple of years back. Now he's finished and hanging out with my other fantasy figures. I've named him Otto the Pack Mule.

The Brigadier & The Galactic Patrol

Keeping in the spirit of getting things off my painting desk, I bring you a Prussian general and some space dudes. To be honest, the brigadier is a new purchase but the other figures have been sitting on my desk, collecting dust for over a year (or two) and it's a relief to see them done and ease my guilt. And for that reason they can be first on the bill: 

These figures are Galacteers from Hydra Miniatures. I bought them a long time ago when I was doing a lot of pulp wargaming. I started painting them a long while back but I didn't enjoy it. They look okay now that they're finished, but they were horrible figures to paint in many respects and I don't really like them. Unfortunately I have another squad of five to paint. They've been prepped for a long time so I put them on the desk last night and I'll take my time painting them.

These figures were really difficult to photograph. I think it's becuse the colours I chose are pretty vibrant and the white is very white and it was reflecting into the lens and causing problems. I ended up photographing them in daylight because artificial light made them glare even worse. As a result most of the shading isn't coming through. On the actual figures there is definition and shading on their muscles but it just isn't showing. 

Anyway, that brings us to Herr Brigadier... I needed an extra brigadier for my Lutzow's Freikorp cavalry element. The Freikorps was very difficult to command with only one officer for both the infantry and the cavalry. This figure is from the Perry Prussian Mounted Officer set and I think he really looks the part. As I was adding the final touches to him I thought I should have painted up a hussar officer in the spirit of Von Schill. No worries though. This fine chap will do sterling service, I have no doubts!

And that's this week's update. Not much but even if it's only small steps it means that I'm getting back into painting and slowly getting out of my wargaming funk.

Cheers, and thanks for reading.

Prussian Cavalry ~ 3rd Dragoon Regiment

 Back again but not a soon as I'd hoped. I was hoping to post something sooner but the the troops I chose to paint took longer than expected. I've had a box of Perry Prussian dragoons assembled and and undercoated sitting in my cupboard for months so I decided to paint them. They came out okay and I'm going to do another regiment in the near future. 

As you can see there are 18 of them. That's more that a single box. Prussia had large cavalry regiment so I decided I needed more figures which meant I had to wait for the post to bring them to me. That was the first delay. The second delay happened as I was basing them and I decided that I wanted bases with3 figures. I had 16 figures painted and I needed another two. So I painted two more.

Anyhow, here they are. As I was starting this job I found that I had a set of Flags of War flags for the 3rd and 4th dragoons, hence these guys became the 3rd Regiment and the 4th will follow soon so that I can field them as a heavy brigade. I might make the 4th regiment larger (24 figures)

Getting these photos ready I noticed that I got some of the base colour on the front hoof of the officer's horse. I fixed it up later but it's annoying to have in the photo's.

And that's it for the moment. I've now started work on a Prussian infantry battalion that was also sitting there assembled and undercoated along with the cavalry. These shouldn't take too long. As far as Napoleonic's are concerned; Prussians are on the easy end of the spectrum.