Monday 14 November 2011

Austrian Infantrie Regt 4 - Wagram, 1809

Regiment of the Day

Today we have some more Austrians. A small unit of only 2 battalions of Austrian Veterans.


Figures by Warrior Miniatures from their 15mm napoleonics range. This is only a small unit of line, but they are rated as Veteran, so I have put the whole lot in bearskins to denote that they are of a different rating to the rest of the line regiments. (of which there are stacks in an Austrian army)

Light blue facings for IR4 (Deutschmeister).

Being a 'german' regiment, IR4 gets plain white breeches.



Some earlier model markings on the undersides of the base - denoting the IR number and the veteran status. I do like my newer Austrian base undersides, but the OCD hasn't kicked in enough to get me to redo these older versions (yet)

6 comments:

  1. Very nice, sky blue and white go together really well!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Ray, those colours together are a good look.

    You do sort of need it though - I have finished quite a few Austrians already, and I think I am getting snow blindness as it is :)

    But then there are the Hussars as well, and that fixes any lack of colour problems.

    Surprisingly, the regiments with black facings come out really well with the white uniforms. Go figure !

    I have a general theory on uniforms for the next war - assuming that technology gets to the point where NV equipment and infared imaging make camo uniforms redundant, I think it may be time to go back to 'real' military uniforms, with gold lace and red shakos. Some of the Austrian Hussar units really knew how to dress for battle. None of this ACU digital nonsense required.

    Apologies all for the general lack of depth on the articles on these Austrian regiments - there are a lot in the queue that are scheduled for publishing so far, and really, with pretty much the same uniform colours, over the same figures, with the same flags ... there isn't much extra text I can add at this stage without repeating myself over and over again.

    Main point at this stage is to get the photos up and link them to the OOBs to create a sort of visual reference site, so modellers can see at least 1 interpretation of how a specific regiment can look on the battlefield. I can always add text later I suppose as information comes to light.

    If I look over my right shoulder, there are dozens of blocks of primed figures of Austrians ready for finishing ... argghh ! Not to mention the orders that are still in the postal pipeline as well. Arrggghhh !

    ReplyDelete
  3. These things are amazing! You really have a talent for bringing to life the past. Do you sell these on ebay.com or any other similar websites? (http://au.similarsites.com/site/ebay.com.au)
    I would love to have a source to purchase and I have some friends who may as well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well, many but not all readers may be aware of what you are, Steve, that this particular regiment, #4 Hoch und Deutschmeister, was perhaps the best Line regiment in the Austrian army, with the "inhaber" (regimental proprietor, not the same as the Colonel at all) being the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, and all the officers and many of the men being members as well. See, I saved you having to write that yourself! :-)

    Beautiful troops regardless!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Learn something new everyday !

    In fact, one day Peter, I am going to have to book in a very long evening with you ... a superb meal and a bottle of wine, and pick your brains on all of these details. You are a treasure trove of information.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for your comments Leroy.

    I might have a look at the option of building some of these for sale after the main project is complete, as there will be a quantity of figures left over that I wont be needing. I have done a number of miniature commissions before, and they all turned out very well.

    The only problem is (and I am sure other painters would agree with this), is that the time and materials cost involved in doing a decent job would make the end product highly uneconomical.

    I will have a think about it anyway.

    In the meantime, there are a number of services out there - mostly based in Asia, that have a different economic model when it comes to labor costs. They produce units similar to these here. The style of painting an finish is different in each case, and that is always a subjective thing to measure. These services do offer excellent value for money though, but I would never attempt to match them on price.

    There are also a number of guys (and gals) in UK / USA / EU / Russia / Australia ... who produce similar items of very high quality, in low volumes. The prices on these completed models are realistic as well.

    Stay tuned - sometime in the future I may start painting to sell.

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete