A quick diversion - remount 15mm Austrians

I have inherited a 15mm Austrian Army that was mounted for Napoleons Battles (ie 3/4 by 1 inch bases). These miniatures are long oop Heritage miniatures from years gone by and I really don't want to go out and buy these (if I can find them) as they aren't the most appealing miniature. I will be replacing them with either Old Glory or AB Miniatures in time.



When I remounted this force, I quickly realized that I can't use 8 figures per base so I had to use 4 figures. Not as eye pleasing as I would want, but it did work.

I did put a label on each base showing unit information and ID to make playing with these a bit easier. This will enable me to use them though they will look like the thin white line compared to others out there.

I will be replacing them, slowly, with either AB or OG miniatures.

So, what are your thoughts? Yes? No?

Hat 28mm Bavarians - painting them

Well, here is what I ended up with. Not to bad in my opinion. These are very easy to paint though I do need to continue to work on my painting skills compared to some of the others that are out there. This is the first of 4 stands that I will be working on the rest of the week. I should have 3 more stands completed by Saturday/Sunday of this week. That will give me time to do a quick review of the Bavarian Command set over the weekend as well.

You will notice that there is an empty strip along the back edge of the base. Thanks to Joe Krone (see the link to his site on the right hand side), I'll be following his standards of basing by adding a label. I'll have more on that as I get those finished up as I'm 'toying' with the idea of changing them up a bit. But again more on that later.

Front view

Back views

A quick review of Hat 28mm Marching Bavarians (28010)

So what's with the new Hat Industries new 28mm line? Are they any good? Let me try and shed some light on the subject as I'll do a quick review of them.

I'll start with the March poses that they offer, Item number 28010.

It contains 32 miniatures. They are cast in a hard plastic like most of the other plastic miniatures manufacturers. They are cast in a light blue color. Each box contains 4 sprues of 8.

The figures themselves do have a little flash on them but nothing to bad and that a quick exacto blade can't remove. Each sprue has 8 miniatures, 8 backpacks and 8 plumes. I really like the fact that they included the plumes for these so you can make shutzen and grenadier companies out of the same figures.
The overall detail is good, not as crisp as some of the other manufactures such as the Perry's or Victrix, but it is good. They do lack detail in facial features and hands. They are also thinner compared to everyone else as well.

One thing that I did have to deal with while assembling some tonight was that the pin for the backback and the back on the miniature itself doesn't match up. You have to trim down the pin to get the backpack to fit. Not that big of a deal either all things considered.

So what's my take on them? If you do a unit completely of Hat Bavarians, they will look great. I don't think that they would mix well with thier Old Glory counterparts as they are thinner. Detail wise, though not as good as other manufacturers, they are good enough to field on a gaming table. For the price of around $15.00, they are an awesome purchase.

I've got 6 primed up and I'll post later this weekend on how they paint up (complete with pictures). And I will do a quick review on the Command Pack (Item number 28012) mid next week as well.

So it begins

My local gaming group (and myself included) has caught 25mm Napoleonic 'bug'. We all have 15mm (and some of us have 10mm) armies, but with great prices on the 25/28mm plastic sets from such companies as Perry, Victrix and Hat, is time we took the plunge.

I will be, initially, working on a Bavarian force for the gaming system 'LaSalle' by Sam Mustafa. To me, it is one of the best (if not the best) Napoleonic wargame rule sets on the market currently. You can find out more about from the list of links on the right hand side. Our basing system will be the following :

Infantry : 50mm frontage by 50mm depth, 6 figures per base.
Cavalry : 50mm frontage by 50mm depth, 6 figures per base.
Artillery : 50mm frontage by 100mm depth, 1 gun and 3-4 crew per base.
Skirmishers : 50mm frontage by 25mm depth, 2 figures per base.

I will be using the new Hat miniatures 25/28mm Bavarians for this project. Once I get set up to start the process, I'll be taking some photos and giving some commentary as I go along. And before you ask or state the obvious, yes the Bavarians are 'plain jane', nothing special about them. Why would I do these then? The answer is quite simple. Because I want to.

More later this week, so stay tuned!

Steve
'The Dial Dude'