Austrian artillery Napoleonic 51

 In an effort to balance the Napoleonic arms race in my shed I am happy to present eight Austrian artillery pieces, three horse artillery pieces, two from Eagle miniatures and one from Perry. Two 12lb from Eagle and three Frankenstein cut and shunt home cast 25mm Prince August carriages with some eBay purchased wheels from long ago and plastic/resin barrels.  I needed to lengthen the carriages aa the Austrian pattern is longer than the French. The crews are a couple of Eagle figures and the Perry handlanger team that have been promoted from hauling guns to crewing them! The other team are from Trent miniatures sold as revolutionary Austrian artillery crew, although to my mind they're more like seven years war but they're done and the Austrian artillery branch were notoriously conservative! They're a bit chunkier than Perry but nice figures, the Eagle figures are less good in my opinion and I won't be buying them again as they cost the same as Perry but at least they're done! The four limbers started out in two cases as 25mm British limbers that I ended up with when purchasing a load of bits of artillery for my war of three Kingdoms armies made redundant following my key ring light guns and were knocking around when I needed to have some Austrian limbers but wasn't able to spend any money! With the addition of foamboard box and resin wheels,  a new central pole I had two Austrian limbers, two spare warbase mdf French limbers got the foamboard box treatment and I had four limbers. I just needed some draught horses, three spare renaissance Hinchcliffe draught horses got me started, the other five are home cast Prince August 25mm horses with the addition of Perry plastic horse heads and necks that you get spare with their medieval horse sprues. The riders legs started out as British light dragoons, the torso's French chasseurs with the detail carved away, the arms are from the Austrian cavalry set and the heads are Austrian Landwehr, all Perry. With the addition of string, card, wire and a few spare bits of 3d tack, I  merely had to stand back, pull the handle and cry "give my creation life!" Or not as perhaps I got a little carried away, but they are undeniably Frankenstein limbers!

There's also a spare French draught team that missed it's comrades' post but is here now, first cuckoo of spring?

All the best

 Iain 

Legion exhibition at the British museum and ramblings

 I went to an exhibition on the Roman army at the British museum the other day and thought it might be of interest even if it is a bit London specific! It was pretty well laid out, following a real citizen who couldn't get into the legions to start with and had to join the marines ( the lowest level auxiliaries) until eventually being able to transfer over to the legions, based on existing letters between him and his father, first century AD, he took part in putting down the Jewish revolt.

I like the mortuary statue of the imagifier and I think the twisted image of Galba is absolutely splendid, distorted he looks like some kind of robot villain! 

The blue enamel medals were also interesting I thought?

The cavalry bits were nicely laid out and while I knew of the Greek and Amazon cavalry parade/display helmets the Trojan on the right was a new one on me. 

Seeing the Dura Europas shield up close was a treat, plus the usual swords and helmets. The bits of Roman military tents and pegs were fun and I was particularly taken by the cataphract kit, very large scales! 

Worth a visit even if you know a bit about Roman Legions, it's on until June. What it has done is make me have another look at what I'm painting. Virtually all my French Napoleonics are now at least primed and assembled and my Austrians aren't far behind.  I was going to follow that up with getting a brigade of Bavarians and at least that or maybe more of Prussians.  

I've put that on hold at least for the moment and  have moved late Romans up into the paint queue, I  guess Napoleonics have been almost the exclusive focus of painting for a number of years , since the start of 2021, and while they're not going to be going away I think I'll be having a bit more variety, I was particularly taken with Jonathan Freitag's Republic Romans in his multiple games of Trasemine and they might become a project down the line, especially as one of my nephews is doing a successor army in 28mm, I will be expanding my Celts from more than just chariots and building, priming and painting two early Imperial Roman armies that I already have figures for, before then I want to paint my Late Roman and Romano British armies for Dux Bellorum and maybe expand them a little into a To the Strongest forces. I've also finished my Imperial Guard book and am now reading one on the Picts!  Expect more Napoleonics for a while but at some point there should be other units coming through and maybe something rather more left field  for me? 

Sorry for the wall of text and I promise there will be toy soldiers next time! 

All the best

 Iain