You know what they say...

Does this look too crazy?

Men with over-large plumes must be compensating for a deficiency elsewhere!  Anyhow, I really like the "bottle brush" style of the mid-Napoleonic Russian Grenadiers.  Preposterous but good fun and creating an ImagiNation should be FUN!.

The obvious choice for this would be the forthcoming Warlord Games' "Russian Infantry 1809" plastic set (32 figures £18.00)  However, the cheapskate in me is drawn toward Victrix's various Austrian sets each containing enough figures for two 24  man regiments (plus spares) and all for a measly £22.00.

Now of course these sets do not contain any "bottle brush" plumes but I could certainly make a simple push-mould to fabricate these for the Grenadier compliment.  With this in mind I created a couple of crude mock-ups showing the figures with such plumes but I am stumped as to which looks better.

Shakos with bottle brush - more plausible?

The shako wearers are certainly less "outre" but the Landwehr guys are great fun.   Some opinions would be welcome.  Does the "corsehut" with bottle brush look too ridiculous?

Please remember the painting in these pictures is immaterial as these troops would be in the traditional B-S yellow.

As a footnote, the final plume may be a tad larger as these look a little insipid.

Warlord Games' Russian Infantry

After a long hiatus I am back!  Apologies for the absence but other projects interfered with the ImagiNation work.  Hopefully I will now be able to devote some of my time to the occasional article here.

I was at Colours today and got my mitts on a couple of the trial sprues for the upcoming Russian Napoleonic sets.

PAinted examples from Warlord's website.

First impressions were/are very favourable.  The sculpting is clean and the proportions are an improvement over the earlier Prussian Landwehr – although the hands are still large!

Each figure comes in three parts (head, backpack and body) and will therefore prove easy to assemble with some liquid poly.

Both the early and late sprues sport covered, uncovered and grenadier shako heads.  These are rendered nicely.  The only odd point is that the Grenadier heads are split down the centre by the mould.  I imagine this was in order to be able to mould the plume integrally.  That said, it is never a favourite option for me as one slip during clean-up and your figure is deformed!

Anyway – they look good and apparently should be out end Sept/ Early Oct.

I will snap up a box or two of the "early" option for Beimbach-Schönau's very late C18 army.  All we need now are those damn Austrians from Victrix!