Monday, September 3, 2012

Austrian 1st Uhlans 'Schwarzenberg'



(Originally posted on the Home Page on Sept. 2nd, 2012)
As I mentioned in an earlier post these fellas have been kicking their heels on my paint desk for quite awhile, so I decided to take a break from my other stuff in order to get them done and in the cabinet.


The imperial Austrian army was composed of men from a bewildering range of ethnic backgrounds. In addition to those that were Germanic the empire drew heavily upon men who were Hungarian, Romanian, Italian, Swiss, Croatian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Slovak, Bohemian, Czech, and Polish (phew, that's a passel of folks).



For generations the horsemen of Poland have proved to be excellent light cavalrymen, exhibiting particular expertise with the lance. The French created several regiments of  Polish Lancers as did the Russians and the Austrians. The Polish lancers, serving within all these imperial states, saw heavy action during the Napoleonic Wars. In fact, it would be interesting to know if any of these men ever had to face each other across the battlefield, fighting under different flags.


These are 28mm models from Wargames Foundry - quite old castings but I still quite like them. The pennants I made from glue-soaked paper, folded and cut to shape. The regimental colour is from 'Flag Dude'.


I'll probably add another dozen troopers down the road, but since I have quite a few other regiments to complete it will probably be another several years before these guys see any reinforcements - but I'm sure they'll hold their own on the tabletop!

11 comments:

  1. Hi Curt,

    I was looking for a contact email address to send you some details for a competition we're currently running aimed at model makers.

    There's a prize of a worktop air filtration system unit up for grabs. You can find some more details on the competition here; http://www.benchvent.com/blog/show-us-your-workspace-and-win-an-exagon-r/

    We're accepting entries from across the globe and would bery much love it if you could take part.

    If you have any questions please do not hesitate to drop me an email.

    Kind regards,

    Scott

    BenchVent

    scott@benchvent.com

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  2. Curt these really do look great. Very colourful

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  3. Replies
    1. Thanks Mark! Nice to see these guys still getting some views. They've turned out to be real monsters on the tabletop - go figure!

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  4. Hi, Curt.

    Five years after you posted these, and I am still coming back to look at them! They look lovely, much nicer than my Uhlans, and the flag is the icing on the cake.

    One question: where do you get your tall grass tufts? I've always liked the look your units have of advancing through thigh-high grass.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Gangleri, much appreciated.

      For this unit, I made the grass by using Woodland Scenics yellow grass, popping lengths into glue blobs from a hot glue gun and then trimming to length. I then washed the base with a dark brown and highlighted the tips with a light yellow.

      Now, you can avoid all this bother by going to Tajima1 Miniatures from the UK and ordering their X-long yellow tufts. I get their stuff regularly now and can vouch to their quality.

      I hope this helps and thanks for dropping by!

      C

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  5. Nice Blog , Thanks
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