The Great Plastic Revival - Prussian Cavalry

 This is the third batch of Prussians to be completed, in this case the cavalry.  When I went through the boxes there were lots of cavalry in odd colours, mainly white and gree.  I think they were supposed to be part of the Austrian army, however, they did not look quite right.

On closer inspection I worked out that, apart from some Revell black hussars and early war Revell Cuirassiers, the bulk were in fact ESCI/Italeri British Scots Greys wearing oilskin shako covers. I thought that with a dab of paint they could be passed off as Prussian dragoons.  Here is the result:

From a couple of feet away they don't look to out of place.

Next, I might tackle some of the Airfix Prussian Landwehr, but these are completely unpainted and will take a little longer.

The Great Plastic Revival - Prussian Infantry

 The next batch of figures to be dusted off and rebased are the Prussian foot,  Consisting of Revell and Airfix figures they make quite a colourful contribution to the collection:

Next up will be the cavalry, after which I will turn my attention to the Russians.

The Great Plastics Revival

 Over the decades our family has accumulated a huge collection of plastic Napoleonic figures.  They have been painted.organised and reorganised and repainted many times. The result of all this is that they have been dispersed and set aside as new projects took hold, or they were replaced by metal castings.

As a result of a mistaken purchase, I have decided to centralise all of the figures, repair and repaint where necessary and to use standard basing.  The mistake occurred when I was looking for some plastic French cavalry to go with my Les Higgins collection, until such time as I could find some metal originals. I put in a bid for some French Hussars and a few Riflemen that were going cheap on eBay.  I forgot about the bid until just before the auction closed and I thought, as I was the only bidder, I should take a look in more detail.  To my horror I could see why there were few bids, it was collection only.  Luck was on my side, however, as the location of the lot was about 5 miles down the road, phew!

I then looked at the description and realised that it was not just some cavalry and infantry, but a complete collection of over 1,500 figures.  My bid of around £20 looked too low but I remained the only bidder and won the collection, which is now sitting in my garage.  I am guessing that most other people failed to fully read the description and were put off by the 'collection only' condition.

To cut a long story short I now have an additional massive collection of painted plastic figures and it made sense to merge these with our existing holdings. As most were sitting dormant in attics and cupboards, the rest of the family were glad to shed their figures, no doubt grateful for the additional storage space.

So, there we are.  This little adventure has seen me painting and basing hundreds of figures and I thought I would share some pictires as I complete them.  First off figures from our original collection, repainted and baed.  Starting with some British:

Some Airfix Highlanders:

Airfix line infantry:

Revell Rifles:

More Airfix line infantry (with ESC! officers):

Revell line infantry:

Airfix British Hussars (I missed touching up some of the swords!)

I am working on some Bavarian battalions at the moment.  More pictures to come over the coming weeks.

German Paratroopers

Being a really wet day yesterday, I thought I would go for a rummage in the garage and my eye fell upon a crate with WW2 German written on the side.  Inside there were a load of boxes, but three caught my eye and I took them into the house for inspection.  

 

The contents had been there since a game up in Cumbria in the 1990s, a jumble of German paratroopers from various manufacturers, some painted, others not.  So, I decided to pick out the best, tidy them up and put them on bases.  There were two types; early war c1940 and later war c1944.  

First off the early war figures, mostly by Airfix, with a few Revell items:

The second lot were mostly Revell, with a few ESCI and a scratch built recoiless weapon:

Now, I can see a game emerging that involves the early war paratroopers attempting to capture a bridge held by French infantry during the 1940 invasion of the low countries!

Opening more boxes - Japanese Troops

As it was wet last weekend, I thought I would have a further rummage in the garage and open up a few more boxes. In a crate marked Misc, Jap/Fr/Russ, I found a couple of boxes full of painted and part painted Japanese, as well as a few commonwealth figures. There were also a couple of vehicles:

The figures were a mix of painted and part painted, ESCI, Matchbox and Airfix Japanese infantry. I separated out the painted figures and re-based them:

This all worked out as a battalion of Matchbox Japanese infantry, one and a half battalions of ESCI infantry, an infantry gun, one tank and one self propelled gun. Enough for an interesting wargame methinks.

There was also a couple of companies of Commonwealth troops, with a heavy machine gun - ESCI and Revell:

I note that in the crate I saw some Matchbox Anzacs and a further unmade Japanese tank by Airfix. In another box there is a heap of Airfix Ghurkas and Australian infantry.