Ros 25mm French Infantry - A Christmas Project

Just before Christmas I obtained a rather large figure collection, with about 50% Ros and 50% Minifigs S Range, all napoleonic. Some may have noticed that my sister blog is devoted to Ros 25mm figures and this was a good opportunity to add to my French units.

Here are the finished figures, formed into three units, freshly painted with Ros command figures added. Thee are two line infantry units and one light forming an early brigade size formation:

British Light Infantry

My latest unit to take to the field is a Napoleonic British Light Infantry battalion.  The figures are 25mm Minifigs, recently purchased from Calivar, who have taken over production. The castings are lovely, with minimal cleaning up and a joy to paint.

These figures, painted in my 'toy soldier' style, used a mix of Humbrol, Revell and Tamiya gloss paints.  Due to the long drying times they took a week to finish.

Minifigs Scots Greys

Taking a break from renovating ancients, I decided to finish off these Napoleonic British cavalry figures. They were started over a year ago and kept getting pushed to the end of the queue. They are lovely figures and were a joy to paint.  They are 25mm Minifigs Scots Greys painted using gloss paints, toy soldier style:

Renovating Ancients 3rd Batch

Continuing to work through these figures, some more Persians, North Africans and Romans.

First off are these repaired Persian medium infantry by Garrison Mniatures:

Next, some Minifigs Persian allies - Egyptian Marines:

The third batch are Minifigs S Range Egytian light infantry, two units:

Minifigs S Range Libyan spearmen (medium infantry):

Finally, some more Minifigs S range Romans, consisting of two medium infantry units and a General, who I think is by Warrior Miniatures?

Still plenty more to do!

Renovating Ancients - 2nd Batch

A few more Persians and some Romans received a scrub up.

Persian ally medium infantry by Minifigs:

These Hinchliffe Persian archers were in a right state. Most of the paint had worn away and all the bows were broken off. These were replaced with wire and they were given a new paint job:

Finally, three Minifigs S Range Roman heavy infantry take to the field:

Renovating Ancients - First Batch

This took a bit longer than I thought it would; however I have managed to renovate and rebase several Persian units and a Greek one. Here are my efforts so far:

Garrison camel troops:

Minifigs Horse Archers:

Minifigs Archers:

Minifigs Slingers:

Minifigs Medium Infantry:

Garrison Greek Infantry:

Renovating Ancients

For some time now I have been toying with the idea of renovating my collection of ancient figures. This coincided with a few acquistions to build up sufficient figures to have a go at Command and Colors Ancients.  Most of the figures are basically painted, although a number have broken parts that need to be repaired.  They are a mix of Minifigs, Garrison and a few Hinchliffe and are Greeks and Persians.  Here is part of the collection:

Those in the glass bowls are being soaked to remove old bases and flock.

The Garrison figures are the most challenging, having suffered lots of breakages:

I have made a start on some figures and will publish some pictures of the results.

Warrior - Prussian Dragoons

I bought these figures on Ebay and I have repainted them. I now have two dragoon regiments, a Cuirassier and a hussar regiment. I have also painted some test infantry figures, which look quite good:

Austrian Cuirassiers - 25mm Minifigs S range

I have been working on these figures for several weeks and over the weekend I finally finished them.  These are Austrian Napoleonic Cuirassiers, with some clever conversions to create command figures, kindly carried out by a friend.

I enjoyed painting these, although I am not sure that I have done them justice and I might go back and tidy up one or two aspects:

Hichliffe WW2 British Infantry 20mm

The refurbishment of the first lot of my Hinchliffe 20mm British is now complete.  I am also replacing some of the plastic figures with Hinchliffe originals too:

Basic Memoir '44 units:

A Vickers MG unit:

Command figures, forward observer team, flame thrower etc:

Hinchliffe WW2 Russians

The second very kind gift was of a quantity of Hinchliffe 20mm Russian infantry and gunners.  There are sufficient figures to make up a useful force with support weapons.

The infantry come in three basic poses - an officer, an infantry man with a sub-machine gun and a rifleman:

Here is the whole infantry force:

In addition the batch of figures contained enough crews to man four support weapons. First off, I used three to man a mortar:

Two further crews were used to man a couple of 76mm guns by Irregular Miniatures:

The last crew were used to man a seriously large anti-tank gun, again by Irregular Miniatures:

Finally, I also finished this German Pak 40 by Hinchliffe, with a crew:

Hinchliffe WW2 20mm Figures

In the 1970s my brothers and I purchased a few of the then emerging range of Hinchliffe WW2 figures and they have been sitting in drawers for decades. Recently with my introduction to Memoir '44 I have started using these figures, as seen in the recently played out Pegasus Bridge scenario.

The discussion following Pegasus bridge led to some very kind gifts of Hinchliffe Russians and Germans from fellow bloggers. This has allowed me to expand my collection, and of course given me the opportunity to paint some different figures.

Here are some samples of German infantry, notably some support weapons and a few infantry:

An Mg 42 team and an 8cm mortar with crew:

Anti-tank teams:

German infantry:

German elite troops:

I have already painted a number of British infantry and I am near to completion of a large group of Russians. More pictures to follow.

Iroquois War Party - SYW

Within the batch of SYW figures that I obtained from the Eric Knowles collection was this small group of Iroquois indians by Minifigs. One figure, the pointing chap, is a Minifigs S Range item.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable project as I had not painted any 25mm native indians before and certainly not in my toy soldier gloss style.  I experimented with shades of buff and brown to create the skin tones and the various buckskin clothes and equipment, Here is the result: