1/72 Plastic Ancient Egyptian Army

 Whilst wading through the sea of white as I rebased the whole of my Warrior Austrians, I painted small groups of plastic 1/72 scale Egyptians. The figures are mostly Atlantic, with a few Zvezda items to make up numbers.

The army consists of 10 chariots, four archer units, six of infantry and a command with escort:

The figures are all quite roughly painted using Speed Paints, but they stand up to the one foot rule. Next, some Hittites.

Some old pictures

 I was going through an old memory stick when I found some old pictures of Airfix 1/76 figures set in the Western Desert.  I must have painted these around 2009 when I was working overseas and had lots of spare evenings. They are a mix of Aifix 8th Army, Afrika Korps and the Bren Gun Carrier with 6pdr:

I think these old figures can be made to look quite attractive with a lick of paint.

Yet more Austrian Infantry

 The weekend saw me finishing off another batch of Warrior Austrians from the Jeffers collection. This time the units were one Jaeger battalion and four battalions of Landwehr.  I had to paint a couple of officers to make up the numbers. They make quite a colourful display:

I have now just about reached the end of this project.  There are quite a few odds and ends to sort out from the remains of downsized battalions.  In all there are about six further battalions of line infantry and grenadiers.  However, I will have to paint an equal number of command groups, of officers, standard bearers and drummers.

Ros Figures, 25mm French Imperial Guard Foot Artillery

 Seeking a change from the sea of Austrian white, I decided to finish off a project. Last night I completed a  some figures that have been sitting on the corner of the painting table for a long time.

Here they are, Ros Figures 25mm French Guard Foot Artillery, circa 1975.  They go off to join my Ros French forces. The castings are quite nice and they paint up well:

More Austrians

 The bank holiday provided the time to rebase more Warrior Miniatures Austrians.  On this occasion the batch consisted of six battalions.  Two are German line infantry, two, with the blue breeches are Hungarian line infantry, then there are two Reserve units.  One is Austrian Landwehr in campaign dress and the other (I believe) is the Salzburg Landwehr, the guys in green.

I also found two spare gunners, so I painted a commander and made up another battery.

A Hungarian battalion:

Landwehr:

Next will be another batch of Landwehr.  After that it will be a case of forming some more units from the odds and ends left from the reorganisation.  That should provide another 4 or 5 battalions.

Austrian Army Review, Grenadiers, Staff and Artillery

 The bank holiday presented the opportunity to finish off the next tranche of Warrior Austrians, originally painted by Jeffers. This time, I reorganised and based three combined grenadier battalions, another two line battalions, the staff officers and all of the artillery.

The combined grenadier battalions are those with white flags, with two more line battalions in the foreground.

A view from above gives a better impression of the grenadiers.  They are made up from the grenadier companies from the line battalions.

The complete Austrian staff.looking splendid as they survey the field.

And finally the artillery.  There are currently seven batteries, but I found some more gunners and will make up an 8th unit.

As I put these away I am soaking another load of infantry.  There are more line battalions plus some landwehr units to come.

25mm Portuguese Cavalry and Hittite Chariots

 This was a bit of a fun project.  I purchased a lot of eBay that consisted of around 20 Les Higgins/PMD British light cavalry horses and a similar number of early Lamming RHA outriders.  My initial plan was to keep the horses for future projects as and when the correct riders turned up.  However, it struck me that a simple bit of conversion work could turn the RHA chaps into Portuguese cavalry.  I had enough for three six figure units.  My research determined that Portuguese cavalry were constantly undermanned (short staffed PC) and usually could only muster around 200, due to corruption, desertion and inefficiency.

The Portuguese dragoons wore differing facing colours so the three units make quite a colourful display:

Also, Count Goya recently sent me two spare Atlantic Egyptian chariot parts.  Using some figures from the Caesar  Hittite infantry set, I converted the very small 20mm Atlantic chariot into a larger vehicle using card, that can just about hold a crew of three.  For horses, I used some examples from the Airfix Roman chariot.  Not brilliant, but a useful addition to my ancinet armies: