I've still got the painting bug and am currently working on my 20mm French Napoleonic collection (see earlier posts this year). Having completed various
infantry units and some excellent
Italeri dragoons, I thought I should really paint those Esci cuirassiers that have been under the bed since about 1990. In fact I'd been in two minds about painting them at all because the figures aren't as good as the dragoons by a long chalk and I was thinking maybe I should just get some Italeri carabiniers instead.
Deliberating on all this I was of course distracted along the way and impulse-bought and painted some HäT Industrie Württemberg cavalry (Jägers) in the two weeks it took me to decide what to do. These were the first HäT figures I'd painted and I found them quite nice with a lot of well defined detail. The plastic, although a bit flexible, takes the paint very well.
There are only four poses (12 figures altogether) on three identical sprues in the box (and only two types of horse), but one man on each sprue comes with a choice of arms that you have to glue on. I made one of them a trumpeter in the vivid yellow coat. I think the troopers look quite good in their black gauntlets, dark green tunics and yellow trim.
Based up for the WRG 1685-1845 rules on 60mm x 40mm bases, with my usual concoction of coarse sand, painted dark earth then dry brushed in a sandy colour and then flocked, I consider that they've turned out very well. And I think I'm really getting the hang of painting horses now after my initial hesitations.
Oh, and finally, here are the cuirassiers. I had two ancient packets of them stashed away and was able to make quite a few bases although whether they'll all get an outing at the same time remains to be seen.
So that's it then, apart from six bases of Italeri French hussars to finish and perhaps one or two more Italeri line infantry regiments (possibly to be painted as Saxons or Swiss, just for a change).
However, I'd really like to get some HäT Württemberg infantry now, as well as the HäT French Guard Chasseurs a Pied, but neither seem to be available in the UK at present. Still, I could always acquire and paint up some carabiniers in the meantime...
