As slow as a wet week...

Well, it's been some time since i've posted anything on here, but despite the fact that i've got no new pictures to post, I thought i'd do a bit of an update. August has turned out to be a very busy month indeed, including a fair bit of travel. This has meant that yet again all of my painting deadlines turned out to have been wildly optimistic. Last night I put the finishing touches on the last three Austrian crewmen, as well as an Austrian Jäger officer I painted up as a change of pace from all that brown. I'm going to be putting the last touches on the basing tonight, so hopefully I should have some pictures up of these in the next few days. The cannon itself is coming along as well, so the whole gun and 5 man crew should be done by the weekend!

Last week, I received a big shipment from Nic at Eureka Miniatures. Included were a couple of groups of Revolutionary era Austrian 'German' infantry wearing the casquet, along with a mounted commander and the figures for a command stand. I must say that Nic was a pleasure to deal with, and the quality of these sculpts is superb, in my opinion very much the equal of the Perry brothers with considerably less flash too.

I also received a couple of fantastic Revolutionary era French guns and crew - including one figure sighting the gun who looks very much like General Bonaparte. Again, the sculpting on these is superb, the gun crews are some of my favourite figures, the sense of movement is superb. I'll try to post up some pictures along with the completed Austrians. The guns came with a bunch of artillery equipment - buckets, rammers, discarded muskets etc. After seeing these, I've ordered a couple of extra lots. I'm hoping to use these to spruce up the base for the Front Rank Austrian gun I'm working on, along with a few other Front rank guns i've got laying around in the lead mountain.

Along with the Austrians and Frenchies, I also received a bunch of Eureka's new 1809 Tyrolean rebels. I noticed some pictures of this range over at the Lead Adventure forum, and they were a very pleasant surprise indeed.

For those who have never heard of the Tyrolean uprising, it is the 'other' guerrilla war of the Napoleonic era, and one which is almost totally overshadowed by the Peninsular war. In 1809, the fiercely pro-Austrian Tyrolean peasants rose up and drove the Bavarians and French out of their homeland before finally succumbing to overwhelming numbers following the defeat of Austria. They were led by the burly innkeeper Andreas Hofer (pictured above), the redbearded priest Joachim Haspinger and the peasant marksman Josef Speckbacher.

The figures are superbly sculpted and positively brimming with character. I've already cleaned and undercoated the Hofer, Speckbacher and Haspinger figures, along with a drummer boy, a sergeant type with a nasty looking poleaxe and a standard bearer. I'm hoping to have some of these done in the next week or so, as i've got a bit of a break in social and work engagements which will hopefully allow me to catch up on some painting.


The picture of Andreas Hofer is courtesy of the Tiroler Kaiserjägermuseum http://www.kaiserjaeger.com/at/TKJ/Custodia_trad/Tiroler_Kaiserjaegermuseum_de.htm