Crimean War Russian Artillery

More 28mm Crimean War artillery, figures by Wargames Foundry. 

The ECW conference was excellent, with many interesting papers being presented. Unfortunately Dr Abbiss was unavailable and as a consequence the paper: Warfare in the Wilderness: Indian War 1688 wasn't presented, which was a great shame as I was personally looking forward to this presentation as inspiration for potential gaming. However, the papers presented on the day were inspirational enough and have certainly given me pause for thought when considering certain aspects of the period. These conferences are an excellent day out, details of future events can be found on the Helion Publishing website or Facebook page. 

At the conference I picked up a copy of No Armour But Courage, Colonel George Lisle 1615-1648, by Serena Jones, published by Helion as part of the Century of the Soldier 1618-1721 series. I'm part way through this book and it is proving to be fascinating read. If you're not familiar with this series there are some very interesting publications; a couple which have caught my eye are On Gladsmuir Shall The Battle Be! The Battle of Prestonpans 1745 by Arran Johnston, and The Bavarian Army During the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648. The Backbone of The Catholic League, by Laurence Spring (one of the speakers at the conference). 

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Crimean War Russian Cossack Artilery

First set of artillery for the Crimean War Russians. These are 28mm Cossack artillery from Wargames Foundry.

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Crimean War Russian Infantry

I've finished the Crimean War Russian foot, 8 regiments of 24 figures. These are all 28mm Ebor Miniatures with Venners flags. I think this was quite possibly the quickest set of figures I've painted, managing to do them in 48 figure batches. The painting style has been kept simple, though I'm pondering whether I should have gone for a shiny gloss varnish instead of matt. Still varnishing decision aside I'm pleased with the outcome as I think they look pretty impressive on mass. 

The history behind this project is firmly rooted in the acquisition of some Crimean War British that were going cheap, this eventually led me to looking for some Russians and I settled on Ebor Miniatures because of the value for money, especially as this was an accidental project.....sort of. I did however get into a lengthy discussion with PayPal who kindly froze my account over a payment for the Crimean War British that I ordered. Despite explaining at great length that the reference was in connection with a mid 19th century conflict and concerned toy soldiers, I was informed that the transaction was in breach of the trade embargo. Eventually a photo of the embargoed goods cleared the situation up. So from this international arms dealer come sanction buster.....who ever said this hobby wasn't interesting....until next time...

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Crimean War Russian Line Infantry

The start of another project as there's a little space in my 19th century schedule available with the "temporary" completion of the 1866 project. For a while I've been toying with the idea of gaming the  Crimean War, and a few favourable purchases have seen me amass most of the required lead for a reasonable price.

The first figures painted are 28mm Ebor Miniatures Crimean Russians, painted as line infantry. The flags are Venners Flags available from Caliver Books. 

These figures are exceptionally good value at £13 for a unit of 24 'metal' figures. They paint up very quickly, these 48 were painted together over a 4-6 hour period (mostly by using an ink was for the greatcoats, and keeping the rest of the paint work simple). All in all I'm really pleased with the speed of painting and the look of the finished units, so much so that I've already painted another 48 as Grenadiers (currently being based), and undercoated 48 more. In total I will will be painting 8 units of 24 infantry.  

There will also be British....

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