SYW Project: Planning and Beginnings

After a somewhat interesting weekend of travel to London and back (how did I manage to pick the only day of the year so far when Brno airport had to be closed due to snow? It turned a 3 hour trip into an 8 hour one via Bratislava ...), I finally have all of my Seven Years War figures in one place and can sort out what I have. I placed several orders with Foundry over Xmas and the New Year while they had their sale on, but had some of them delivered to my brother's place in London to take advantage of the UK prices. I won't go into a long anti-Foundry rant, after all, I do like their figures and nobody is forcing me to buy from them, but I will never understand their pricing policy and am amazed that they make any direct sales in what they term the Rest of the World at all. At the prices they charge though, it'd be nice if they got the orders right - they have already sent me two of the wrong regiment packs (which I kept and just reordered as it appears they are all definitely disappearing), and there was a problem with a third regiment pack this time around.

Anyway, I picked up the Prussian army I ordered along with a few other bits and pieces, and brought them back to add to the orders delivered here and my eBay purchases. A bit of sorting out produced this:

This is what I have to work on at the moment. As you can see some of the Russian (nearer) stuff has had a start made on it - well, some of it was started a couple of years ago but then life got in the way. Anyway, it's all sorted by unit - 24 foot or 8 horse, although some have a few missing or extra at the moment.

Russian Foot:

This is the Russian foot and artillery. There are 4 regiments of musketeers in coats and 2 in kamzol, as well as a regiment of grenadiers in each - though I need 6 more grenadiers in kamzol to complete the unit. The gap in the box is for 16 figures which are in the painting queue at the moment. This is only 8 units of foot; I'd like to add some observation corps (2 x musketeers and 1 x grenadiers), but I'm not sure whether the figures will ever become available again. I hope so, or that I can find some on eBay. If not I'll possibly take a look at Sash & Sabre to fill out a few more units. Either that or just buy some Crusader Austrians and turn this into an Allied army.

The artillery consists of 3 Front Rank pieces, with Foundry observation corps crew, and a Front Rank caisson. I'd like to add another 3 pieces with normal artillery crew - at the moment, the Russians have no more artillery than the Prussians - that can't be right!

Russian Horse:

The Russian cavalry has been started on too. I painted up 12 cuirassiers a while back, which have been split into 8 and 4. I have enough figures now to make a second unit with 2 left over - so another 2 blisters for 3 units of cuirassiers. I'm not sure whether that might not be too many, though.

There's only 1 unit of dragoons, 1 of horse grenadiers, 2 of cossacks (with a little help from TAG) and some TAG Tartars, which will be used as Kalmuks. Yes, I know, too heavy on the cossacks and too light on the dragoons. I may have to buy a few more dragoons, but the cossacks stay!

So there's the Russians, now moving swiftly on...

Prussian Foot and Artillery:

10 units of foot: 3 musketeers (2 with lapels, 1 without), 4 fusiliers (nearly 2 of each), 2 grenadiers (1 of each) and some Frei Korps (still need 6 figures). There are more fusiliers than  musketeers (not good) but that's because I was sent extra by Foundry in one of the orders, almost enough to make the second unit without lapels. Unfortunately they also sent me a unit pack of grenadiers without lapels as part of the army deal in which the command figures were all replaced by grenadiers with lapels. Foundry have promised to send a pack on, but it's irritating all the same.

There are also 3 guns with crew.

Prussian Cavalry:

And the Prussian cavalry. 3 units of cuirassiers (one Garde du Corps), 2 of dragoons, and 1 of hussars in fur busbies (though I guess I'll have to buy a Front Rank trumpeter in mirliton). I definitely want to add a unit of hussars in mirliton for the Death's Head Hussars, and probably another unit of cuirassiers - I just need to add a command blister.

So there it is. This is my other major project of 2012 - and I think it'll be more than enough to keep me going this year! Any comments and criticism on force composition gratefully received. And if anyone has any spare Prussian Frei Korps, or Russian observation corps figures they want to sell, please let me know...