Revell 1/72 Preussische Infanterie

(need a shave, I guess)Prussian Infantry Set from the 90's-
I have been Working on the Plastic, and Taking Inventory

These rather poor images are from holding a netbook computer at a certain  angle, so they are not very good as pics, but they are better than nothing, like I usually have.


 Too bad you can't see the silver and gold braid on these.

I have several different wargame figure collections, and the best old one but most neglected for some years are the plastic 1/72 that I started out with years back.

I am up to around 672 Imex plus 100 or 200 Airfix figures in 1/72 plastic now, mainly for the American Revolution portion of the 18th Century.

The Imex came in a box set of 284 back in 2003, then about 300 that I picked up since about February, under the influence of Charlie Wesencraft and some blogging influences, and since then as we approach summer I have another 100 militia types and 72 artillery with 12 guns.

This is not counting cavalry, because only four mounted figures ar e officially from this period, plus five George Washingtons (two or three missing or amputated by the vacuum/cats)and four British Grenadier officers.

It's debatable whether the hussars and cuirassiers from the Napoleonic period can be used. It depends on whether it is really the American Revolution, or if we are doing the European wars of the 18C and anything goes because almost nothing is exactly right.

If I do count them, I seem to have about 10 Airfix British Hussars left, another 36 Esci and 24 Italeri. The Italeri are the crispest ones. They are the same as the Esci, but came out better. So, seventy of them. There are about twenty usable old Airfix French Cuirassiers, plus another set of 11 I picked up under the Accurate labels, but they are the same figures. So, 31 of those.

That's how I always used the old plastic anyway, and it never was quite right, but I did not care, because the right figures did not exist and were not available. Nowadays there are more out there, but the lines are far from complete, so in plastic it has always been about conversions and overlooking imperfections.


I like that. Let the 28mm people try to be accurate all they please. Their figures usually look like mutant Gnome-Frogs, to be honest, with bugged out eyes and bunches of bananas for hands.

So some of the horde is from this year when I suddenly started to want to collect the plastic armies again, and about half or more were already in various Bitz Bags around the place, being ignored.

For a few months I was looking at one gray Revell figure from an old box of Prussian Infantry for the Seven Years War, which was also called the French and Indian War in its American theater.

I had found it somewhere and just had it sitting around, while I wondered what ever happened to the rest of them.

So now:

 I always get my grapes at V. Sattui's Winery, whenever I'm in the Napa Valley. They are the juiciest.

 This shows the box; this brand was made in Germany when I bought these, some time in the 90's. Still probably are. The brush points at the Frederick the Great figure.

 This is the magnifying glass attached to a Chicago Cubs road hat. They are a very unlucky baseball team from around here. The hat holds the glass in place  so you can see fine detail better.

So let's see if it works:

Then here's an example of trying to get the glass to focus through the camera, for this pic.



Then I Found Most of Them

And then I found a cache of them; they were in a plastic divider box in a pile next to the 10mm Civil War troops, from another neglected and largely forgotten collection. I am also wondering what brand these 10mm ACW figures are, by the way. They may be GHQ, they may be something else, and they may be a mix of a couple types. I can't remember any more, and have lost any markings from the bags. I do have some small bags, so I know some came that way.

So this weekend I painted up the Revell 1/72 Preussische Infanterie, and even painted the mounted officer to resemble Frederick the Great himself. The only trouble with that is that he always thought it was too cold, and buttoned his coat up. This guy has it open.

Despite all these hundreds of other tricorne-wearing figures, these 3 plus 33 men are the only official ones from the Seven Years' War. I must have got them at The Emperor's Headquarters, an erstwhile wargame emporium in Chicago, which closed before I could get the Austrians or anything to go with these.

That's why you have to get them while you can, since pretty soon, you can't.



One Figure Per Battalion
Since there are only 33. I was painting just one figure per battalion, and in this period they can't just be generic because the colors depend on which regiment they are. So to paint you have to decide--how many of which regiment. I decided, one for each regiment, and let's get it done. Plus this officer will be the King himself.

So regiments will be usually two men, brigades usually four or so, etc. Near Frederick there are the Grenadier-Garde-Battalion 6, and another Grenadier for the III-Bat of Regiment Garde 15. Their comrades are among the marching figs in tricorne, along with Regt 13 Itzenplitz, the Donner-und-Blitzen regiment.

Now that these painted up nicely, I need some opponents for them.

In the pics attached to the Cubs hat is a 2xmagnifier that I picked up at a railroad shop, but I forgot what they are called. I couldn't have done the details without them, really close up. In one pic I tried to have the camera blow up the Frederick image, since otherwise you can't see the details clearly. Still can't, actually, but worth a shot. I like how this thing attaches to a Chicago Cubs hat.

Richard Prior wore one in Brewster's Millions, so maybe it's good luck

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