You may remember that couple of posts ago I reported that I had acquired quite a large number of 'pre-loved' Minifigs 25mm Seven Years War / American War of Independence figures, being disposed of by the Whitehall Warlords club. Now I've had a bit of time to look through them, I can start to show them here. I have sorted through eleven of the twelve boxes, and made notes on what they contain; I have also photographed most of them, though with variying results - I'm not happy with all the pictures, so I will probably go back and re-photograph quite a lot of them. Hmmm, should I do a 'unit mugshot' for each and every battalion, or does that way madness lie?
Among the last to be looked at were the cavalry, and I think I got reasonable pictures of them, so I'll use this post to show some of them. Here is the box containing most of them - 82 figures in all, I think:
There are eight distinct units/groups of figures, mostly (but not all) organised into what look like units of twelve troopers each. And they are mostly rather nice! Here are some of them:
I should say, I am by no means sure of the identity of all these units, and will be happy to consider suggestions of what they might represent! I have been looking through good ol' kronoskaf.com , of course. The above - well, Cossacks seemed a good guess, but they look a bit, well, a bit too uniform? It is of course possible that the original owner has painted them as 'Imagi-nation' troops in a uniform of his own design. The Miniature Figurines 25mm range is still available through Caliver Books, but alas not all the figures in their lists have accompanying photographs - the only possible one I could see was the Prussian Bosniak Lancer, but the pose looks wrong - and they wore red, anyway! So I suspect these were probably meant to be Russian Cossacks.
Here's another interesting unit - I rather like the somewhat lilac uniforms
For a while I thought these might be based on Prussia's 4th 'White' Hussars, with the white pelisse and blue dolmen, but those white Mirliton caps are pretty unusual. And then on kronoskaf I spotted the splendidly-named Russian Slobodskiy Hussars! Here's the illustrations from the website ( credited to David at Not By Appointment , I hope he won't mind me showing it)
I think my chaps must have been at the very least inspired by the above, even if the 'blue' is not quite the same.
We have some nice 'heavies' as well, such as these:
Possibly more Russians? Kronoskaf mentions that Russian Dragoons often wore a buff-leather 'Kollet' with cornflower blue collar and cuffs etc, but it's very insistent that the cornflower blue saddle cloths etc had no lace - maybe our painter had a different source, or just wanted to give them nicer trim?
Perhaps a rather left-field alternative might be Prussian Cuirassiers? It seems that the coat worn by these regiments of heavy horse was usually a buff leather Kollet, which had excellent protective properties against sword cuts and was relatively light and flexible. And the hats on the figures look to be Bicornes, which Prussian Cuirassiers wore - Russians had Tricornes. So maybe, just maybe - the regimental facing colours and saddlecloth etc might be OK for Cuirassier Regiment no. 11 Leib Caribiniers? BUT I gather the buff-leather Kollets were replaced by more conventional coats from as early as 1735 - so these are not right for Seven Years War, or even the Austrian Succession. For the moment, I think I'm going with Russians.. It may be an idea to invest in the relevant Osprey book for Russian cavalry, too. [ Update: hmmm.. following a great comment from Neil P - see below - now I think maybe Prussian after all, if a bit of a hodge-podge - the prominent white plumes are mentioned in the relevant Osprey as a distinctly Prussian feature, too ].
One more before I close :
hmm... bicorne hat again, so perhaps Prussian-inspired? Coat colour might be leaning towards Russian Dragoons? But the red saddlecloth etc is all wrong for them. Again, it might just as likely be an 'Imagi-nation'. It's quite possible that someone bought a small selection of figures in bulk ( to get a discount, maybe? ) and didn't mind about the difference between tricorne and bicorne, or were putting together their own entirely fictional units, inspired by but 'improving on' real units. Very nice looking, anyway! [update: following Neil P's and Chris' useful comments, I am leaning towards these perhaps being Prussian Dragoons - maybe even inspired by the famous Bayreuth unit..]
It goes without saying that I welcome any expert (or non-expert, come to that) opinions from amateur SYW uniform sleuths out there who might have an idea on some of these.. If they do turn out to be fictional I think that's no problem, as I can equally well come up with my own imaginary Germanic/Central European Duchy or Kingdom for them. The main point is to get them on the table and use them!
I can see this identification and classification phase may take a while - there are probably over 40 units of infantry to look at! ( Some of those are a bit easier as they have recognisable flags, and some are even labelled on the bottom of the command stands, very helpful! ) But it's interesting and fun, too, a bit of a project in itself. I think I will, as I said, try to photograph every unit - I will try not to bore you all to death by posting all the pictures, maybe just the more interesting ones. It looks like I may also need to create my own Imagi-nation(s) for some of them,perhaps give myself an alter ego as Grand Duke de Nirgendsville (Thank you, Google translate) to command that army; we shall see.
So as you can see, i have plenty to be getting on with looking through this lot; expect a few more posts showing some of them, interspersed with other topics ( must not lose sight of the 1859 Risorgimento armies! ), and of course I should be making an effort to make use of some of these in an actual game as soon as practical - with the numbers available, quite a big battle should be possible!
I hope this has been of some interest, plenty more to come! Meanwhile keep well, everyone.
