Reviewing New Recruits (5): One More Heave..

Regular readers will know what this post is about (and possibly be bored rigid, I admit!);  I am continuing to review my recently acquired vintage Minifigs 25mm 7YW/AWI figures.  If you have only just stumbled on this, the background to it all is described here ).   We are in the home straight now,  just one more box of infantry, a box of artillery pieces and gunners, and a small box of a few more cavalry and wagons.  So let's push on and get them finished. I will then have a 'mugshot' on here for every unit in the collection, and a good idea of what they comprise and how they can be used.  OK, let's crack on.

Box no. 9  was described by the seller as 'Prussian' and 'German' infantry, and included the following: 

A unit of 'Prussian musketeers'. The blue waistcoat and breeches are interesting, and from a quick look at reference books such as Duffy's The Army of Frederick the Great, these would appear to indicate a Garrison regiment. That's a nice variation from the usual line infantry, which will be useful for any game involving a garrisoned town or fortification of some sort.    The Minifigs code number of the rank and file figures is PSW 9 - Prussian Line Musketeer Marching, which makes entire sense. 

Next, a couple of units (18 figures each) of 'German' grenadiers. Blue coats, white breeches, yellow facings. 

 They're not Prussians - the grenadier cap looks wrong for them. The Minifigs  reference number is, interestingly enough, AWI 38, British 38th Grenadier Coy. So, an interesting paint conversion by the original owner.  I'll welcome any suggestions as to what (if any) real-life unit is being represented!  There is of course always room for an entirely fictitious Germanic Duchy, hiring out their troops for the duration to boost the coffers or expand the art collection of their Duke..   

More 'German' infantry - 3 units, each of 18 figures. Blue coats and red, yellow or white facings. Each unit has  6 grenadier figures - quite a strong 'company' of the big guys. 

 

I have no further information on these, and the heavy 'polyfilla' on the bases has covered the code numbers, so no help there. But they may be good as 'generic' Germanic troops - I think they could probably sneak in at the back of the parade of the Prussian army, for example. 

 And finally, that's it for infantry! Over four posts, I think I have covered over 50 different 'units' (of various sizes)  of infantry, which is fantastic, I am ridiculously pleased to have them. 

And finally for Box. no.9, a nice bonus of a selection of  officer figures : quite nicely painted, these will be very useful! 

  Box number 10 contains guns and gunners, and some uncertain identities. First of all, this large group of artillerymen: 

 I confess the uniform colours are a bit of mystery to me! Browsing around Kronoskaf 7YW has not produced any results yet - except to rule out Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick and Sweden! The code numbers on the bases ( e.g PSW 24, PSW 25 ) indicate Prussian Horse Artillery, but Kronoskaf shows a more conventional Prussian Blue coat and buff leather breeches for that unit.  I wonder if these are the gunners of an 'imagi-nation'? Oh well , onwards and upwards. The next lot look a bit more obvious: 

It seems fairly safe to say the yellow guns cariages and the red/brown coats of their crews mark them out as Austrians. 

The next batch are in three  groups, and I think are most likely French (left and centre ) with red breeches,  and Prussian.  All  have flock etc on the bases, so no clear code numbers to be seen. 

 

Next, I suspect more Prussians (left and centre), and can those be Americans on the right? Unless they are Hessians ?  Surely not British?  There are quite a few rather similarly attired possibles, with blue coats, white waistcoat and red facings. . Perhaps that's an advantage - they can represent whomsoever I wish.. Agian, no visible code numbers, buried under thick layers of filler. 

 These, I assume, are jolly jack tars who have brought their naval guns to the shore:

   

Next a selection of 'odds and ends' that don't quite match other groups, and seem to include some officers  - I am assuming the two on the right are supposed to be Austrian, at least. 

The two gents in grey coats and red breeches have visible code numbers - AWI95, Hesse-Cassel Artillryman,  and PSW18,  Prussian Foot Artilleryman.  But both Hesse-Kassel and Prussia's artillerymen had blue coats..  

A battery of guns on distinctive blue carriages - perhaps Prussian?  I notice the mystery blue uniformed-gunners in the first picture are 24 strong, which would give 6 crews of 4 each  for these 6 guns..

 and three on more neutral grey carriages: 

 and finally two one in a sort of olive green (left) and one grey,  of which the latter one looks  to be  a howitzer.. 

That makes a total of 14 guns - and over 100 gunners!  

Box no.11 contained a quantity of cavalry, and I've shown them in an earlier post. So we just have one more, Box no.12 with  a some more cavalry and some wagons.  First up, this small unit of cavalry 

 

Well, this has me stumped rather. The headgear might be some sort of Dragoon or Light Dragoon - perhaps AWI Continentals?  Interesting brown coat, green facings with some yellow trimmings. Any guesses welcome.. 

Another rather Dragoon-ish looking unit with green coats and red facings: 

 Could it perhaps be the American Continental 4th Light Dragoons ?  Again, opinions welcome! 

Last of the cavalry, this small group of red-uniformed horsemen:

Hmmm.. the uniform ( all red, blue saddlecloth ) could be Russian Hussars such as Moldavskiy (Moldavian) Hussars - but the model troopers have their right hands 'drilled out' to hold a lance. I finally thought of looking at the current Minifigs (sold by Matchlock Figurines, in turn under Caliver Books, it seems) catalogue - it has very few photos of the figures, but one of them is the (Prussian) Bosniak Lancer, code PSWC12 which looks about right. Eventually I remembered to  look at my Osprey book on Frederick the Great's Cavalry, and there of course is a lovely Prussian Bosniak Lancer, dressed in red just like these figures are - bingo! Rather a curious little unit, though - an officer, two trumpeters, and just two troopers, both of whom have mislaid their lances! All this has involved quite a lot of searching the internet, for the sake of a couple of dozen figures - the words 'rabbit hole' spring to mind..

And finally, finally - plodding along at the rear of the parade comes the supply column, of three wagons.   

Wagons are always useful.  I already have a few (plus a couple of plastic kits waiting to be built), so I think there's plenty of scope for 'supply convoy ambush' scenarios. One of them needs some running repairs as the wagon body has come loose from the chassis, but that's easily enough done. 

And that, at last, is pretty much all I have.  Over a thousand figures, all but a very few painted. As stated above, about 50 infantry units of various sizes, plus 11 units of cavalry,  14 guns ( with a surplus of gunners ) , a nice selection of senior officers and three wagons.   Not a bad collection!  Having  had a look at them all and made some attempt at identification (with very valuable help from several commentors on this blog - thanks everyone!),  the next step is to look at how they can be assigned to various armies for Seven Years War and/or AWI, and see what strength those armies can have, when combined with my existing small   'Portable 7YW Wargame' forces. I also need to work out a decent storage system, in place of the motley collection of carboard boxes and biscuit tins they arrived in! And of course, let's not forget actually gaming with them. At the moment I am thinking of small AWI actions  using Rebels and Patriots rules,  plus possible larger 7YW battles, for which several candidate rule sets are available - Keith Flint's Honours of War and Warlord Games Black Powder spring to mind.  In true 'old school' style, it would be fun to set up as big a game as possible and play it with Young and Lawford's Charge! rules, just for the hell of it! 

I reckon the next step is to put units together into potential contingents/armies, in which case I will show the resulting 'parades' here.  Then maybe we can think about some games.. I hope you've been interested and/or amused to see all these nice vintage figures in all their variety of styles - I have certainly enjoyed sorting through them and seeing what I've got.  Now let's get them into 'action'... Look out for that in future posts. Until then, keep well, everyone.