Polish Uhlans - 28mm Murawski

Another unit of Polish Uhlans painted, bringing me to a total of four lance armed Polish Cavalry units for the Duchy of Warsaw now. New unit is on the front left. All Murawski Miniatures.

The lance armed cavalry for Duchy of Warsaw is very distinctive so getting these done was a priority. Poland had a lot of cavalry!

Regiments as positioned are:
Rear Left:  Krakus Regiment; Rear Right: 21st Regiment
Front left: 9th Regiment; Rear right: 20th Regiment

I've also ordered a tripod for mini-tripod for phone so may take some more pictures of the units when that arrives!

Marshal Poniatowski - 28mm Murawski

Marshal Poniatowski and staff. Figures once again from Murawski Miniatures. A worthy sculpt of the great Marshal I think! These are from the larger command pack that comes with 7 figures total.

Poniatwoski was made a Marshal of France after commanding the right wing at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813.  As the French were forced to retreat he commanded the French rearguard, being trapped in the city of Leipzig after the bridge was prematurely destroyed. He refused to surrender despite the overwhelming odds arrayed against his forces. He had been wounded by a lance several days earlier, and shot twice in the fighting at Leipzig - once in the arm and once in the side. Despite his wounds, he rode his horse into the Elster River to escape. However, the current was too strong given his weakened state and he was swept away and drowned - or as other accounts suggest he may have been shot for a third time as he entered the river. The event has been a popular subject for paintings and engravings like the following.

Napoleon described Poniatowksi as "brimming with honor and bravery" and that "He was a real king, had all the necessary traits of character. Had nobleness of a chief, magnificence, humanity, the same in seriousness and in play, soul"

A good account of Poniatowski's dramatic life can be found here. 

Thanks for looking! That's the last of the Poles I have planned for the moment bar a few more staff, and possibly cavalry. I'll add some group photos of all my Poles together when I have a moment!

Polish Uhlans - 28mm Murawski

More Polish Uhlans from Murawski Miniatures. 21st regiment this time with flashy orange facings!

Polish Infantry - 28mm Murawski

Another Polish infantry regiment painted up, making a total of four now.  Figures are more full dress from Murawski Miniatures. A mounted officer from a generals pack has been placed with the Grenadiers in this instance.

Polish Infantry - 28mm Murawski

A couple more Polish units done for my Duchy of Warsaw forces - some much needed infantry. These are from the excellent Murawski Miniatures range again.

1st and 8th Infantry regiments (probably). I say probably because I find uniform details pretty confusing for Duchy of Warsaw even when I have the sources. In reality I imagine the Poles were often even less uniform in appearance than many other nations and prone to changes, and scavenging gear from defeated enemies and so on. Murawski do make "campaign dress" variants if you want them, but naturally I chose to have my Polish all striding along in pretty looking full dress uniform :) 

Here's the 1st regiment, including mounted commander. Once again 36 strong units for these Poles, and flags from GMB.

I also painted up a couple of bases of light company skirmishing for this regiment.

And next is the 8th Regiment with pink facings. These regiments are all in full dress, but I wanted the officer waving his hat from the campaign dress command pack, and Rodger from Murawski very kindly included him for me. Great service thanks Rodger.

I often voice a few minor grumbles about miniatures, in the interests of being objective and because no-one will believe me if I don't suggest a few areas that might be considered in development of future ranges and so on! However I really don't have any grumbles with these. In addition to being very clean sculpts, the sculpting is also done so as to "hide" behind equipment minor details of straps etc that would otherwise have to be painted and slow progress down. This is a great feature that some modern ranges have and it is much appreciated when you're painting many dozens of figures!

That's all the Poles I had planned and my unpainted Polish box is now gratifyingly empty. But these Polish are very nice figures and nice uniforms, and I'm tempted to get some more. Maybe the 13th in their white uniforms, and another regiment of Uhlans, and more command... plus some of Murawski's Baden range of course, got to have them for Leipzig!

Polish General - 28mm Murawski

Duchy of Warsaw general and aide from Murawski Miniatures. Murawski also has a nice seven figure generals pack including Poniatowski that I might add later. This is a start on command though!

Polish Uhlans - 28mm Murawski

More cavalry for my Polish. Here's Duchy of Warsaw 20th Regiment of Uhlans. Murawski miniatures again who make both pre and post 1810 Uhlans. These are the post 1810 version. 

Love the uniform colours of this regiment. Also close to Vistula Legion cavalry uniform I think. Flag by GMB, and lance pennants from Aldopho Ramos. 

The lance arms come separately and have a small pin that fits into a hole in the body so super gluing them on is easy. I then glued in the lances to the hands with superglue. Once dry I used maximum strength epoxy glue to strengthen both the bond of the arm to the body, and lance to the hand. Similar to the Krakus Cavalry, a bit of filing was also necessary to fit some of the riders to horses.

Polish Krakus Cavalry - 28mm Murawski

Work on my Duchy of Warsaw forces continues. Here's some Krakus cavalry. Kind of like Polish 'Cossacks', but more fierce and reliable as I understand it. Again, these models are from the excellent Murawski range.

I did find some of these a tight fit for certain of the horses, and had to do a bit of filing to get some of them to fit. Not sure why that was, but not too much extra effort.

There were probably not enough of these to justify having a unit if aiming for a brigade level wargame, but I liked the figures and they are an easy paintjob. :)

Flag pennants are from Adolfo Ramos Store in Spain. Quick contact and service. Decided to switch to these paper pennants as I think they look better than metal versions.