More Austrians - 28mm Victrix

Finished adding another 170 Austrians approximately, necessitating some rearrangement of storage. This was a good excuse to get out all the Austrian German infantry and have a look at them together... 

Not included are the German Landwehr, nor Hungarians, Grenz, Jaeger, or other arms of course. I'm going to need a bigger table to fit them all on for photos soon enough!

New regiments are #1 Karl Franz and #17 Reuss-Plauen.

Plus I've added Grenadier companies from the four most recently painted regiments. These were brigaded into their own divisions of combined Grenadier companies so will be added to those.

And also some much needed skirmisher detachments, 16 stands worth. Not that Austrians were very good at skirmishing but they still need a few. Victrix include options to make up to a third of the figures in each box into skirmishers, so that is helpful. Here's four of the line skirmisher stands, of the 16 that can be seen in the first photo in this post.

I also made up four Grenadier skirmisher stands. As I understand it Grenadiers were forbidden from skirmishing according to the Austrian ordnance, being reserved for a shock role favouring the bayonet. I'm not sure how strictly this was obeyed though so added a few of these skirmishing Grenadiers given I had a few figures left over. 

Thanks for looking, French Heavy Cavalry on the painting desk at the moment so they will be next.

Austrian Grenadiers 28mm Victrix

Next up is some Austrian Grenadiers from Victrix. I decided to give Victrix a try, as Perry didn't make German Grenadiers when I bought these, and in any case Victrix would work out much cheaper! As it turned out I'm quite happy with these figures, and they compare favourably with Perry. 

I originally painted the bags on their bearskins in the facing colours, but disliked the irregular look and ended up repainting them all yellow. Historically I understand that the cloth bags were originally in the facing colours but this was eventually replaced with yellow, though many regiments kept the facing colour versions for some time.

Four regiments completed! I did eight facing colours, as Grenadier units were made up of converged Grenadier companies from separate battalions, with typically three combined in each Grenadier battalion.

With Victrix Austrians you get 56 figures per box (including two mounted figures) for 23 pounds, while Perry are 20 pounds for 48 figures. You get up to 20% on Victrix buying them in bulk (multiple boxes), and up to about 12.5% discount buying Perry in bulk (in their army deals). The Victrix have more options for assembly - Two thirds of the figures come in march attack pose for ease of assembly, but 1/3 of the figures can be assembled in different poses if you like (firing, advancing etc, with lots of options provided). I just made everything in march attack here, excepting that it was nice to have a few more options in poses for the officers than the Perry figures offer. The figures are in the earlier long coats while the Perry's have the later period shorter coats, but I'm prepared to live with that! I still have four mounted figures and 12 spare infantry left over from two boxes of Victrix infantry after assembling these four regiments.