Husaria - Building a Polish army for the 1620s

Following on from my last update, I have completed some more of the Avanpost miniatures.

Above is the completed mini diorama for the stamina counter base. I realise this is perhaps a rather morbid scene, but it’s a good reminder of how horses suffered in this period of warfare. I’m glad that Avanpost chose to include this in their collection so we don’t forget this point.

I have also purchased an artillery piece from Avanpost. The gun carriage is in resin and you can choose to have the gun barrel in either resin, or beautifully turned brass! These brass gun barrels are little works of art. I will probably paint over this, but it does provide the option of just weathering the bare metal for you finished model.

I have just two cautions that you should consider with the Avanpost figures. Firstly is that the resin is reasonably delicate and so when there are small parts that stick out on the resin figures I have found them prone to breaking when not carefully handled. For example, the scabbards are very fine items, and a couple of times, when I have carelessly picked up a resin figure, I have broken their scabbards. These are fairly easy to repair, but if you expect to be rough with your figures you should beware of this.

The second item is, I suppose, both a plus and a minus. Wargames figures from other manufacturers have traditionally been sculpted with parts of the figure slightly exaggerated; for example heads, hands and weapons. This has been partly to do with what we think looks good, and partly to do with traditional sculpting and casting methods. The Avanpost figures, on the other hand, seem to be very accurately sculpted from a scale model point of view, and this is apart of their appeal. This scale accuracy includes their equipment and this means that when you compare an Avanpost figure to say, a Perry or Warlord figure, the Avanpost figures’ muskets appear to be much finer and smaller than those on other manufacturers’ figures. Variety in figure height is ok by me (real people are different heights) but differences in equipment scale can be incongruous. For example, I would be nervous of fielding Avanpost musketeers with musketeers from other manufacturers in the same unit because of the different musket sizes. I know that actual 17th century muskets did vary in size, but there is only so much difference my eye will accept. I would suggest you get a sample of two to compare with other figures to check for yourself.

In summary, Avanpost offer a range of beautifully sculpted miniatures, some of which are unique to this period. If you are interesting in playing games in the first half of the 17th century then I’m sure there is a space in your forces for some of these miniatures! The range is still expanding with the recent release (in resin) of sword and buckler armed infantry.

The final pictures show the command base with an also newly completed 1898 unit of musketeers.

Until next time!