Maria Theresa's Wild Men

It seems like ages ago that I began to become interested in the less regular of the forces available to the Austrian Empire in the 1740s or so on. This project that I began at the time to start creating some of them has been on hold for a long time, but Amy and I were away on a brief holiday recently and while we were away there were a succession of rainy evenings where she read a detective novel and I got out the Greenstuff and some RSM Croats.

The images below are the painted-almost-to-completion results of a two-day painting blitz; well, it was a blitz for me!
A few Warasdiners. New additions to the company-sized unit I am slowly putting together. It was conversions like these that opened my eyes to the potential of the RSM castings. The Officer at the right of the image is from the Russian Infantry pack to whose coat I have added a fur edging down the front. He needs some metallic lace on his waistcoat to finish him off. Had I a fine enough brush, I might have made an attempt at some gold frogging as well.

These four figures were inspired by plate C2 of the Osprey volume on "Austrian Frontier Troops, 1740-98". They represent troops of the Ogulin Regiment in 1757. The only difference between them and the RSM sculpts is the red bag I added to the crown of the tschako and allowed to flop down one side and the modification I made to the hand that supports the musket to vary the loading pose. This latter was quite successful, I think and is one I will repeat. I am also experimenting with basing variations for my light troops to give them some more interest after good experiences with my dismounted Bavarian Dragoons.

Above are three Hungarian infantry in the basic 174o uniform, painted as Regiment Ujvary per the print from the Vinkhuizen Collection at the NYPL. It's a simple conversion where I have painted the top of the slightly cut-down tschako red and sculpted on some fur. Perhaps the fur detail is a bit heavy, but I've exaggerated a bit for the sake of making the "furriness" obvious. It could use a thin, black wash to tone down the rather violent high-lighting on the cap, too.

The final image here is a couple of Hungarian Soldiers from the later part of the War of the Austrian Succession, perhaps from 1745 onward. Here they have had new hats added and fur cuffs and edging sculpted onto their otherwise short coats. I am so pleased with these that I am almost certain to do a full regiment of them.

I'd love to do some officers in a mix of "German" and "Hungarian" uniform; pelisses, more fur hats and some flugelmutzen for instance. I'd like to investigate adding sabretaches and hussar boots to some of them at least.