Lancashire Games Prussian SYW Regiment

Having bought for The Boy some French SYW figures from Lancashire Games and being happy with the look and speed of painting I decided to buy into them for my Prussians. I was hoping they would paint up faster than the Old Glory and I can't lie the discounted price was very attractive. I made this more so by buying an army pack which has a good discount but also took advantage of the 20% extra discount that is offered when Lancashire Games attends a show doubling up on discounts certainly helps with the cost of a 15mm army!

A fairly quick paint up, less than two weeks for all three battalions. The figures were a real mix of quality in castings, some had a lot of flash whilst others needed very little work at all. In all cases the metal was quite soft so cleaned up quite quickly and for the most part I was able to get all the mould lines off missing just a couple. Speed of clean up was quicker than the Old Glory which have a harder metal to deal with.

The figures come with no pose variation for each figure though being soft I am sure some changes could be made. Some of the detail such as the straps is a bit over stated (not helped by my painting) but it works for me. I actually enjoyed painting these more than I did the Old Glory as they were faster and I found batch painting in Battalions rather rewarding. The tunic's, waistcoats and trousers were all done en-mass with the white onwards done by battalion. One big whoops however is that they are for some reason carrying their muskets on their right shoulder and not left as they should be. Indeed the French have got it right. This is not something that is too big a deal for me but I know it would be for many a gamer.

The colonels battalion has the two flags whilst the 2nd (above) and third get the one flag. This is just the second battalion but I have already moved away from my plan of painting up the army for the invasion of Saxony as the 2nd Regiment was in the area of Silesia but I had the flags (same sheet as 1st Regiment) and I could not resist the black flags. I have the flags for another four regiments (12 batts) so have plenty for now but I will be buying more from Fighting 15's when I need them as they are good quality flags.

The figures for me strike a good balance of detail to ease of painting making them reasonably quick to paint up. Something to consider if like me you are having to provide the painting for two armies! 

For the third battalion I used the musketeer advancing pose. Lee is not fond of this or the firing pose much preferring the upright muskets. I realise these are much easier to base and game with but I rather like mixing them up. I added a couple of upright figures to the rear of the command base figuring these would be less likely to be firing past the officers ears.

We based them so as to be able to put them in march column. Black Powder allow Prussians to form both sides of the command stand whilst other armies have to turn and march into position to turn to flank and face the enemy making them that bit harder to position than my Prussians.

For size comparison I have the Old Glory on the left and Lancashire Games on the right. As you can see they are comparable which is very handy. I still have a good number of Old Glory to paint up and I do see me buying yet more but I have a lot more Lancashire Games figures to paint up and yes I can see me buying more of those too.

Here is another shot of both companies. I now have five finished battalions and have made a start on my first cavalry unit, more on these in a future post. It's fair to say we have got our SYW project started and as soon as Lee and I can manage some FTF we will start trying the rules out. First up Black Powder to be followed by the Osprey rules if we are not feeling BP.