"Zvezda artillery of Peter the Great" Topic

It looks like it's been released:
link

And more at the Zvezda home page:
zvezda.org.ru/?lng=eng

Kit consists of 5 unpainted cannons, 3 mounted and 30 foot soldiers. After entering the Great Northern War, Russia began to quickly accumulate its cannon arsenal. In 1706, the distinguished artilleryman V. D. Korchmin proposed setting up three-pound cannons and two six-pound mortar guns on a single gun carriage, which helped reduce the artillery pieces' vulnerability during reloading.

Good to see!

Yeah, looking forward to seeing the close-ups at Plastic Soldier Review. They're pretty prompt to review stuff.

Hard to tell from the small images at Zvezda, but I'm sure they'll work for almost anyone's artillery of the 1700 era. Not to mention, more horses and accessories than you normally find with these sets.

Steve

When has Zvezda done a bad set?

The back of the box showing the separate items:
link
(From an Italian blog for GNW wargaming.)

Looking at shots of the sprues, several of the basic crewmen utilize separate arms; open handed, rammer, sponge, trail spike, etc. This may be a bit "fiddly" for some, but will allow these to be used for a variety of things with a bit of parts swapping and conversion, like engineers, pontoniers, sergeants (with an appropriate halberd) or dismounted aides with maps and other paraphenalia.

If I read correctly, the set includes 3 mounted figures and 30 foot, or 6 foot figures per gun. Too many for most rules, so there should be leftover figures to crew other guns or perform the infamous "other duties as required by Commanding officer".

Should be another great set from Zvezda for the H&M period. Now, if they would just come out with some Horse to accompany the Swedish Dragoons, or at least some Russian Dragoons! And then maybe some Austrian/German Cuirassier in open-faced lobsters to accompany their 1683 sets. Would be great Austrian or Bavarian or German States Cuirassier from the 1680's through the WSS.

Bill

Right on, Bill.

Photos of the actual figures from a blog:
link

With a hat tip to the Wars of Louis Quatorze blog…
warsoflouisxiv.blogspot.com

Appreciate the thanks Andy, but they really belong to Will McNally at his "Fire By Will" blog. He recently bought the first sets (that I know of) and was nice enough to set up a set and photograph them for me with his review. Even with some of the minor problems Will points out, I think this is going to be a great asset to those doing the Lace Wars in plastics, or ImagiNations!

Now, if we can just get the Swedish Artillery and some more cavalry! But then we'd have everything and nothing to do but paint, right?

Bill

Hat tip addition noted, Bill.

It's too bad about all of the btn guns, but the makers probably assumed (or hoped) that customers of the Russian infantry boxes would want btn guns for all of their infantry units, when alot of us are mainly looking for field artillery.

Still, I'll be buying a bunch despite that too.

Well, the good thing is that with almost twice as many artillerists as needed for most rules, and the fact that the Zvezda's are about 26mm tall, you could order some extra guns from one of the Old School makers that do "true 25mm" guns. Musket Miniatures in the US comes to mind, RAFM in Canada have some nice ones, Garrison does three basic SYW era guns that are nice, and Minifigs should work as well. Shame some of Frank Hinchcliffe's old artillery models aren't still available.

The problem with other makes is that true 20mm makers like Outland Games and Tumbling Dice will be too small and some of the great other companies like the guns that Der Alte Fritz uses will be too large. You can get some truly excellent larger caliber guns in Zvezda's French Napoleonic sets, but then you have a pile of leftover figures.

Bill

Having now built a set of these:

The ramming arms are fiddly, and work best on the guy with the musket on his back, but will fit the other standing guy

The wheels are a tight fit, but no actual problem fitting them – I just had to push them on square

The limber and caisson are different, so you can only actually get one limber per box.

The details are superb (ie bucket hanging on back of caisson) and the crew figures first rate

Enjoy

Here are some painted, including a brief review:
link

Interesting Andy

I painted a set up this weekend with Bro as part of our expanding Imagi-Nations project, and so can comment on the figures from first hand experience.

I sort of agree with you on detail, but it is a strange mix. The cartridge boxes have buckle details, the cuffs and pockets have lace and button work, the faces are fantastic, with no mould line issues, the officers sash and hair painted up really well, and the guns are some of the best I have painted up (their detail, not my paintwork). But some detail was bit indistinct, such as belts, which were a bit faint. I use washes a lot these days (care of Mr Siggins' advice – thanks Mike) and fine that I judge figures by how well they respond, and these took washes very well (faces, hands, clothing folds, equipment etc) but the belts and straps tended to merge into the tunics.

I had some fun and games with arms, and next time round I may enlarge some holes, but generally found they gave a good result. I did seal some gaps with some PVA as well mind. The ability to swap hands around so that the ramming pose is different is worth the bit of extra effort IMO.

So I think I would give them an 8 or so. They could be better, but compared to most other artillery figures in this scale, they are still pretty fine. YMMV of course.

I've only just discovered that the Russian-language pages at Zvezda have photos and links not carried on the English translation pages.

Here are sprue photos, that show pretty much what has already been linked above, but also includes three PDF pages of the assembly instruction box inserts.
link

A shame they are not hard plastic. I like the Swedish cavalry. A big problem with the Swedish infantry is the small number of pikes. Hopefully, for those who like metal, there may be something coming out in the not too distant future.