"Plastic Austrian cavalry, anyone?" Topic

Too bad the Perrys haven't realised a nice box set of plastic Austrian Cuirassiers/Dragoons..horse furniture and equipment are generally identical, all you'd need is a change of torso… how about it, guys? Hands up all those who agree..!

Seconded. It wouldn't take much extra work to use them as Light Horse as well, and then you've got all the "German" cavalry covered.

I only use small handfuls of figures for 1 stand = 1 brigade, but the cost for metal must be enormous for gamers doing 1:20 ratio with those big regiments.

I agree………especially as I am thinking about an Austrian project.

This would only really work for the kuirassiers and dragoons as the light cavalry horse furniture was quite different. However, as the Perrys did the different torso trick for British light dragoons etc, it seems a viable idea. French chasseurs a cheval seem next in plastic but who knows after that?

I have all I require in metal!!

Tally Ho!

Haven't got to Austrian cavalry yet so sounds like an excellent idea

Yes, allied cavalry in plastic are long overdue – and Austrians seem the most practical.

Forgive my ignorance but would they have a "pointy" saddlecloth? If so, I'd buy tons.

Somebody suggested in another thread the other day that a sprue with a generic pointy saddlecloth would sell extremely well. It would have huge potential for countless conversions (e.g. lancers etc).

@lord hill
Yes, I still think a sprue w 4 horses w pointy saddle cloth would be a great succes. Combined w a choice of round and square portemonteau and a couple of shapes for pistol holsters would probably sell very well.

I would be in that too .
Could this work ? Large Horse sprue and a different Light Horse Sprue . Then provide kits for saddlecloth and furniture . Or another way is they are attached to the Cavalry Figure ? I'm not too good on exactness so forgive me if its too bizzare an idea

@Rusty Gold
I think it would work well w the "pointy" saddlecloth and saddle molded to the horse. Different light and heavy horses would be nice, but one generic horse would work as well. Loose and interchangeable portemonteaus and pistol holsters would be perfect.
The nice thing w Perry plastic cav is that the troopers come "clean" without the saddlecloth or saddle attached such as many metal figures. Together w interchangeable torsos, legs, heads/headgear and arms makes it easy to make conversions.
At the moment I am working on Norwegian 1808 dragoons w Royal Marines heads from Brigade Games, Light Dragoon torsos and legs from Perry and pointy saddlecloth horses from Front Rank. However, plastic du horses would be a great asset, making conversions much more accessible. I look forward to the plastic Chasseurs a C both for the originals and for such conversions.

Your problem is not the uniform or detail your biggest problem is the sales volume or rather lack of it.

One loose sprue with this type of saddlecloth would be able to serve a range of different conversions. No need of a complete set to tool, so the return of investment should not only be quite good, it would boost sales of the other sets which you need for the conversions. I guess quite a few gamers would welcome the opportunity to expand their ranges rather than painting their eigth or ninth regiment of Ch a Chevals.

I understand the enormous costs involved in bringing out plastics but surely Russians /Austrians requiring hordes of cavalry would be a good bet
Rather than more French Hussars Chasseurs a cheval etc which are already done

Wow! that's quite a reaction… originally I felt that a torso swop would suit, as the square-ended shabraque would do for both dragoons and cuirassiers. Pointed-ended shabraques were only used by hussars, and rounded ones by uhlans..

I would love to see 28mm plastic Austrian cavalry too.

There will soon be 10 different boxes of 28mm plastic Napoleonic cavalry, but all either French or British.

I've tried to work out whether there's a way to convert any of the existing sets into Austrian, Prussian or Russian cavalry, without cannibalizing two sets or extensive modelling work, but I don't think it can be done, even with the new(-ish) British light dragoons or the American Civil War cavalry. Some of the infantry headgear is fairly similar. The jackets are difficult, but not impossible (hussar uniforms were similar across armies). It's the horses that are the biggest problem: the British ones have docked tails, while the French ones lack the shabraque that the Austrian cavalry used. Let me know if I'm wrong and there is a clever conversion.

The officer in the Perry light dragoons set has parts for both a rounded and a pointy shabraque, so they could repeat that trick to produce one horse sprue for both hussars and uhlans.

How similar was the lancer uniform worn by Austrian, Russian and Polish lancers in French service (e.g. Vistula Legion)? One set encompassing those would sell well.

I still have lots of Austrian infantry to paint, but it would be nice to have something less white! Maybe Perry Miniatures will try a kickstarter one day.

AdmiralHawke: I'm also very curious about which kinds of uses you could have of the various plastic kits out there. e. It would be great to have someone knowledgable about it make a rundown of each set and how you can use them for other armies.

I've seen some descriptions, but those are often from 6-8 years ago, so they don't cover the sets that have been released tsince.

The officer in the Perry light dragoons set has parts for both a rounded and a pointy shabraque, so they could repeat that trick to produce one horse sprue for both hussars and uhlans.

That's an excellent point – I'd buy tons of sprues like this.

why the hell would you not just buy the metal ones? If the metal ones sell in large numbers then that would have been the cue to make a plastic range! I can say with some confidence this is not going to happen in my lifetime.

@Three Armies
Fair question. I was drawn to 28mm by the high-quality plastic sets and I have bought dozens of boxes. If the plastic miniatures didn't exist, I wouldn't have any miniatures at all -- I suppose I'd be spending my time and money on some other hobby.
The BrigadeGames (ex-Victrix) Russian and British cavalry look gorgeous, for example, but I just don't want to pay $75 USD plus postage for one regiment.
So I was responding to Glencairn's question. :-)
Maybe you're right that Austrian Napoleonic cavalry is too obscure, but if Sudanese tribesmen and British infantry from the 1870s are viable in plastic, perhaps you can forgive us for hoping.

Seconding AdmiralHawke's post. Plastics got me into Napoleonics, and now the bulk of my army is plastics, with added metal minis where there are no suitable plastics or where I want some variation. My cavalry collection is very much defined by where I can get plastic options, as 16-32 figure formations get daunting when you look at a price tag close to £100.00 GBP for them.

So now I'm collecting French cavalry and loving it, but if someone put out a kit that I could use for allied Saxons, or Poles, or Westphalians, or anything similar, I'd love to see that.

"Maybe you're right that Austrian Napoleonic cavalry is too obscure, but if Sudanese tribesmen and British infantry from the 1870s are viable in plastic, perhaps you can forgive us for hoping."

Case and point. It's baffling what odd sets the are released in plastic with very essential sets still missing.

I , third AdmiralHawkes post .
Renedra Pty Ltd are the factory of choice for most companies ,for all this plastic . So I imagine they need to knock out a contract quantity of sprues when the Stamps are changed over .
Why don't they run a survey on these websites and judge respondents replies to what you should create ? Its a no brainer if Austrian Cuirassiers are the most wanted or will it be Prussian's or Cossacks ? A bit of hype for a battle they are from could promote sales targets ?

Seems a smart way to do it

love to see plastic Austrian cavalry, heavies and lights!

cheers
Matt
Mayenne
France

"Maybe you're right that Austrian Napoleonic cavalry is too obscure, but if Sudanese tribesmen and British infantry from the 1870s are viable in plastic, perhaps you can forgive us for hoping."

Case and point. It's baffling what odd sets the are released in plastic with very essential sets still missing.

British Infantry from the 1870s covers most of the mid-late colonial period, particularly Zulu War and Sudan (and some actions on the Northwest Frontier).

And you need bloody thousands of Sudanese tribesmen (and Zulus).

But my guess is that the sculptors were sitting around watching a movie and said, "hey, let's make minis for this!" I mean, it's why the Vietnam ranges started for Flames of War.

If someone was doing Austrian cav – what would be in the set?

I just realised the 1/72 push out all manner of "extreme ' kits by HaT , Zvezda , Airfix , Italeri etc , inc Wagons , caissons , plastic .

Whats the volume for that scale ? why have they done Russian Cavalry , Polish Uhlans , Mamelukes , prussian Uhlans , Bavarians etc ?

May be us readers/collectors need another Napoleanic Tv show or Movie to spark a trend of shopping ?

I am going to call out for Frankenstein Kits for Cavalry to resolve those holes in the 28 market

Rusty, aluminium mould blocks for soft plastic are MUCH cheaper and given that they are also much smaller they will be cheaper still. You are talking the difference between a mere £2,000.00 GBP and then £40,000.00 GBP plus. And to add to that the 20mm figures themselves get punted out to many toy shops worldwide whereas 28mm stuff is a VERY specialised market. Wargamers always have the Perry's who are not always cost driven. So there lies your only hope I would suggest.

I think it is fascinating to hear from the experts in the trade itself. I always knew that plastic moulding represented quite an investment, even from the early days of Airfix and Frog models, but did not realise quite the scale of that expense!

Worth considering just how many boxes of Austrian Cavalry would have to be sold, to start to turn any profit.

I wonder what the ratio of sales of French to every other army is, I suspecr British is next and the rest quite a bit behind, though I'd suspect Austrian is 3rd.

Fwiw I note GW still have a wide range of other forces on sale despite Space Marines apparently selling c 10 to every 1 other figure (I think that counts all the SM variants). But they can manufacture civil wars, not so easy with Napoleonics – the French need enemies.

Comparing even the biggest historical wargames company like Warlord games to Games workshop is like comparing your local corner shop to Tesco or Wallmart.