"New 18mm SYW French from Eureka Miniatures" Topic

Rossbach, anyone?

Beautiful stuff.

Eric

Sweet stuff!

I have been privileged to have some of these troops for some time while Nic was waiting to get the whole range completed and put on line.

The French infantry marching along with shouldered muskets are superb little works of art. And because of the pose very easy to paint. Because I have a lot of French I painted mine as early Saxons for the WAS. Very nice indeed.

The artillery are also excellent. At last we have some really cumbersome looking 12pdr guns for the tricorne period instead of models that look like the come out of the later Napoleonic era. The crew are mostly stripped down to their waist coats and are also easy to paint up. The 24pdr siege gun is massive and the crew have appropriately long rammers. Well thought out. The 4pdr completes the trio I have and that too is much truer to the era than any others I have previously seen.

Highly recommended to anyone who wants to do French that look true to era.

Not Rossbach, but Hastenbeck!

Avanti,

This is a very good range. My only regret is that, at 18mm, it is hardly compatible with any other range out there. If you are not too picky, the infantry miniatures could stand next to the Old Glory 15 ones, but definitely not to Minifigs nor Essex figures. Eureka horses and riders are out of scale with anything else I own in my collection, so I had to regretfully pass. I am not entirely sure why Eureka opted for 18mm and why, once they committed to 18mm, it took so long to expand the range to the French -- and I am not even sure what to expect next (British/Hanoverian seem the obvious next step), and when.
I may consider making an exception, and blow out of scale a few figures to accommodate Eureka's general staff miniatures – these are gems. Hopefully, Eureka will add some 18mm "characters" and vignettes as they did for their 28mm range – that's something I'd line up for the night before of the release!

DestoFante

My only regret is that, at 18mm, it is hardly compatible with any other range out there.

Understand how this could be a concern to gamers with older armies, but frankly these Eureka SYW lines are so splendid and so complete that it's not really an issue for me -- they are the precise models that we SYW fans have wanted for such a long time! IMO they blow everything else smaller than 28mm straight out of the water. This is a case where I WILL simply replace existing models, failing eyesight and all!

And by the way, that's not to disparage the older lines, without which we would not have had many years of enjoyable SYW gaming. I used to game with SYW Mike's Models so I know of what I speak here!

Where is the like button? Bill? ;-) I have to agree, you won't please everyone and 18mm is really becoming the state of things with many manufacturers. Really, really, nice figures. What Anthony Barton would do if he did lace wars, which he won't :-)

As we wrote on our release, the British will be next and Mike Broadbent will be sending the first masters this week.

Nic Eureka Miniatures

Nic,

any appetite for 18mm vignettes and characters?

Certainly, so long as we make our money back on them.
Would you care to make some suggestions I can list on the 300 Club?
Nic Eureka Miniatures

I cannot agree that these 18mm are incompatible with other brands. They are very compatible with all except Mini-Fig but then many Mini-Fig are not really compatible with any other ranges.

I have to agree with the cavalry. The horses are the problem, some with legs that are too long, which causes them to stand much taller than anything I have seen apart from 20mm. The riders are in proportion, its only the horses that are too big.

BUT that said, it certainly does not apply to the Infantry. To my left on my desk, at this very moment, I have some new Eureka 18mm figures being painted, a group of 15mm Essex long ago painted but being rebased and among them some Old Glory 15mm in similar situation. Compared to the Eureka 18mm French (I painted as Saxons) the Essex look bigger.

All three of those brands are of similar size. The main difference with the Eureka infantry is that their anatomical proportions are much better and the detail is very high. Another difference is that the 15mm Essex figures are more bulky than the rest…and perhaps a little taller. So anyone with Essex figures should not be concerned about mixing in the new Eureka figures.

A bit further to my left are some of my old Mini-Figs, recently rebased, and they look very out dated by the rest.

A bit further away from where I am sitting, my wargames table is fully laid out, ready for a battle this coming Saturday. At that range the difference between ALL those brands is barely noticable and only if one really looks hard. If anything the mix of brands makes for a more realistic look as units have personality, rather than a bleak uniformity of size and positioning.

My Generals are also very mixed. They also extend to some 'Blue Moon' figures a friend gave me recently. All the brands seem to mix well even the Mini-Fig. But at close range there is no doubt that the new 18mm Eureka Generals and staff on foot, are most obviously better detailed.

In the same group from my friend were some American Indians and some FIW infantry. The variation in size between individual types is very noticable. The Blue Moon Generals are quite slim and petite compared to the infantry. They are labelled as 18mm. Although I only have a small number, the Blue Moon fit very well with the Eureka and the others.

I believe that labelling the new Eureka range as 18mm is much more truthful to scale than some of the figures I am comparing that are called 15mm.

So yes, the cavalry dont fit well with other brands. But when it comes to the infantry, Generals, the artillerymen and the artillery itself, the new 18mm Eureka range is compatible with nearly everyne else.

Very nice indeed! 18mm adventures in the Seven Years War beckon….I must dust off my Christopher Duffy collection…

They ARE beautiful – I got some at Cancon the other week, and Nic has kindly just sent me a couple of samples of their GNW range, about to be released. I echo Mal on this – I have a large Roundway Swedish army for GNW, and the Eureka infantry fit well against them, but the cavalry are almost twice the size because of the horses. I find with the Napoleonic ranges as well that there is a good compatibilty with the foot, less so with the horse.

But they are so gorgeous, what the hell.

I also have some of the Swedish that Nic kindly supplied me although not released or on his list. The positioning and anatomical proportions are excellent. They remind me of Essex in general stance and size. Unfortunately the cavalry are again riding horses that are far too large, but the riders themselves are excellent for scale and detail. Beautiful figures.

We used some of the Swedish cavalry on the tabletop two weeks ago and merely placed Mini Fig cavalry on the other flank! It all looked great. Unless placed side by side the difference in cavalry was not noticable. But once side by side it was very marked. However as far as the infantry went, they fitted with other brands perfectly.

I would highly recommend them to anyone.

As artaxerxes says, they are gorgeous.

Nic, just a suggestion: Why not taking advantage of this new range for annexing the 300CLUBHM13 Miquelets to that 18th Century series?

In theory, they're already counting as in production status ( link ) and seemingly are quite alone in your catalogue, for the lack of other WSS products. Perhaps they might be re-labelled as 'WSS/SYW Mountain Fusiliers (Miquelets)'. At that time, they were extensively used either by France and Spain and, as a matter of fact, little changed in their equipment during that period, so that I wonder if…

Couldn't these become somehow linked to 300CLUBHM12 SYW Spanish Light Infantry? Don't know who's behind that submission, but I guess both ranges might well help to each other, as well as helping expand your entire 18th century series too.

Or, are they too small to match the SYW 18mm range?

Best wishes,
Lluís

Excellent figures. Whether the horses are too big? I'm not convinced they are, this is an interesting comparison on Dal Gavan's site (bottom of page)
link

With regard to the extra size of the cavalry – with the Prussian cavalry I took them to my grinder and at low speed ground down the underside of the base. This made them shorter and gave an absolutely flat bottom to adhere to the base. My Eureka Prussian cavalry and Old Glory Prussian cavalry are now much closer in size.

I tried placing some of my other cavalry on thicker bases. Similar principle but much easier!!!

With regard the Miquelets. They are quite applicable up to the 7YW. Not only for Spanish. They make excellent French Montagne Infantry, Kingdom of Savoy/Sardinia mountan troops, and a bunch of Neapolitan mountain troops that are a copy of the Spanish.

The figures are very robust and I was delighted to be able to add them to my WAS armies for the Italian front. It would be an excellent idea to move them to the SYW tricorne era troops.

The Miquelets are listed as 15mm but most of the poses will fit with the 18mm. For example the standing firing pose in my view is very compatible with the Eureka Grenzer skirmishing as well as with Blue Moon's AWI Jaegers and GNW Russian dismounted dragoons standing firing, some of the other poses less so. I think most of us would have no problem including them on the same table.

The miquelets are 15mm, rather than 18mm and they will get an official release as soon. Currently if you want them, just order via the 300 Club In Production listing.

Nic Eureka Miniatures

The French look great. Maybe someday we will have 18mm troops for India and North America? It was a 'world war' after all.