Esterhazy Hussars Are Completed

I am pleased to announce that I have finally completed the second squadron of the Esterhazy Hussars in Austrian service. They were a bit of a chore to paint, but now I have 24 hussars to add to my Austrian army for the Seven Years War. This brings my overall Austrian cavalry contingent up to 180 figures, or 15 squadrons of 12. This is slightly half the size of my Prussian army, but I can also rely on Graf Frey's 5 or 6 squadrons of Austrians and 8 squadrons of Saxons that are currently attached to Monsieur Chevert's army. So the numbers are getting closer, albeit the Prussians have a lot more cuirassiers.

That could be changing over the next couple of months, for I was browsing the net this evening and noticed the announcement over on the Minden Miniatures (see the link on the left hand side of this page) site that the Austrian and Prussian cuirassier "greens" are nearly completed. Frank Hammond provides some sample pictures on his web page, and they are as handsome as we have all grown accustomed to with regard to the wonderful Minden range. So let's see, I could use a 60 figure regiment of Austrian cuirassiers and a similar number of Prussian cuirassiers that will form the core of my new Hesse Seewald heavy cavalry. These won't be available for awhile, until Frank can get the molds made and figures cast, but they will definitely be worth the wait.

I will not be lacking things to paint, as I have an order of some 200 Minden Prussians wending their way across the great pond and hopefully I can start on one of the new green-clad Hesse Seewald regiments in February. Or I could paint a second Minden Austrian battalion that I have on hand. So there is much to look forward to in February.

The completion of the Esterhazy Hussars at the mid-point of January indicates that I am on schedule with regard to my painting plans for January. This gives me two weeks to work on the Minden Austrian regiment Andlau that I started last week. Given the fact that the US has a national holiday this coming Monday, I will have a long 3-day weekend available for a painting frenzy. Yesssss!

I will try to get some pictures of the hussars and the Mindens posted over the weekend. My camera chip is getting full and it takes a good 15 minutes or so to down load even a few new pictures, then more time to adjust the settings on the pictures in order to get them ready for my blog.