Austrian Firing Line

Austrian infantry regiment "Lacy" comprised of Fife & Drum Hessians and Minden Austrian command figures.

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I bet that you did not know that Minden Miniatures has SYW Austrians in firing line poses.

Well, you would be right, because there are no firing line poses in the Minden SYW range (yet). However, I decided that I needed a new Austrian battalion of infantry to use in my Kunersdorf game next year - there were some 18,000 Austrian commanded by Loudan that were at the battle. I wanted to do something different for my Austrians so I decided to paint a battalion in a firing line.

Austrian regiment Lacy with 3 stands.

Austrian regiment Lacy with 4 stands

Since Minden does not have regular infantry in firing line poses, I decided to select some of the Fife & Drum AWI Hessians and "convert them with paint." In other words, I would use the Hessian musketeers in firing poses and turn them into SYW Austrians by the simple mechanism of painting the figures white. I also added in some Minden Austrian command figures such as drummers, NCOs and officers to give the battalion a bit more of an "Austrian" look to it.

I think that the miniatures really look like Austrians at first glance, and perhaps at second, third and fourth glance.

Side view of the battalion.

The Austrians are based to my new organizational method with 32 figures instead of 30 figures. I use 4 stands instead of the old 5 stands. I put 8 figures on each stand and on the two flank stands I offset the drummer in the second rank and also place an NCO on the stand.

Austrian Command Stand.

This Austrian unit needed a deeper base than my usual 40mm to provide extra room on the base to protect the extended muskets from possible breakage. So I used a stand that was 80mm deep and 40mm wide. Thus the total frontage of the battalion is 240mm compared to the 280mm that I normally use for my Russians and Pommeranian corps Prussians.