Italian Askaris 1890ies - and Italian colonial history in general

Checking the pipeline of sets to produce from the wishlists of all our collector friends I recognized that there are over 95% Napoleonics.

Well, I like Napoleonics, but also other periods. So I decided I will produce myself other ranges outside this period.

With Massimo already working on Derwish sets I thought (as I am always after the more obscure subjects) that the Derwishes not only fought the British and Egyptians, but also the Belgians in the Congo, the Ethiopeans and the Italians.

Against the Italians the Derwishes fought two battles:

Agorat 1893 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Agordat

Kassala 1894 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kassala

As there are already enough Derwihes on the market (at least infantry) I know will lood for their enemies.

With the Italians it is easy as they mostly used their Askaris to fight of the Derwishes.
So I needed these guys:

The middle one is the uniform in the 1890ies

And here is what I got:-)

Next will be some mountain artillery (if Andy wants to make me a gun). And of course the famos "Penne di Falco" (Hawkfeathers).

All of these units can be used for the Italian-Ethiopean war of 1896 too. So the next thing in my focus will be the battle of Adowa. This will be a bigger project as we need all the European Italian units too.

I made a post for this battle five years ago here.



Talking about Ethiopeans years ago a hobbyfriend started his own branch under the label "Johnny foreigner". The figures should be for the war of 1935/36.  I can't remember his real name but at this time I was so enthisastic, I bouth a lot of sets from him. He promised to expand the range but everytime I asked him he answered me he needs time and after a year he stoped answering at all. Since this time I am sitting on hundreds of Ethiopeans.. I think when bringing these Italians in the shop I will also take some of his figures into the marketplace in case anybody is interested in them.

And talking about the campaign of 1935/36 - I also have the complete range of Italwars in my collection. The owner gave them to me three years ago and we discussed to produce them again. Sadly in the end he made no decission and so they are still lying around True 20mm figures, but the complete Italian colonial range of the 1920ies to 1942 included. Maybe one day I can bring them back to the collectors comunity...

French Infanterie legere - carabiniers

Two years ago I started with the project of the French Revolution. With the help of several hobbyfriends -  especially Pieter - this range is growing.

Three new sets of French infantry are already casted and will appear in the shop soon.
Now Massimo surprised me with sculpting a set I've asked for in the past.

I like these guys because with their Mirliton they are something special.

A Ming Chinese project

Since a year I am following Rayloryan's posts about his Ming Chinese army at Benno's forum.
My mate Thomas who is working on his own range of the Ming army gave me the link.

Wow this sculpting is really impressing! I hope he find a caster who helps him produce the figures (and me to buy them:-))

Please check the link to see a lot of photos, both of masters and historical research.

Here a selection of photos from Benno's forum:

Flat figure dioramas in the museum at Morges/Switzerland

In our anual hobbytrip we went into Switzerland. This country has a lot of interesting museums which offer figure dioramas, uniforms etc.

My favorite museum was Morges which has an exhibition of Swiss uniforms in foreign service, Swiss cantonal uniforms, a collection of Swiss artillery from medieval times until now - and a huge collection of flat figures.

I liked very much the diorama of the battle of Schellenberg in the war of the Spanish succession.
Over ten years ago I visited the battlefield together with friends.  Strange that I haven't been there since as it is less then 100 kilometers away from home...

Here the Bavarians gave a good account of themselves against British and Danes.
You still can see the old defence works they dug.

And here the photos of the diorama. I think they are big enough to zoom for details:-)

The good old Waterloo diorama in the Rifles Museum at Winchester

Over 10 years ago I visited Winchester with all it's great military museums like the Gurka Museum, Rifles museum etc.

My photos of the huge old Waterloo diorama I have already shown somewhere on the blog.
Now I found these photos on the web - they have it cleared up.