Xenophon - new figures from Frank Ziegler

Frank came back to his favorite subject - ancients!

I remember Frank sculpting these figures at the dioramica one year ago. Now he sent this photos with the attached text.

I guess they will be available in the shop in 8 weeks.

Here the photos:

And this is Franks text:

The riders of Cyros the younger

At last i completed the first Figures on my new range. The „raw“ horses, I did a couple of years ago, were casted. And at the last time I made their bridle and their saddle cloth. Some of You saw the first riders at the Dioramica, now I completed some more, ready for moulding.

This figures are the first ones of a new series of figures belonging to the era of Xenophon, the time around 400 BC. So here we have the guardsmen of Cyrus the Younger, who did a coup against his brother the grand king Artaxerxes II with the Battle of Cunaxa.

Prince Cyrus the satrap of Lycia, Grandphrygia and Cappadocia has the rank of an Achaemenian viceroy and had the entire Asia Minor under his command. His guard troops were chiefly from his satrapies as well as from Lycia, an independent allied kingdom

My figures represent the mounted guard troops from Cappadocia, as Xenophon also describes. Besides the Persian fashion, they also had Greek-style equipment. They wore an armor (intimated with the protruding neck guard) under a purple / red Persian garment; I applied braids or seam bands as painting aids. Then a Greek helmet with a white crest. Here, the cone-shaped pilos helmet was certainly the most widespread, but variations of Attic or Thracian helmets are also very common at this time. As armament, the riders wear a Greek sword and the Palta, a pair of spears, one being used for throwing, the other for fighting.
The horses have bridles with gag snaffles, the mane is short-cropped and the forelock is tied to a tuft. The saddle clothes have the pointed or stepped zaddles, typical for the Achaemenite period, as well as some of the motifs, which I worked as a painting aid.

Beside the riders there are horse boys / pages. They wear Persian / Median garments, an akinakes and as headgear a tiara with a diadem. I sculpt them without beards, as youths.

Battle of Kolin SYW - flats

One of my future ideas for a diorama is the SYW. Beside smaller dioramas (mostly the work of Rüdiger Fischer) I haven't seen much on the SYW in 1/72.

With Frederick the Great an important figure in German military history, flats always had a huge range for this war available.

The Zinnfigurenfreunde Leipzig made a great diorama in flats - Kolin 1757 (one of the worse battles for Fritz).

Take here a look at the photos.

More of their work you can see here.

Ming Guard infantry

Today Thomas sent me again new photos of his endless range for Ming Chinese and the Korean invasion.

When he started with the subject I thought this would be a short lived one. Well, I was wrong...

This time it is Ming Chinese Guards who fought the Japanese in Korea.

Some "new" WW1 figures from Massimo

Before I met Massimo he already has sculpted (or converted) figures for collectors. One of them gave him nearly every month a new order. I remember when I met Massimo and he showed me a box with around 20 WW1 British infantry in the Trenches and told me they are not for me!!

Half a year ago sadly this collector died and his widow sold his collection. I was able to get a lot of these old figures.

I asked Andy if he can cast these figures as of course I need more then one of several poses for my diorama projects. It was a tough job for Andy, but he managed it.

Yesterday I got my parcel and today I finished the first of them to put them in the shop. Next step is, I will paint them:-)

The first sets are a German and a British General staff. I think the German one can be used for the Franco-Prussian war 1870/71 too.


The other ones are Belgian Lanciers (the collector was a Belgian) hunting down German infantry or becoming casualties. As they have the campaign jacket and not the dolman they could also be used as Germans.

And with other horses and without the Carbines the Ulans could also be useful for 1870/71.

First the "masters".

Now my photos of the castings

What do you say, not sooo bad the result eh? :-)

Scythians from Frank Ziegler

These figures I have for a long time. Frank sculpted a range of Scythians in interesting poses.

One of my plans for future dioramas is the war of the heavenly horses in which Han-Chinese fought the Saka (another step-people, but similar in appearance).

But of course they can also fight Greeks and Persians:-)

Andy gave a set of the Scythians to Thomas Willers who painted them for him. I thought you might like to see the result too.

If you want to know more about them, Balkan Dave just wrote something about them on his blog.

Italian Askaris

In the meantime I put the set of the Italian Askaris into our shop. I like these guys

I know this is an obscure subject and for sure will not cover the costs I had. But I like colonial warfare and beside the well covered British wars of the 19th century nearly all European nations had their campaigns.

So for the future maybe I can show some dioramas of the Schutztruppe in German South-West Africa, The French in Indochina 1885 and hopefully the battle of Adowa 1896.

About this battle I made a post before.

Here are photos from this diorama

These photos Alfred made years ago in the Italian colonial war museum when I remember it right.
At the moment we think about our hobbytour next year and Rome with its museums is an option. Then for sure I will come with more and better photos:-)


While searching my own photos in the web I stumpled over the link of "Savage and Soldier". In my collection I have their complete range of magazines back to the 1960ies. This was in my eyes the best magazine for colonial warfare, followed by "Soldiers of the Queen".  Sadly with the early death of Lin Bodin they run out of steam. In 2000 Milton Soon tried to bring life to it again and I remember I wrote an article for one of the new issues but sadly it was a short lived story.

Check the link to read what is available. And if somebody needs infos on a special subject, I could scan some pages.