Some of my favorite figures & set

Hat Industrie has made many great sets and figures, for many eras, but particularly Napoleonics. Their French light infantry sets are universally great in terms of the composition and execution of the poses, the detailed sculpting and proper scale.  

Unlike any other series of sets Hat did, for the French light infantry they did 1 mixed command set, and 3 separate “troops” sets, each set with 5 or 6 poses, for each of;

1. Chasseurs: in shakos

2. Carabiniers in bearskins (without front plate)

3. Voltigeurs: in busbys

My favorite set is the Chasseurs (3 of 5 poses shown)

But I love them all!

In fact I love the sets from this era of Hat’s production (I think around 2010’ish).  The Napoleonic sets from then are universally great, including the;

1. Wurttemberg; 1 set line, 1 set grenadiers, 1 set gren/line command, as well as 1 set light infantry & 1 set light command.

2. Bavarian infantry in the 3 separate sets MAC (March, action & command) format

3. French elites in long coats (1 set troops + 1 set command)

As I’ve been putting my new Hat Austrian German fusilier figures together and into units it makes me very focused on how the figures in a set go together, call it pose optimization.  I’m sure everyone has their own ideas what they like/want in a unit, and there is plenty of room for this.  But when trying to organize my figures into so many units efficiency is key; I don’t want to have to buy a lot of extra figures, or stated a different way; I want to try to have the least number of leftovers when I am all done.  

Versatile poses makes this much easier; so here are what I consider the best execution of the efficient flexible poses that make me happy; 

Unsurprisingly 3 of my favs are from the Hat French Chasseurs.  But I prefer the Hat Wurttemberg grenadier reloading pose, and the Carabinier marching poses to those in the Chasseur set.  The Chasseur marching pose is slightly under scale, while the reloading pose is fine, I just prefer the efficient proportions of the Wurt gren better.

More on how these make for efficient units next time.

Cheers 

Impressions: 2.0

 UPS (after a week of incompetence & drama) finally found & delivered the last smallest box of Austrian German Fusiliers from Hat Industrie.

My latest impressions of the figures;

Still very happy to have them, and can’t wait until they are all fully assembled and organized.  So far I’ve only been been able to organize 1 Regiment of 3 battalions (IR #17 Reuss-Plauen; the largest regiment at Wagram).

But I have to say…

DAMN it’s lot of work taking the figures & their pieces off the spru and then assembling the figures.  For all figures this requires cutting them and their equipment off the very complicated and interconnected spru and gluing on the backpacks.  

These separate backpacks I’m used to, so NBD.  BUT the reloading figures separate arm is an unnecessary pain in the ass.  Must say the construct is well thought out and executed with the arm’s peg nicely fitting into the figure’s shoulder arm hole.   But the extra time & effort cutting the separate arm from the spru and then the hassle of applying a 2 part plastic bonding glue to secure such a small is just such a hassle.  

Having now done 60 of these I dread having to do the same for almost 400 more reloading figures I’ve purchased. 

Still looking so forward to seeing them all assembled into units!

Cheers

Impressions 1.5

 Good news;  second big box from Hat showed up today; leaving only 1 small box still not delivered by UPS.

Further impressions on the figures (now that I’ve fully assembled a few);

While the loading figure looks fine with the separate ramming right arm, I wish Hat had just gone with an attached arm like for all it’s other 1/32 Napoleonic reloading poses (i.e. Wurttembergers, Chasseurs, etc) because looking ahead to attaching at least 456 of these with Loctite 2 part plastic bonder makes my head (and finger tips) hurt.

The backpacks seems slightly oversized relative to the figures, particularly in their depth.  I am using hot glue to attach them, and also cutting down the back peg these were made to hang from, so they look fine on the figures. Cutting down the peg provides room for the hot glue to bind to the inside of the backpack hole to keep it attached to the figure.  This also allows the backpack to be pushed tighter against the figure than possible with the peg untrimmed; which frankly I think would look bad as the backpacks do not fit easily against the figures backs even when the peg is trimmed.

But enough of the negatives; I am both very happy to finally have these figures and more than a little overwhelmed by home much work I have to do to get the figures completed and ready to put into units.

Careful what you wish for…

Cheers

First box of Hat Austrian German Fusiliers has arrived!

 Because of gross incompetence by UPS I have only received 1 of the 3 boxes of these shipped to me (now 12 days after they were shipped).   Won’t tell you how frustrating and anger inducing it has been trying to track down these boxes via UPS “customer service”.  ANYWAY…

So far I have only started clearing figures from the spru; a daunting task to consider with an order of 174 sets (so 528 total spru of 6 figures each).  I’m doing this in waves; the first 15 spru have had all the smaller parts & extraneous mold pieces cleared off, but I’ve only completely freed 1 spru of figures (and not glued on any backpacks or reload figure arms yet).

But here are my first impressions;

The figures themselves are very good;

Detail is perfect for me, not overly done, but clear and well executed (particularly the helmets)

Scale appears good, perhaps a shade on the small side, but certainly well within acceptable and compatible with Hat and other producer’s 1/32 Napoleonic scales (i.e. not as small as Call to Arms French Infantry, nor as large as Timpo’s Imperial Guard).

The plastic used is a good balance of flexible and firm.

One thing that isn’t my favorite is the mold itself and how the figures are attached to it.  There are many mold pieces to cut from the figures, including several attached to the muskets, which require a lot of time and effort to remove.  And the base of the figures attachment to the mold is very thick and requires a lot of force to cut through.  

Will update more as I progress in the great spru removal!

Cheers