It appears the long delayed Hat Austrian infantry sets are not dead!

 After just noticing an anonymous reply to my second to last blog post I checked out Hat’s website and it appears they have resumed work on these figures!  

They are at the stage of designing the spru, meaning deciding what combination of figures, backpacks and hats can fit, and therefore how many of everything that will be in each set (and if it requires 3 or 2 sets) to get it all done.

Very happy to see this, but trying also to temper my enthusiasm because there have been many false hopes on these in the 14 years since Hat first showed the master figures for these; https://www.hat.com/Prev/Austrian/Austrian.html

Cheers!

So sorry to be absent from the blog for so long

 It’s just that there has been so little to talk about given Hat Industrie’s failure to produce their Austrian sets, and the scarcity of many other critical figure types.

Yes I have bought the odd set, typically either a find on EBay or one of the online shops I regularly check, and very occasionally regular sets where I find a need. 

Not going to lie; it’s more than a little depressing to get so far as to have a largely compete French & allied army, and an Austrian army really only missing fusiliers & grenadiers, but with no near-term prospects for those troops to be produced.

If anyone has any contacts with producers they are able to share I would be very grateful. I will reach out to them to discuss producing Austrian sets and how much in sales $ they can count on from me alone.  Costing out my needs (Based on Hat’s typical # of figures per set and recent pricing) I estimate my needs to cost somewhere north of $3,500. A not insubstantial amount of sales to be able to count on upfront.  

One Napoleonic thing that has been occupying my brain is study of the 1806 campaign against Prussia.  Not so much to play it out in 1/54, but to better understand it.  In particular what stands out to me is that even with their less flexible army I believe the Prussians, with just a little bit more focus & leadership could have not only done better that historically (It would be very hard to do worse) but could have concentrated their army to beat Napoleon at Jena.  More on this later.  Cheers

Something else that has made me happy recently

 I recently came across this video on YouTube from Stan of “Stan’s Armee” (some one I “know” from interacting on the Hat forums that shares a passion for the 1809 campaign).  He had not posted on his blog in a while, but his recent YouTube video made me very happy; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wg3CYkf7p8&t=27s

To explain; as so many others have experienced, it is easy to get swept up in a project at the beginning, much harder to maintain the effort to complete it I n the face of adversity (in this case lack of figure availability).  Stan’s recent video encouraged me to not lose hope; and I want to thank him for that!

Cheers

Armies in Plastic sale

 Hi everyone;  

I have continued to adjust some of my units when I can find useful figures,  but it’s slow going with little progress as long as the Hat Austrian action & marching sets remain unproduced.  Sad that a company that has produced so many great sets can’t seem to get these done, and much of its 1/32 line of sets is now out of stock everywhere. Anyway…

Armies in plastic is running one of there periodic sales; all infantry sets $9.95 and all cav sets $8.95 (vs $12.95 each regularly).  As mentioned before, they have a bunch of French sets in new colors, check it out; https://www.armiesinplastic.com/

Cheers!

Non-Wagram Napoleonic Inventory

As promised, this is my unpainted Napoleonic non-Wagram figure inventory.

Current total inventory

So here is my total inventory of figures for Austria, France & French Allies at Wagram.

Tomorrow I will post inventory of Napoleonic figures NOT involved in Wagram (i.e. British, Russians, Polish, etc.).

Armies in Plastic; new colors of French infantry and sale

 Hello everyone;

Armies in plastic is having one of their period sales where most figure sets are $9.95 (instead of 12.95).

Additionally; they have launched new sets of their French infantry in new colors including;

 Mustard (for Neuchatel infantry, which were in II Corps at Wagram)

 Brown (can be used for Tirailleurs de Corses, which were also in II Corp at Wagram)

As well as several other colors, including a medium blue I am going to check out and may use to replace my 2 French Line battalions in AIP’s much darker blue.

Cheers all!