"Follow the Standards!"

Another chilly, grey autumn day here at Stollen Central -- It’s perfect November weather! And it’s nice to be cozily shut up in the spare room with my computer, Voice of America playing African music on the old Grundig Satellit 650 shortwave radio, and soldiers awaiting my attention over on the painting/radio desk.

My MiniFigs 25mm Austrian and Prussian standard bearers/ensigns arrived with the mail a short while ago (six of each). And they’re fantastic! Nice long flagpoles with finial ends that will take oversized flags, and the figures are heavy enough to remain standing -- i.e., they won’t become top-heavy once painted with the flags attached. I’m going to begin work on a Prussian standard bearer today, so that the first regiment I painted, the 2^nd (Von Laurenz) Musketeers some of you may recall, will have one of these new figures in a couple of days.

Height-wise, the MiniFigs are a few millimeters shorter than my plastic Revell 1/72 figures. The former measure about 22mm base to eye, while the latter measure 25-26mm, depending on the pose. Admittedly, the MiniFigs are a bit more “stout” – the Revell figures have lovely, slim proportions – but once painted and placed within 60-figure units, I’m quite sure the slight discrepancy in size will go unnoticed to anyone except me.

As for flags, well, I’ve decided to go historical and rely on stuff from the NapFlags and Warflag websites. My hand simply isn’t steady enough to paint flags that look good enough to compliment my figures. While it’s easy enough to paint an 1815 French tricolor, my skills just aren’t good enough to paint the kind of 18^th century “Germanic” flags I want the Grand Duchy of Stollen and the Electorate of Zichenau infantry to carry.

So, I’ll use 18^th century Hessian standards: a big black or white iron cross with colored corner vents and golden flaming grenades in each arm of the cross with a red and white lion in the center for my Stollen line infantry. These will differ in color from regiment to regiment.

Zichenau line infantry, on the other hand, will carry a national standard that is the same for all units: a large white flag with an interesting central device featuring a large red/gold crown, two golden lions, etc. The historical princely state that carried these flags escapes my memory right now, but I like the look of them. I’ve included a couple of examples of each here for your enjoyment.

And my painting plans for this weekend? After I’ve finished trimming flash from the remaining ten plastic Revell Austrian artillery figures and the one new 25mm MiniFigs Prussian standard bearer above, I’ve got lots of base coating to do! So, it’s black Liquitex acrylic to apply to three MiniFigs mounted generals, two MiniFigs cannon, 13 artillery crew, and the aforementioned standard bearer, who is definitely my star player for the next few days!