More SYW Baggage

So last year at Hotlead I bought some second hand Museum Miniature wagons for $10.

Before

Before

You recall I didn't like the solid wooden wheels and the rather awful paint job (I can say that because I did the awful paint job some 25 years ago). A few months back I finally contacted Dave at Museum and ordered some spoked wheels and extra draft horses.

In between working on more Sudan campaign stuff for a customer, the distance learning component for my latest CIC course and trying to find better employment, I refurbished the remaining wagons; replacing wheels, adding more draft horses and giving them a complete repaint. Some of the pins did break off, so I had to make axles from wire and glue those in first. But nothing a few minutes with a file and some epoxy couldn't get sorted.

Refurbished covered wagon

The open topped large cargo wagon also got an Essex driver (who was extra from Patrick's Thirty Year's War army). I used pliers to turn up his floppy hat and make it a tricorne. I also filled the rest of the box with some bags made from greenstuff and some extra bits of WW2 tank stowage.

Refurbished open topped wagon

The engineer's wagon and large barrel wagon didn't have room for drivers so (inspired by something I saw on some other blog but I can't remember where) I added troops guiding the horses on foot. I used a Lancashire Austrian jaeger and painted him as a pioneer for the pioneer wagon, and then a couple of musketeers to guard the barrels of beer.

Pioneer wagon

Beer wagon

I suppose I should have painted the pioneer and beer wagons a nice Austrian ochre, but I hadn't thought of using spare infantry figures until after I'd painted the wagons.

So here's the whole lot refurbished at last and ready to hang about in the rear at the next battle:

The complete group refurbished at last

That's better!

The bases are quite thick, because I was worried that such large bases would warp if made with my usual artist's matt board.

These last four have now doubled the size of my baggage train (at least for the Austrians). I may need to find someone to play out a rearguard action now. I think my small Austrian force is big enough to act as a rearguard.