Molatero mobilises! Infantry regiment raised.

"As the clouds of war muster over the continent and the covetous eyes of empires gaze upon small free nations, Molatero must mobilize in order to defend it's liberty!" Prince Regent Vallzack III to Parliament.

Three boxes of the Armies in Plastic 1/32 Russians arrived on my doorstep yesterday as I decided to step up my work on a FLW Molatero army. As previously mentioned these toy soldiers will be converted to something resembling Romanian soldiers of the 1890+ period - the nation on which I will be loosely basing mu fictional country of Molatero.

The actual title of these toy soldiers is "Boxer Rebellion Russian Army China - 1900", but as usual with Armies in Plastic sets they are simply one version of a generic type from a given period. This set exists in three different flavours to represent Russians from 1900 to the Revolution in 1917.

This version is moulded in a milky white - which is a pig to photograph by the way - and is unusual in that it included two different types of uniform in the one set. I am no expert whatsoever on the Russian military of this period, but it seems that both naval infantry and army infantry are modelled here.

The 'army infantry' with their peaked cap

The army infantry wear a peaked cap, while their naval counterparts wear a Russian style sailors hat. This might be a bit of a nuisance if you are trying to build a regiment out of the box as it means you only have half the same type of uniforms that you expected and would have to resort to conversion.

The 'naval infantry' with their sailors hat

As it happens this is of no consequence to me as all these toy soldiers will soon be decapitated as I undertake to convert them into faux-Romanians with the distinctive Romanian style field cap!

However, it does mean that I will be - once again - scrimping for the exact poses that I want despite having bought three boxes of the blighters! This is because the two units have their own officer figure, so I have ended up with a total of 10 officers in total for some reason (don't ask me how).

This means the other infantry poses are reduced in number, especially - much to my frustration - the firing poses which I prefer! In fact the AiP Russians seem to be very heavy in the charging poses and I have more than enough to make a FLW regiment out of advancing Russians.

Anyway, I will cope - I refuse to buy another box!

So - between finishing off my Burkish infantry I will be producing my test figure based on these Russians. I will be trying out Molatero colours for the uniform and a trial conversion for the Romanian hat.