Tsuba Miniatures RJW 76mm Putilov Guns And Maxim And Hotchkiss Machine Guns

Very impressed with my first order of Tsuba Minatures figures. They are very well sculpted and detailed. They size up well with the Old Glory figures that are the majority of this project. They were ordered from the US distributor of Empress Miniatures, and arrived within a week.

Old Glory crews were used for the Putilov guns since I already had a bunch of them. Tsuba sells the guns with or without crew (one set moving the gun and the other firing). Only problem with the Old Glory set is none of them are posed to sit on the seats of the gun carriage. There is a kneeling guy and since the guns are in the process of being moved, he might've been to told to get his lazy butt off.

Should've ordered two more of the Tsuba guns, as there are enough Old Glory figures for them. Ended up ordering two similar Old Glory guns from their Pershing in Mexico range. The order is from Noble Knight Games and they were on sale, along with Japanese infantry from their Boxer Rising range - ordered two more bags of those to storm Russian strongholds.

The gun and four crew are a bit cramped on the 50x50mm stands, but didn't want them to take up too much space on the table.

The Maxim MG are crewed with the figures that came with the set. The gunner is cast separately as is the machine gun itself. The machine gun's handgrips fit perfectly into the gunner's hands.

The IJA Hotchkiss crew are painted in a combination of the older dark blue uniform and the khaki summer uniform issued mid-war. Added a little bit of Green Stuff for the shoulder straps as the Tsuba figures are in the later uniform which didn't have them. Otherwise, the overall cut of the uniforms were similar. The older blue uniforms had yellow distinctions for the regular line units, and red distinctions for the Imperial Guard units. The later khaki uniforms had red cap and cuff bands for all infantry units, both line and Guard.

Interestingly, and unlike the Maxim team, the IJA gunner and Hotchkiss are molded as one piece - the tripod being separate.

The Noble Knight order should be arriving in a few days, and once the figures for this project are painted up, it will be time for a playtest using The Men Who Would Be Kings. Plan on attending our annual Christmas Dragon Rampant game day this Saturday. Should be a nice gathering with about 20 players - the game usually devolves into several smaller bashes going on around the table. An after action report with pictures will follow. Until then, thanks for stopping by and Season's Greetings!