Temporary stop of direct sales and previews of upcoming sets

We hope everyone is doing well!

We are sorry to inform you that due to some real life commitments (a very time demanding day job involving a lot of travelling, among others), we have to put a temporary stop to direct sales. If everything goes as planned, we will be back at full speed with regular service at May/June 2017.

In the meantime, ALL the sets will stay available through Empress Miniatures.

There are also quite a few new sets in the pipeline:

A set of 'characters' for the German Sailors:

 

And six sets of 'Red Army'/Spartacists for the fightings in 1918/1919:

 

 

 

 

 

Sailors in Munich?

Some people are curious, if there actually were sailors taking part in the fightings in Munich in 1918/1919. (Of course, the miniatures are suitable for all locations in Germany and beyond during this turbulent times.)

The short answer is 'Yes'. ;-)

A photograph titled 'Rote Garde' ('Red Guard') showing revolutionaries in front of Munich central station. Note the two sailors in the middle of the photo (the right one with and the left one without the national cockade on the hat).

Although Bavaria was (and still is) a landlocked state and Munich itself is near the Alps there were sailors present and fighting during the German Revolution. After the Kiel mutiny in early November 1918, the spark that lit the flame of revolution, the sailor had become a symbol throught out the German states. 

The men serving in the Imperial Germany Navy came from all states throught the empire not only from those with a long standing naval tradition. After the mutiny some just wanted to go home and ended up in the local fightings, while others were sent as part of units to assist the workers' and soldiers' councils and the new governments in the different cities and regions. The Volksmarine Division (People's Naval Division) in Berlin maybe being the prime example.

On February 15th, 1919 a unit of about 600 armed sailors arrived in Munich coming from Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea. Among them was Munic-born Rudolf Egelhofer, who became Stadtkommandant (town major) of Munich and supreme commander of the Bavarian red army in April 1919. He is supposed to have orderd the shooting of the ten hostages held at the Luitpold Gymnasium (grammar/secondary school), most of them members or at least associated with the Thule Gesellschaft (society). Egelhofer himself was arrested by 'White' troops on May 1st, 1919, severely mistreated and and finally shot without trial on May 3rd, 1919.

Rudolf Egelhofer, * 13. April 1896 Munich-Schwabing; † 3. Mai 1919 Munich

Some contemporary sources also claim that some young men who had never seen the sea in all their lives gathered sailor's uniforms from all kind of sources: shops for naval equipment, merchant sailors, costume rentals or theater props. The sailor's garb meant a hot meal each day and also a certain desirability to the ladies...

'Red' Sailors available

I'm sorry, that it took so long until these are finally available! The moulding and casting has already been finished some weeks ago but I had my final exam at university last week and wanted to have that out of the way before committing to Tsuba Miniatures once again.

The good thing about the delayed release is that Andrew Taylor had the time to paint the miniatures in the meantime. Iain of Flags of War, once again, contributed to the little project with two all new sheets of flags for the Sailors or any other force fighting for the Räterepublik and against the Freikorps.

Just a word on the national cockade (the little round patch on the hats/caps): While a lot of sources claim, that they were nearly always removed, quite some contemporary photos show the Sailors (and other men fighting for the Räterepublik) still wearing them. Often there are men with and without the cockade shown in the same photography. Most of the miniatures come with the cockade sculpted on as it is easier to file/scrape them off rather than paint them on freehand.

The make-up of the sets is pretty similar to those of the Freikorps Werdenfels but the command and assault sets are slightly different:

 

  RS-01 Command 

(containing two Officer/NCO types, one Standard-bearer and a Sailor priming a hand grenade)

 RS-02 Sailors advancing

(containing four different Sailors with rifles)

  RS-03 Sailors firing/loading

(containing four different Sailors with rifles)

 RS-04 HMG team

(containing a MG08 and a crew of three)

RS-05 Assault team

(containing two Sailors armed with MP18 SMGs and a two-men MG08/15 team)

The pricing is also similar to the Freikorps Werdenfels:
€ 7.50 per single set of miniatures and € 2.50 per flag sheet.
Again, a deal containing all five sets + one sheet of flags of your choice is available for € 36.- (instead of € 40.-, thus granting 10% discount).

Here are the two sheets of flags (to simplify things, I've changed over to using the codes of Flags of War for the flag sheets):

INT02 German Communists (Rote Garde)

INT03 German Communists (Alle Macht)

As you can see, each sheet gets you one plain red flag and another one with a written slogan. The first one (INT02) reads:

Rote Garde

hoch

d[ie] soz[ialistische] kom[m]unistische

Räte Republik

which translates pretty much to:

Red Guard

long live

the socialistic communistic

Republic of Councils (or Soviet Republic)

The second one (INT03) reads:

Alle Macht

den

A[rbeiter-] u[nd] S[oldaten-]Räten

which translates to:

All Might 

to the

Workers' and Soldiers' Councils

These slogans are based on contemporary photos. I will post the respective photos over the next couple of days. Here's one of them in use on the Sailor carrying a standard:

'Sale' on misprinted flag sheets: 

Due to a misunderstanding the first print-run has some typing errors on the second flags on the respective sheets, while the plain red ones are perfectly usable. If you only want the plain red flag, just let me know. I can let these sheets go for just € 1.- per sheet instead of € 2.50.

PLEASE NOTE: If you order a regular sheet INT02 or INT03 you will receive a correct sheet of the second print-run without any typing error.

'Red' Sailors greens

These are basically done, I've just asked Paul to add the rhomboid looking collar insignias and the ends of the cap bands for the 'sailor-look' like this man serving with the Torpedodivision L5 (photo found on the internet):

For now there will be five sets:
- Command set
- Sailors with rifles advancing
- Sailors with rifles firing/loading
- HMG (this set will, of course, also include a MG08 HMG although it's not show on the photo)
- Sailors with assault weapons

Hopefully, we'll have the castings available in February 2014!