Austrians Begin to Muster

There's not much to see yet, but the painting process is underway for my Armies in Plastic WW1 Austrians (which are just their late war Germans in a different color plastic). 

The coal scuttle helmet was introduced on the Southern Front in 1916. If I recall correctly, the sturmtruppen used it first, but it soon spread to the entire army. Because all of the figures wear coal scuttle helmets, equipment and poses will distinguish the stormtroopers from the regular infantry.

 

Only two of them rock a mustache. I find this shocking.

I tried something different this time: using a candle to heat a pin, which was mounted in a hobby knife handle, to remove mold lines. Honestly, I'm not sure it's worth the effort or if it is any better result than my usual hack job with a knife. 

Figures were then primed with black gesso. On top of that went a coat of Delta Ceramcoat Hippo Grey because the uniforms will be Vallejo 905 (for grey) or 943 (for the early war blue) and I didn't want to use a lot of paint to cover the black.

I'm also trying something different with the painting this time - normally my process is sort of two steps forward, one step back, with lots of touch-ups on previously painted bits. Hopefully, spending a little more time on each individual step on caution will result in less time spent overall.

For basing, they will be based in pair on a 2" x 2" square -same as my WWII Eastern Front collection. 

This will suit Trench Hammer where the bases are "sections" or "patrols". The bases can be combined to form larger units - two bases for a company or battalion for example, for The Portable Wargame or Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames machine-age rules, or rules of my own devising. Finally four bases together can form a battalion for Field of Battle WWI.