70's Flashback 2

A second trip down memory lane with another photo from 1970 or thereabouts. These are Hinton Hunt Prussian grenadiers from my original collection marching through the snow on the trail of Napoleon, or perhaps running away from Napoleon – who knows? The abandoned Prussian field gun is a bit of a give away.

The snow was flour and the nice frozen pond effect was due to a clear plastic sheet being laid out on the table first (insisted upon by my mother to aid clearing up after the photo shoot).

The figures are:

PN16 Garde Grenadier Marching

It must have been snowing pretty hard as it seems to have settled on the men’s hats and shoulders as they march along.

Tell it to the Marines

One of my favourite films as a child was ‘Sands of Iwo Jima’ with John Wayne - from the days before we discovered WWII was actually fought in colour.

These Marines belong to a different era, one when Britannia ruled the waves and boarding parties took only the odd musket and cutlass with them – not an ipod in sight. The figures are:

BN114 Royal Marine Charging
BN116 Royal Marine Officer Marching

Nice little models in typical Hinton Hunt charging pose and a pleasure to paint. Ideal support for my Royal Navy Landing party.

Swedes, not turnips

Just in – about 300 Swedes all the way from the US of A. Don’t ask me because I don’t know why I took out a second mortgage and bought them. In total I have 9 x 24 infantry figure units plus 5 x 18 infantry ‘Jager’ units. No cavalry or artillery but I have Generals Klingspor and Alderkreutz, not that I have ever heard of them.

I must admit I was slightly disappointed when they arrived as none of the figures have turned out to be vintage HH – usually when I buy figures I find that there is a mixture of vintage, USA castings and knock-offs. These have slightly puzzled me as the castings are good quality but the very thick bases (about 3mm) are not like any Hinton Hunt I have seen before.

Anyway, they are great figures and are almost certainly taken from original Hinton Hunt moulds or models of:

SWN4 Swedish Private Charging
SWN7 Swedish Private Marching

This has put me in a bit of a quandary because I had already decided not to include any figures other than vintage HH in my army. However, I can’t bring myself to part with them so the current plan is to refurbish and rebase them for an instant army to fight my other HH’s. I won’t attempt to repaint them as there are just too many but they look like they have all been painted by the same person so have uniformity in appearance.

My biggest problem is that I have absolutely no reference material on the Swedish armies of the Napoleonic Wars.