Royal Fusilier – Test Figure

A few years back when I first started collecting figures for this project, I won a mixed batch of Hinton Hunt on eBay that included a unit of British Guards in bearskins. I rejected these figures and eventually swopped them because of course the Guards didn’t wear bearskins at Waterloo. I wish I’d hung on to them because my feeling now is - so what if they didn’t?

BN/72 Fusilier Private (charging) - test figure for my next unit.

I was really pleased therefore to recently be offered some British Fusiliers in bearskin that are ex Eric Knowles collection. Nice first-generation castings and enough to make a full unit using the charging and firing figure types. Again, it’s unlikely that the Fusiliers (other than possibly the Sergeants) wore their bearskins at Waterloo but certainly the Victorians didn’t have a problem representing them that way.

Here's the proof from the Victorians - they DID wear bearskins at Waterloo!

And at Corunna of course...

At first, I was planning to designate the unit as the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers but when I looked at the Hinton Hunt painting instruction sheet, I saw that Marcus Hinton had decided on the 7th Royal Fusiliers so that’s what I’ll be calling them. Of course, the 7th didn’t make it to Waterloo because they were away fighting in America, but I won’t let a little thing like that stop me using them.

Boer War Blog - if 20mm Colonials is your thing take a look at my latest post (click HERE)

More French Heavy Metal

I remember the excitement of opening my first box of Airfix French Cuirassiers just after their release in 1969. Up to that point the only plastic cavalry available were the US 7th Cavalry which were hard to pass off as ‘Napoleonic’ (the rolled-up shirt sleeves didn’t help). I can picture setting the Cuirassiers up on the dining room table ready to charge a square of Highlanders (the only other Napoleonic set at that time) whilst puzzling over the London Wargames Section Napoleonic Rules. Happy days.

"When you meet a Cuirassier beam to beam, you'll be lucky to escape with your life; much less his helmet. Boy, you'll learn the art of fighting from the French!"

I did mention in my last post that I later bought some of the OPC Cuirassiers direct from Hinton Hunt and found them all but useless due to the poor quality of the castings. Not long after that I gave up wargaming for quite a few years and so never did get to paint any.

FN102 Cuirassier Trooper (mounted) charging.

I’m very pleased therefore to finally have a unit of decent OPC figures to sit alongside my other 2-piece regiment. Painting them was a bit trickier than I expected but I’m pleased with the finished result.

If I had managed to file away the flash metal and painted them in 1974 they may have looked a bit like this.

In my opinion you can never have too many Cuirassiers but whether I’ll ever expand the current force to a full division remains to be seen.