Young Guard Tirailleur Mystery

I've been trying hard to get a unit of Young Guard Tirailleurs ready in time for the Dresden game in a couple of weeks. The Young Guard played a prominent part in the fighting for the Great Garden so I thought it would be handy to have an extra unit. They will also come in useful for the planned Waterloo game latter this year.

This is the test figure of FN/71 Tirailleur Guard (charging). I've actually pretty much finished the whole unit (in record time for me).

So here's a bit of a Hinton puzzle for you. I pulled out a casting to convert to a standard bearer and it was clearly marked FN70 on the base which is supposed to be the Young Guard charging officer. I merrily went about adding a flag etc. but when I came to paint him I realised something was wrong.

The mystery FN70 casting now converted to a standard bearer.

The casting has an Austrian style shako and a sash so nothing very French about him at all. I can't think what he is although from the base I can tell it's a Clayton casting. Answers on a postcard please.

Commanders for Dresden

Hopefully we'll be playing my scenario based on the Battle of Dresden next month and I realised that I was short of a couple of key commanders. These are Marshal Saint-Cyr to represent the player commanding the French right and General Wittgenstein for the player on the Allied right.

Hinton Hunt never made a specific figure for Saint-Cyr so I decided to use a spare casting of Marshal Soult in his place. I particularly like this figure as he has been modelled holding a marshal's baton. Of course back in the day I would never have known this and would probably have painted it as a telescope.

FN/357 Marshal Soult on horse FNH/10 painted as Marshal Saint-Cyr.

According to my copy of  Macdonell's Napoleon and his Marshals Saint Cyr was "the strangest, most freakish, and least understandable of all the Marshals". In his youth he studied art and also tried his hand on the stage but with the start of the Revolutionary Wars quickly became a staff-officer in the army rising to the rank of General. It was said of him that "Desaix knows how to win battles, St. Cyr how not to lose them".

In 1800 while in Madrid (rather bizarrely) he was involved in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase but he later blotted his copybook when he refused to sign the petition begging Napoleon to become Emperor and even refused to attend the coronation. He had a strange habit that, after a battle, instead of following up the enemy or looking after his wounded he would lock himself in a room and play the violin for hours. He took his violin with him on the Russian campaign where he won his Marshal's Baton for his victory at the 1st Battle of Polotsk.

His men and officers all detested him but said he was the finest defensive soldier in Europe (not sure what the Duke would say about that). He was known as "The Owl".

RN.85 Russian General painted as Prince Wittgenstein.

Prince Wittgenstein was a Ukrainian General of German descent who fought in the Russian army at Austerlitz and Friedland. He later fought against and beat Saint-Cyr at the 2nd Battle of Polotsk earning the title "Saviour of Saint-Petersburg". In the 1813 campaign he took over command of the Russian army after the death of Kutusov but following the defeat at Lutzen he stepped down and became a Corps commander fighting in this capacity at both Dresden and Leipzig.

Uhlan Elan

Here are the 1st Austrian Uhlans painted as per the Hinton Hunt instruction sheet or as near as I could get them. The figures are all original Hinton Hunt castings most of which had never been painted before so have waited 50+ years to get on a wargame table. The officer is actually a French Guard Lancer figure donated by Goya.

The figures I used are: 

11 x AN.85 Austrian Uhlan (Lancer, mounted) charging

1 x FN40 French Officer (mounted) charging

This addition brings the Austrian cavalry force up to a respectable 5 units and yes I know I really must hold a review. Next in the pipeline is something French for a change.

Hussars reunited

The last post was supposed to be about Austrians but got hijacked by the Prussians so here is what I had planned to show you - two units (count them) of Austrian Hussars.

These are AN81 Austrian Hussar.

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while will know that I had a hybrid unit of hussars for many years comprised of half figures in blue uniforms and the other half in a rather fetching parrot green. These were all figures donated by Don quite a few years back that I pressed into service with just a minimum touch up of chipped paint. The recent influx of figures from Don contained more identically uniformed hussars that have allowed me to make up two separate full-strength units.

The ones in green are the 4th Vecsey(?) and the blues are the 6th Blankenstein.

I haven't done much work on these so most of what you see is Don's original painting. I have just touched up around the horses legs (which was necessary after de-flocking the bases) touched in any chipped paintwork, then gave them a couple of coats of gloss varnish.

The Replacement Depot bugler in the front rank.

One interesting find in amongst the new recruits was a bugler that at first I thought was either a DK figure or a conversion but the code AC5 on the base didn't fit in with this. A query to Don suggested that it was a figure from the Replacement Depot of New York who had a range of rather Hinton Hunt looking figures back in the 70s. Goya was able to rustle up a copy of the catalogue (of course he did) that proves this correct.

A detail from the Replacement Depot catalogue.

Thanks again to Don for passing on these figures and also to Goya for his sleuthing work.

Hinton Hunt Time Capsule

Today was a rather exciting day here in the Hinton Hut. Firstly I was treated to a goodbye visit from Goya who pedalled over in the burning Perthshire sun to bring me a nice seated model of Napoleon before proceeding to discuss in depth with Mrs S the merits (or not) of the latest Bridget Jones film.

How fickle - just last year we were discussing HIS film!

No sooner had Goya left than the postman brought me a very interesting package, and I mean VERY interesting package.

This turned out to be an extraordinary Hinton Hunt time capsule gifted to me by Ian T. who contacted me recently to say that he was clearing out his loft when he rediscovered a box of Prussian figures he bought back in 1974 but never got around to using. He wondered if I could find a use for them!

In the top of the box original painting instruction sheets and an order form (don't try ordering them you will be disappointed).

In the box - layer upon layer of goodness. These are PN5 Private with separate musket, er yes, there are a lot of them.

The separate muskets were still in the original tissue paper as packed by Hinton Hunt!

There are a preponderance of Uhlans and Jagers because (and I love this) the rules his group were using back then favoured lances and rifles - that is so 70s!

40 Uhlans, yes that's right 40 - very nice crisp castings.

I'm still sorting through everything trying to work out how I can use them.

So it looks as if after the Austrian build up there is going to be a Prussian one. You never know quite how things are going to pan out when you collect vintage figures.

I can't thank Ian enough for donating these to the cause.

Austrian Grenadiers

Well, we can't let the Hungarians grab all the limelight can we? This is another unit of figures from Don's collection beautifully restored for me by Goya. Once again my only contribution was to add the command figures (and flag) then apply gloss varnish and base them in my house style.

Goya has done great work enhancing Don's original brushwork by picking out the black lining on the straps.

The figures are:

1 x AN.10 Officer, charging (converted to standard bearer)

21 x AN.12 Grenadier, charging

1 x AN.14 Officer, marching

1 x DK Austrian Grenadier drummer, charging

The patches on the rear of the hats are all Don's original work done in his 'before bifocals' era as he puts it!

Believe it or not, next up will be some Austrians...

A bit less flashy

Having removed all the flash metal from the castings, I finally found time to paint up a 'test' figure for the Austrian Uhlans. I found him just a little bit tricky but got there in the end. I've painted him as a trooper of the 1st Uhlans adhering as closely as possible to the Hinton Hunt painting instruction guide.

AN.85 Austrian Uhlan (Lancer, mounted) charging.

I've also managed to fill in the gaps in the ranks of the 51st Gabriel Spleny regiment that were created by the transfer of their grenadiers to the combined grenadier battalion. I didn't have any Hungarian figures so have used the equivalent Austrian infantry figure with a painting conversion. The Austrian figure is almost identical except for the bushy moustache modelled on the Hungarian version.

The six figures on the left (front two ranks) are the additions painted to blend in with the existing ones painted back in 2008 (yikes!).

So as you can see, it's still all go here on the Austrian front with hopefully more to come soon!

A Bigly Game at Goya's

Tony and I were most fortunate to be invited to a game at Goya's today. This was to be the last game at his country chateaux before moving to the distant coast for a well earned retirement. The theme once again was the War of 1812. Goya was acting as Umpire so Tony and I chose sides by rolling a D6 with the lowest score getting to play the Americans.

My British/Canadian troops advance towards the enemy. The rules used were a slighlty amended version of Mr Madison's War.

The Americans come forward. Their objective is simply to destroy the British force.

The column on the road and the gun battery are Hinton Hunt's. The rocket battery is manned by plastic figures which may explain why their first shot came back and knocked out one of the gunners to their left whilst their second shot exploded prematurely wiping out the entire crew!

I liked this rather nice mounted officer.

My lads form a solid firing line - I think these are Les Higgins figures.

My favourites - Airfix British painted by Goya as Belgians and now transferred to the American army.

The game was so Old School that it was almost as if Messrs Grant and Featherstone were in the room.

I'm not sure that's a great way to treat Native Americans but those Airfix boys sure can shoot.

Tony gets his men in gear and presses forward. The unit in front on the road are my own HH Belgians with a substitute flag provided by Goya.

There were a lot of fences which made deployment and movement tricky.

The battle in full swing with both sides blazing away at each other.

Gradually Tony gained the upper hand although the British were dishing it out too.

Some of my units were starting to break and run and Tony put all my artillery out of action causing me to concede defeat. I think we had played around 12 turns and it was great fun.

More Higgins types as Americans which I'm showing here because they were routing proving it wasn't all bad news for the British.

Hopefully there will more of these games once Goya has settled in to his new luxury coastal villa.

Hungarian Grenadiers

Here they are at last finished, based and battle-ready - the Hungarian Grenadiers. I'm very pleased with the way these have turned out.

The figures used are:

20 x AN.33 Grenadier, firing

3 x AN.30 Officer, charging (one converted to standard bearer)

1 x FN/6 (French) Drummer, charging (with head swop conversion)

And a short ECW update - below is the S-range ECW General (ECWC1) mounted on horse HCH5. The dog, gifted by Tony, is from Irregular Miniatures.

This could be Prince Rupert and his dog Boye although if it is I think he has been sold a pup as Boye was a poodle and this looks very much like a mutt.

I am now working to make up the numbers for the 51st Gabriel Spleny regiment after their grenadiers were transferred to the combined grenadiers.

Grenadier flag bearer

I have finished painting the Grenadiers but haven't based them yet so they're not ready for review quite yet. Here instead is my attempt at another Pepsi-Max flag for them.

This is my first attempt at a Leibfahane flag which as I understand it was issued to the senior battalions of a regiment. As always my painting is on the impressionistic side and doesn't bear close scrutiny although I am quite pleased with my freehand painted 'Madonna and Child'.

The Barbers Pole was a right old faff to paint. I tried a couple of times without success to get the diagonal stripes to match up until Goya told me not to bother and fudge it because "who's going to notice it from three feet away?" 

And on the subject of Goya, he sent me the above photo of a couple of Austrian guns. These are more figures from Don W that he has refurbished.

Grenadier Command

Having finished the rank and file figures for my Hungarian Grenadiers I have now moved on to the Command group. The officer is one of my all time favourite Hinton Hunt sculpts - he has a real swashbuckling swagger about him I think.

AN.30 Hungarian Grenadier Officer, charging

The drummer has been a bit of a problem as I had used all my DK Grenadier drummers to convert to line drummers. The solution was to decapitate a French drummer and replace his head with an Austrian Grenadier's one.

FN/6 French Drummer, charging - converted to Hungarian Grenadier drummer

On a different topic, Tony recently donated this characterful Preacher figure by Warrior Miniatures to my stalled ECW project. I just couldn't resist painting him.

If you're going to wargame the ECW period you need one of these

The next post should hopefully feature the full unit of Hungarian Grenadiers on parade.

The Joy of Flash

The human mind is fickle. When I was buying direct from Hinton Hunt in the early 1970s I can remember the dissapointment of receiving a Jiffy Bag full of figures, halfheartedly wrapped in newspaper with loose bits rattling around. The figures that weren't beyond repair were covered in ridiculous amounts of flash metal that took literally hours to remove. In those days there was no point in trying to complain or leave a bad review (there were no reviews) and you just had to suck it up and be greatful that at least the packet had arrived.

Fast forward to now and I have a warm glow of nostalgia to see figures with their original flash attached. This doesn't happen often as the majority of the figures in my collection have been prepped and painted by others and then stripped and repainted by me. Most of the flash is therefore missing although it is always a surprise to see how many people in the past have just painted over great chunks of it.

AN.85 Austrian Uhlan (Lancer) (mounted) charging.

So I've been very excited to start prepping a unit of 'virgin' Austrian Uhlan Lancers that have never been painted and still have all the flash attached. I've had these figures for a very long time and I thought that, with the recent growth spurt of the Austrian infantry, it was time to start thinking about adding more cavalry.

Meanwhile work on the Grenadiers continues and I have just completed a 'company' with green facings to add to the combined Grenadier Battalion.

I like the idea of having a unit with mixed facing colours.

And last, but not least, Goya sent me this picture of a recently completed Austrian unit for his own forces. This is IR1 Franz 1. These are more of Don's old troops that have been very sympathetically restored and rebased by the great master.

The rank and file are AN4 but the command figures are Hinton Compatriots. The flag apparently has the design etched on it and Goya has done a fab job with this.

I like the Barber Shop pole effect on the flag staff and will be nicking this idea for my Grenadiers!

Hungarian Grenadier

This is the test figure for my next unit which will be comprised of Hungarian Grenadiers in the firing position AN.33 Grenadier, firing. I've been wanting to paint this unit for a long time so I'm pleased to finally have them on the painting desk. When finished this will bring my total number of Austrian infantry units to 8 which I consider to be a respectable size for an army.

There's a lot of detail on these figures but they deserve the extra painting effort.

The figure pictured is a vintage casting but I will also be using some rather nice reproduction figures to make up the numbers.

I'm going with the facing colour and white on the bearskin patch which may not be historically accurate but looks good.

Now some of you may remember that my 51st Gabriel Spleny regiment has a 6-figure company of Grenadiers in its ranks. These figures will be transferred to the Grenadier battalion and their numbers made up with musketeers. I know some of you may object to me tinkering with the old regimental establishment but we must change with the times and anyway, the old unit can easily be reconstituted if needed.