Never Fight Uphill me Boys!

Here as promised are the finished Belgians parading for your inspection. They don't represent any particular unit and as I don't intend to paint any more they will simply be known as "The Belgians".

The sharp eyed amongst you will note the oversized flank companies, I do like six-figure companies for my units regardless of the historical organisation and as the figures have been modelled with shoulder wings it seemed like a good idea to have them.

The figures used are vintage ones that I have stripped and repainted, they are:

2 x DN/1 Officer (charging)

4 x DN/2 Private (firing)

16 x DN/3 Private (charging)

1 x BN/12 Drummer (playing) - with pack conversion

1 x BN/13 Ensign Regiment Colour

Rather surprisingly, within days of mustering in, the lads found themselves in unfamiliar territory taking part in the Battle of Lundy's Lane. Yes, that famous battle of the War of 1812 (no, I hadn''t heard of it either) where to their further bewilderment they were seconded to the US forces.

General 'Blood n' Guts' Goya was leading his American forces in an sneaky attack on my own Anglo-Canadian troops with both sides desperatley wanting possession of a vital hill.

The British forces began the game in possession of the hill, the US forces are lining up to attack. Goya had reinforcements arriving on turn 4 while mine were to arrive Turn 6.

Here they come! I think the British (Canadian) unit in the foreground are Les Higgins castings and of course the unit next to them are Hinton Hunt.

The first man is down. These are Airfix figures that Goya painted when he was still in short trousers! Goya reflagged his Belgian and Portuguese units specially for the occasion - unfortunately my Belgians didn't get the memo.

This rather nasty attack on my left flank was to prove tricky as the game progressed. Here these lovely Hinton Hunts have been broken by more Higgins types.

Things are getting serious now! The matchstick snake fences were made by my brother about 40 years ago for our ACW games.

The US reserves have arrived and are making their way towards the hill. More plastic types on the left and HH on the right.

My Belgians rout the Canadian Militia but were reduced below break-point in the process and removed from play. Not bad for a first outing even if they did fight on the wrong side.

With the top of the hill almost clear of troops, both sides are hurrying up their reinforcements.

The position at the end of play. The British have just pipped the Americans to the post.

The game was great fun and although I was technically in possession of the hill when we called it at the end of turn 8, everything could easily have changed if we'd played a couple more turns.

It was nice to give Muskets & Marshals a run out and also interesting to fight a Napoleonic battle without cavalry, skirmishers or columns. I'm hoping we'll do another of these.

Note - If you haven't got the "Never fight uphill me boys" reference then follow this link to Tony's blog - click.

More Staff for the Duke

I did say that the Belgians would be up next however, I realised a while back that I had never finished the personality figures for the British. So as a bit of a distraction, and for the sake of completeness, here are the last two, starting with General Cooke.

BN/256 Maj. Gen. G. Cooke commanded 1st (Guards) Div. at Waterloo in general's uniform (horse BNH/11)

I couldn’t find much info on Cooke other than, as I’m sure you all know, he commanded the 1st (Guards) Division at Waterloo where he also lost his right arm in the middle of the afternoon forcing him to pass over command to Byng.

Finally we have the Cavalry Staff Corps Trooper who, being nameless, can’t really be classed as a personality. This one is a bit of a quirky addition and was probably included in the range because of Mr Hinton’s love of uniforms.

BN/264 Cavalry Corps Staff Trooper carrying letter (horse BNH/4)

I don’t have the painting instruction sheet for this one so I have painted him as a trooper of the 12th Light Dragoons.

I’ll post a full lineup of the Duke’s staff soon.

Wellington's Infantry on Parade

Following the recent French line infantry parade I thought it only fair to hold a similar review of Wellington's lads as the last such event was back in November 2022.

There are 192 Hinton Hunt figures arranged in 8 units.

The figures have been painted by me with the exception of The Guards and 95th Rifles (Matt G) and the 30th Foot (Lee).

The Rifle Brigade - 95th behind the 60th.

The Fusiliers followed by the 49th Foot.

The 30th Foot (Cambridgeshires) with the Naval Battalion behind.

The Foot Guards and the 42nd Black Watch.

If I'd had enough pocket money in 1972 I would have hoped to have something looking like this...

This gives me what I would call a 'standard' army for Muskets & Marshals of 8 infantry units, this being about the most units one player can comfortably command on the table.

The Belgians will be next - honest!

Belgian Progress and sinking the Bismarck

I'm on the last lap of the Belgians with just six more figures to go. I'm liking these figures which are mostly first generation ex Eric Knowles collection castings that are very well defined. The Dutch-Belgian charging figure pose is unique within the Napoleonic range (but can be found in the ACW range) and makes a change from painting the 'standard' Hinton Hunt charging pose.

Admiral of the Fleet Horatio Goya popped round this week bringing with him some lovely 1/1200 WW2 ships from his collection. The models are vintage ones from Eagle and very fine they look too.

Admiral Von Stryker trains the Bismarck's guns upon HMS Hood. I actually took quite a pasting from the Royal Navy but fortunately they ran out of ammo and the German squadron limped off into the North Sea mist.

We used some suitable simple Naval Rules adapted from an old copy of Military Modelling (November 1979) for a quick go at sinking the Bismarck. I wanted to christen the rules "Turrets and Torpedoes" but Goya was concered about potential copyright infringement.

These waterline models by Eagle are superb and Goya has made and painted them to a high standard. On this occasion HMS Hood did rather better than her real life counterpart.

Hopefully the Belgians will be finished and ready for my next post.

French Fusiliers on Parade

This is the cover of Miniature Warfare, Volume 1, Number 11 from December 1968. When I first clapped eyes on it as a twelve year old I was determined to have a collection of French Hinton Hunt soldiers just like the ones in the photo!

Fast forward 56 years and finally here it is...

I like to think that there may be at least one figure from that original photo shoot in my collection now but we'll never know...

A pair of Poirot's

I did say that the next unit would be something not quite so French and I would say Belgians fit the bill quite nicely. So this is where I have got to so far -

These are DN/1 Officer (charging) looking remarkably like the famous Belgian detective.

This is a conversion of BN/12 Drummer (playing). I snipped off his pack and added a Belgian one - clever eh?

Test figures for the Grenadier company (left) using DN/3 Private (charging) and the Light company (right) using DN/2 Private (firing).

And this of course is a paint conversion of BN/13 Ensign Regiment Colour. I'm quite please with how he turned out.

This unit has waited far too long in the lead-pile and I'm pleased to be finally starting on them.

The Monster has escaped!

Napoleon has escaped from Elba with his Old Guard and is marching on Paris. Marshal Ney has been sent to stop him with the 5th regiment of the line.

"On to Grenoble my grumblers!"

"Men of the 5th do not let them pass!"

"Soldiers of the 5th do you recognise me? If you want to kill your emperor here I am!"

"FIRE!"
"What do you think Pierre?"
"Oh, what the heck..."

"Vive l'empereur, Vive l'France, Vive Napoleon!"

"Did you really say you'd bring me back to Paris in an iron cage?"
"What me? No, that was definitely Murat!"

The 5th regiment is complete.

The figures used are:

2 x FN/1 Officer (charging)

1 x FN/4 Colour bearer (charging)

19 x FN/5 Fusilier (charging)

1 x FN/6 Drummer (charging)

1 FN/8 Officer (marching)

Next up will be something not quite so French.