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!