Saturday 7 May 2011

A Spooky Coincidence

I’ve been sorting through my British infantry figures trying to decide which ones to use to make up a full 24-figure unit. I have about 30 or so suitable figures assembled from various sources over the last few years but not enough of any one type to be able to form a unit in identical poses. On the plus side though this means I get to put together a unit with just about every 1812-15 British infantry line infantry figure type in the Hinton Hunt range represented.

In with the regular line types I also have a single fusilier sergeant figure sporting a nice furry bearskin. It’s a really lovely crisp vintage casting of BN/71 and I felt compelled to include him in the ranks, as he is the only fusilier in my whole collection. This caused me a bit of a problem because one odd fusilier with the wrong headgear for 1815 would be a bit odd (even though this project is not an historical one so to speak). Then I hit on a brainwave – make the whole unit one of fusiliers that now wore the regular shako and add this lone figure in as an “old sergeant” who refused to give up his old hat!

So next I had to look through my copy of Wellingtons Regiments to find a unit to fit the bill and settled on the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers. This seemed like a good choice because between them the 1st & 2nd battalions were present throughout the whole Peninsula War (even fighting at Corunna) as well as at Waterloo, albeit in a reserve capacity. Then the spooky thing happened, as I started to sort through the figures prior to their bleach dunking, I noticed that the regimental flag painted by the previous owner had the number “23” painted on it!

I’m now in the process of preparing and undercoating the figures ready to send them off to Matt who has kindly agreed to work his magic with his paintbrushes.

I upgraded my browser to IE9 a couple of days ago only to find that I can no longer publish my Blog posts! Finally found a way to fix it - go "Tools" in the browser bar then "Compatibility View Settings" then add "blogger.com".

7 comments:

Rafael Pardo said...

Hi
Waiting to see if the poor sergeant was to suffer a chirurgical head transplantation!
Best regards
Rafa

Stryker said...

Rafa - don't worry, his head is safe (unless it connects with a French cannonball)...

Ian

Ken said...

"the previous owner had the number “23” painted on it!"

weird!

DeanM said...

Interesting background on those figures. I too am interested in the 23rd Fusiliers. In fact, I'd have them all with their bearskins - even if not historically worn on campaign. Regards, Dean

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Eager to see the new unit of fusiliers, once they have been refurbished. Must admit though, they look pretty darn good already. Neat figures!

Best Regards,

Stokes

Anonymous said...

Looking forward to meeting the gentlemen concerned!

Regards

Matt

Paulalba said...

Very handy the Flags are already on the way to being finished. A big bonus as they look nicely done too.
Cheers
Paul