Now for something completely different...

...er, not really it's actually more Austrians! This is another unit expertly restored for me by Goya from the collection of Don W. They are painted to represent Hungarian IR 32 Esterhazy although the charging figures are AN/4 Austrian Musketeer rather than Hungarian ones.

The original brushwork on these figures (including the nifty lace work) is all Don's to which Goya has added the black lining to the straps and the yellow stripes to the trousers together with a bit of general tarting up. Zoom in and take time to admire that amazing flag painted by Don some 40+ years ago, I am in awe.

Prussian Landwehr Lancers

I've finished the Landwehr Lancers and made the required changes to the original six figures so the whole lot now represent a Kumark Regiment. I'm very pleased with the way these have turned out as I think my painting (front row) has blended well with Matthew's (rear row).

The figures are:

6 x PN.39 Landwehr Lancer Trooper (mounted) charging

6 x 139/1 Der Kreigspieler Landwehr Lancer

I had to carry out a fair bit of restoration work on the Hinton Hunt castings fitting a few new lances but I quite enjoy the challenge that presents.

I didn't have any of these figures in my 1970s Prussian army so it has been nice to include them now. I like the idea of having some 'C' grade cavalry but if they're anything like as effective as their friends in the infantry the French Guard cavalry will be very afraid.

Tirailleur, Grenadier of the Guard

I didn't have time to properly introduce these gentlemen to you before they were tumbled headlong into the battle of Dresden. They are Tirailleur Grenadiers of the (Young) Guard painted as per the Hinton Hunt painting instruction sheet.

This is possibly the fastest I have ever painted a unit of Hinton Hunt figures as I did the whole lot in one batch - not sure if I'll use that technique again as I find it midly stressful.

The figures I used were:

22 x FN/71 Tirailleur Guard (charging) - one converted to drummer

1 x FN/70 Young Guard Officer (charging) - converted to standard bearer

1 x FN/74 Young Guard Officer (marching)

The flag is another of my hand-painted Pepsi-Max can ones. I'm not very happy with it particularly when it's stood next to the fantastic flag WM painted for the Voltigeurs.

I thought the flag would be relatively easy but it just wasn't!

On the subject of superb painting by WM I'm currently in the process of upgrading the Prussian Brandenburg Uhlans he painted for me 10 years ago. If you remember the unit is comprised of 6 x Uhlans and 6 x Landwehr Lancers as they were the only figures I had at the time. The recent influx of Prussian Uhlan castings means I can expand them to a full unit.

To do this I'm having to attempt the impossible and try to match WM's style. Difficult not just because he is an exceptionally talented painter but also because he uses enamel paints whilst I use Acrylics.

PN.39 Landwehr Lancer Trooper (mounted) charging - the one on the left is mine and the one on the right is WM's.

Stage one has been to increase the Landwehr Lancers by 6 using some castings generously donated by Goya and Nigel. I will have to make a few small changes to the original figures (lance colour and shoulder tabs) to transform the whole lot into a Kumark Regiment but I think they will work well together.

Vintage Dresden - The Game

I was joined by Nigel, Tony and Goya for the game. Each player commanded the troops on their half of the table with reserves to be fed in and assigned to a player on arrival. We started with a round of artillery bombardment and then got stuck in.

Schwarzenberg (Nigel) wasted no time in getting things moving on the allied left, his men launching an immediate attack towards the village of Lobtau (worth 10VP to the allies, 3VP to the French). The Austrian 4th Hussars (foreground) are obvioulsy eager to cross swords with the enemy in their first outing as a full unit.

On the other side of the Weisseritz River the rest of Nigel's infantry are making for Plauen (worth 5VP to either side). All that painting and refurb work on the Austrians appears to have paid off.

Meanwhile Wittgenstein (Goya) brings up the Prusso-Russians to within striking distance of the Great Garden. At this stage the garden was thinly defended by a handfull of French Voltigeurs and a single unit of Young Guard.

The 26th, 51st (Splenys) and 59th Austrian infantry regiments advance behind a screen of Jagers who are exchanging shots with the French Voltigeurs in front of Plauen.

The Russians near the walls of the Great Garden - so far so good for the Allies.

The French left is in danger of being enveloped. The Great Garden is worth 10VP to either side whilst Windmill Hill (in the rear) is worth 10VP to the Allies but nothing to the French.

Fortunately for the French Ney (Tony) is on hand with the Young Guard. The Marines supported by the 9th legere (seconded to the Guard for the day) move up to meet the Prussian hordes. In the distance the Eclaireurs are clashing with the Silesian Hussars.

Turn 3 and out of nowhere the entire Allied heavy cavalry appeared and descend on the French centre. The Allies drew the card for their arrival from reserve and placed them in their front line (sneaky). This was my (St Cyr) section of the line held by the 45th and 24th regiments. The 24th managed to form square in the nick of time but the 45th became disordered - eek!

On the French right, the arrival of Victor's Corps enabled me to reinforce the position at Lobtau. At this point the river could be forded anywhere but that situation was not to last.

The fighting for the garden is in full swing with Prussians already in the grounds while the Marines and 9th legere slog it out on the extreme left of the French line.

The Prussians are swarming into the Great Garden, I do hope they're not trampling the flowers!

Over at Lobtau there is one heck of a cavalry melee developing as the Austrian Hussars mix it with the 5th Lancers. Believe it or not it was the French who eventually came out on top in this scrap.

The curse of the new unit - the Grenzers took some heavy casualties in the fighting for Lobtau and were eventually reduced and removed from play.

Nigel's Prussian Dragoons bounce off the square of the 24th ligne. The square has only stood due to the morale bonus imparted by La Bedoyere who rode forward in the nick of time to steady the ranks. His plume may not be the right colour but he certainly inspired confidence in the men!

The Allied heavy cavalry slams into the poor 45th ligne. In the distance you can see that the Toskana Dragoons have just overrun a French artillery redoubt. The French centre is looking awfully exposed.

The Russians are at the gates!

The Silesian Landwehr move up in support of their commrades engaged with the Young Guard (You know things are getting serious when the Landwehr arrive). In the distance the Eclaireurs and Prussian Hussars are still meleeing - I believe this fight lasted for three turns.

Turn 4 and suddenly the lights went out! Unperturbed we soldiered on by candle light (actually there was plenty of light coming through the cabin windows). This provided a dramatic backdrop to the drawing of the Joker card - a torrential rain storm had occured flooding the River Weisseritz so that it could now only be crossed at the bridge.

The pesky Toskanas ride on and overrun another of my batteries while the 45th ligne are trampled under the hooves of the Prussian and Austrian Cuirassiers.

Nigel continues to push his infantry forward towards Plauen while assembling a grand battery to pummel the place into submission.

At Lobtau the Austrians try but fail to dislodge the 25th ligne. The rather nice building is from Goya's collection.

Finally some good news for the French - the heavy cavalry have arrived and plug the gap in the centre. The Allies decide that discretion is the better part of valour and their own heavies do a quick about face and retire!

At this point we had to call it a day and it turned out to be a French win on points as of all the victory locations only the Great Garden was (partially) in Allied hands. The French Guard had never even made it onto the table.

Despite my optimism that the movement trays would help speed things along we only managed 5 turns which was the same as last year's game. Clearly there were just too many troops on the table as my desire to see all those Austrians/Prussians/Russians in action got the better of me when planning the scenario. It was still a good game though and I think we all thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle.

My thanks to the visiting generals for making the effort to come along and playing in such good humour, and a special thanks to Mrs S whose quick thinking allowed her field kitchen to operate despite the hour and a half power cut!

Getting ready for Vintage Dresden

We're playing Vintage Dresden next week and I've been busy getting things ready, sorting out the troops and setting up the table. Now I'll say this straight off - this is NOT an historical refight but a game loosely based on the famous battle of 1813. I have had to distil the two-day fight into an 8-turn format for use with Muskets & Marshals that I hope preserves the essence of the battle in a playable but fun game. Here are a few snaps of the set-up.

The whole table with initial deployments looking from the allied left. I've configured the table to my maximum 8' x 4'.

The Eclaireurs on Windmill Hill behind the Great Garden. Nice to see them as they don't get out much

The French position around the garden is held by the Young Guard. They are quite thin on the ground but are no doubt hoping for reinforcements. That's the newbie Grenadier Tirailleurs just in shot on the right, paint still drying on their bases. 

The French right. The village of Plauen is this side of the River Weisseritz with Lobtau on the far side.  At the moment the river is fordable along its length but who knows what might happen if it were to rain?

The off-table reinforcements will arrive randomly on the turn of a card. All will be on table by turn 7 but in which order will they arrive? Without the movement trays trying to introduce so many troops during play would have been very slow but I'm hoping this will speed things along.

"The Prussians are in the Woods!" - oops, sorry, wrong battle...

If all goes well my next post should be a full battle report.

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.