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 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.

ECW Madness (Off Topic #40)

It was all going so well - 89 Hinton Hunt's painted so far this year and only 5 acquired. Then I saw a couple of lots of Minifigs S-range ECW figures come up at a bargain price...

ECW1s Royalist Musketeer Firing - this is such a great figure!

ECW20s Royalist Musketeer Carrying Musket - I have quite a few of these

ECW25s Royalist Pikeman Advancing - I just love the cast-on pikes

ECW5s Royalist Officer with Sword - what's not to like about this figure?

ECW5 Royalist Officer (Sword). This is not S-range but probably from the 'intermediate' range that followed it being slightly bigger and chunkier

ECW28s Royalist Officer Attacking or Advancing - I remember this figure well as I painted 5 or 6 of them back in the early 70s

ECWC3s Cuirassier - this is a OPC that has been converted to a standard bearer with a horse that needs some TLC

This is S-range (as the saddle is attached to the rider) and the horse is marked LCH2. It could be from the Thirty Years War range or could be a remodelled ECWC3 (this is the conclusion that Clive came to on his Lone S Ranger blog).

TYW3s Thirty Years War Officer - I had one of these way back when

TYW4s Thirty Years War Standard Bearer

TYW5s Thirty Years War Drummer

Technically, as these are not Hinton Hunt castings they don't count towards the lead-pile reduction target, but in reality they are a bit of a distraction. However, this is not a major project but rather some light relief from Napoleonics and something to put in the display cabinet - honest!

French Infantry – update 2 and Nantwich

I’m over the half-way point now for the 24th ligne with the addition of these two castings of FN/247 Fusilier (marching). This brings the total of painted figures in the unit to fifteen. I only had two of this particular figure type however I still wanted to use them, so it seemed like a good idea to mix them in with their less hardy brethren in great-coats.

Last week I took part in an enjoyable ECW game at Tony’s where I joined him on team Royalist. Tony has posted a full battle report on his blog here so I’ve just included a couple of photos that illustrate the flavour of the day.

Any game at Tony's is always a visual treat and this one was no exception. Beautifully painted figures with terrain styled to match, what more could you want?

Quite a few of the figures in his collection are Hinton Hunt such as these ones. I don't know the name of the unit but they were annoyingly persistent in holding ground and repelling my cavalry.

This is the Parliamentarian garrison in Nantwich. As you can see they are mostly Hinton Hunt and very fine they look too. 

The result was a victory for the King's forces which to be fair went against the run of play - they was robbed!

More Marston

Last week I was over at Tony’s playing out his excellent C&C Marston Moor game. I played a dashing Prince Rupert whilst Goya took on the role of the dastardly Parliamentarians. It was great fun as always and I was delighted to get to use Tony’s spectacular collection of 20mm ECW troops. Most of you will have already seen Tony’s blog post on the subject but here a few more photos from the day.

View along the huge table at the start of play - Royalists on the
left, Parliamentarians on the right. I hadn't realised just how
extensive Tony's collection is and was pleasantly surprised.

That's me (Prince Rupert) with my faithful hound 'Boye'. I was
fascinated by Tony's lovely model coach which apparently
housed the Earl of Newcastle. I think he may have been
snoozing in there as he took no part in proceedings.

After an enjoyable affair of cavalry on both flanks (I got the
upper hand on the left whilst Goya was victorious on the right)
I decided to attack with my infantry in the centre.

This was perhaps not the best plan as the Roundheads had
defence in depth but I felt it was worth a gamble.

With the cavalry on my right defeated by a certain 'Cromwell'
fellow I had to draw in a tight defence with infantry. The stout
chaps here were mostly Hinton Hunt - well of course!

At the end of play you can see there is little left of my army.
How will I explain this to the king?

I was particularly interested to re-fight Marston Moor as I had played this same battle as a demo game in the early 1970s using Minifigs armies put together by myself and a couple of wargaming school friends. I can’t remember who won on that occasion, but we had a clear-cut victory for the Roundheads this time.

Rewind 43 years and here's the same battle played (I think)
somewhere near Colchester. The Royalists (on the right this
time) are my collection of 'intermediate' Minifigs.

Tony put a lot of effort into the research for this game which (along with the superb veggie-haggis, tatties and neeps lunch) was much appreciated by the players. His clever adaptation of C&C for the ECW worked very well and provided just the right period feel to the ebb and flow of the game. I very much hope I get to play another of these.