More Marshals

Yes, you guessed it – still no new painting so here are a couple more French Marshals instead. As with the others I will eventually strip the old paint from these figures and give them a new lease of life, just not sure when.

The chap on the left is General Dorsenne (FN360 on horse FNH10) not a Marshal strictly speaking but he did rise to command the Imperial Guard in 1809 so that’s good enough for me.

On the right is Marshal Massena (FN356 on horse FNH10) who was certainly one of Napoleon’s most able commanders. He performed brilliantly at Aspern-Essling in 1809 despite the fact that the Emperor had shot out one of his eyes in a hunting accident the previous year. In 1810 he drew the short straw being given command of the Army of Portugal. He actually did incredibly well against Wellington under the circumstances but Napoleon didn’t think so and forcibly retired him. Apparently he never forgave Napoleon for this although you think he would have been more miffed about the eye.

The Old Ad’s – Part 2

Here posing for the camera are Marshals Davout and Murat recreating the scene of their famous Hinton Hunt advert (see “The old ads are the best”). These figures form part of my French general staff currently awaiting a repaint.

Marshal Davout (FN355 on the left) hero of Austerlitz and Auerstadt. He commanded the rearguard during the retreat from Moscow. A solid, reliable all round good egg. Apparently he had very poor eyesight and, if this model is a good likeness, a touch of baldness.

Prince Murat (FN351 on the right) was a dashing cavalry commander who liked to design his own over the top uniforms. He had a good eye for ground but was not a brilliant strategist – Napoleon once called him a ‘bewildered idiot’ (according to Bruce Quarrie). Seems a bit harsh for such a flamboyant character.

If I had lived in Napoleonic times I would have liked to be a dashing Murat type. Sadly I more closely resemble the balding and bespectacled Davout.

Season’s Greetings

Is it just me or does this Imperial Guard Horse Artillery Gunner look a bit like Father Christmas? Just me then. The figure is a vintage Hinton Hunt casting of:

FN181 Guard Horse Artillery Gunner with porte-fire

This is a superb little model that was a real joy to paint. I have the rest of the crew nearly completed but they will have to wait until the New Year now before they can join their colleague.

The hills are alive…

…with the sound of yodelling Tirolean Jagers. These are vintage Hinton Hunt figures from the Napoleonic Austrian range. Nice little models, they are:

AN40 Jager Officer, quick march
AN41 Jager bugler, quick march
AN43 Jager advancing
AN44 Jager firing

I painted most of these before I had finalised the unit sizes for my new Hinton Hunt army. Initially I had 16 figures in the unit but have since decided to make all light infantry units 18 figures strong.

More Swedes

This is the 2nd ABO Regiment just back from a refit at barracks. The figures are probably knock off’s of SWN4 Swedish Infantry Advancing. The officer and standard bearer are of unknown origin being poor quality and they may even be home cast figures (tucked away in the 2nd rank for this photo). The flag is metal and the puny standard bearer had to be jacked up on a plasti-card plinth to help him hoist the thing above his head.

The purists among you many wonder why I am including these impostors in the ranks of my vintage Hinton Hunt army. The answer is that I have a lot of them so what else am I going to do? En-masse they look fine (fantastic if I take my glasses off) so they will stay in the army.

I had a slight mishap with the 47a copper wash I use over the flesh colour. This resulted in half the regiment parading as David Dickinson look-a-likes. Not very impressive so the whole lot failed inspection. The second attempt proved better.

French cavalry review

Not much painting in the last couple of weeks so I held a review of the French cavalry. It was a small affair because I only have 12 of them painted. To recap, the picture shows a squadron of Carabineers (FN106 & FN311) and a squadron of Chasseur-a-cheval of the line (FN319). A stirring sight for any wargamer who feels the only real Napoleonic army is a French one.

I have plenty more cavalry to come including Austrian Hussars, Cuirassiers and Lancers. A squadron each of French Cuirassiers and Lancers and, best of all, some Prussian Cuirassiers – yes good old PN77 (see my 70’s flashback!). These chaps may just get accelerated to the front of the painting queue although I really should resist such temptation.

Before & after

The figure on the right is one of the Swedes as received and the one on the left is the finished version. The paint job is showing signs of age (I reckon the figures must be at least 25 years old) although the detail in some areas is still good. There was no way I was ever going to strip and repaint 300 of these guys so I settled for a refurb.

Firstly I brushed off any loose paint and dirt and then scraped the green flock off the base. I decided to concentrate most of my efforts on the flesh areas as the original colour was rather anaemic looking - not a lot of sun in Sweden I guess. I used Foundry flesh 5A washed over with copper wash 47A which gives a good result without much effort.

Next I went over all areas with the closest colour matches I could find in the Foundry range, mostly it was the black that was suffering although the blue collar and cuffs needed a good spruce up too. The figures had a yellow hatband but my reference material suggests that this would actually have been brass so I re-painted with shiny 36C. I also introduced a thin black line down the coat front but stopped short of any further black shading. The waist sash and shako badges were left unchanged, whoever painted these originally did a good job and I would have been hard pressed to improve on it. Finally I varnish my figures with Humbrol Satin Cote, this gives a decent finish without looking too glossy