A New Pirch

My new gunners are complete, but as I haven't finished their guns yet I've used an existing gun detachment to illustrate the spiffy new plasticard gun bases I've made for them. The prospect of painting this (in fact I needed to do six) with my increasingly dodgy supply of Humbrol 80: Grass Green was so daunting that I finally bestirred myself to head down to the local DIY warehouse and get a 250ml pot of matched emulsion.

It wasn't an exact match, but this was by no means a bad thing. I rather like the daring two-tone effect it produces with the original Humbrol colour on the figure bases. I think I'm going to all my plasticard bases like this from now on.

Pictured with the gunners is my newly completed Der Kriegspieler Prussian General. He is to be Generalleutnant Georg Dubislav Ludwig von Pirch (or Pirch I as he's generally known, to distinguish him from his brother). Pirch I was the commander of the Prussian II Corps in 1815, a gig that was awarded to him because the previous incumbent, Ludwig von Borstell, had refused to execute a group of mutinous Saxon soldiery who were less then keen to join the Prussian army.

He's not the most spectacular figure in the world, but he'll do for me.

Brand new gunners to follow, I promise.

WM

Horsing Around

I was supposed to be painting gunners today, but it didn't quite work out that way. Before getting down to the job on hand I thought I'd do a simple conversion and things sort of escalated after that. The upshot is that no gunners were painted, but I've ended up with a couple of new Prussian generals, so it wasn't all bad.

The simple conversion was a quick head swap on another of my Der Kriegspielers #50 mounted officers. The new head I gave him was left over from the recast Hinton Hunt PN 64 I used to make General Zieten.

This didn't take very long at all and since the soldering iron was all nicely warmed up I started fossicking about in my might-do-a-conversion-but-haven't-quite-decided-yet box. What I came up with was a  Hinton Hunt PN 10: Prussian Guard Grenadier officer, charging. "I wonder if he could be made to sit on a horse", I said to myself. The answer was "yes, he can", although it took several hours to find out.

He still needs a little cleaning up, and perhaps a bit more work on his sword arm, but he's mostly complete. He is to be Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm Freiherr von Lützow, of course. The horse, by the way, is a recast Hinton Hunt FNH 13.

I should be getting back to my gunners now, but I suspect they're going to have to wait a little longer....

Yours, soldering on,
WM

A Swiss Confection

Well, I survived my encounter with the wild clans of the South Island and am back at my at my painting desk. To ease myself back into the painting groove I've decided to have a go at another general officer figure.

The figure I picked was another one of the Der Kriegspielers command figures (set #50) featured in a previous post. He is the generic French general figure, who is clearly based on a Hinton Hunt FN 224: French General. Interestingly the DK version has the horse's head turned slightly to the right, rather than to the left as in the HH version, and the rider's head is turned to the left rather than to the right.

My version of this figure is also painted red because he is to be Nicolas Antoine Xavier Castella de Berlens, who was the only officer in any of Napoleon's Swiss regiments to reach the rank of General de Brigade. The uniform he is wearing is based on a portrait which was probably painted in late 1815. I couldn't find a colour photo of this portrait, but an engraved copy can be seen in the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, here. He is to command the 3rd Swiss on the grounds that Marshal Soult always seemed a little too grand for that gig, and because I really fancy having a French general dressed in red!

Castella de Berlens started his military career in the Saxon Swiss Guards, but was persuaded to transfer to the French service (despite being a convinced Royalist) in 1806. He commanded the 2nd Swiss Regiment in Spain and Russia and was made a General de Brigade in 1813. It seems fairly clear, however, that he never went into in action in this capacity. Having been badly wounded in Russia, he sat out the 1813 and 1814 campaigns, and then made himself scarce (along with most of the other Swiss officers in Napoleon's service) during the Hundred Days.

To make his uniform conform to the portrait I filed off the single row of buttons running down his chest and replaced them with a double row, and also added a bit of fuse wire to represent the leather cord that he used to suspend his sabre. The only other thing required after that was a bit of filing and scoring of his pistol holsters to simulate the fur covers which can also be seen in the portrait.

I hope you like him.

WM

Command Decision

Lurking somewhere within many vintage 20mm Napoleonics collections are examples of the Der Kriegspielers command set.

Der Kriegspielers sold their command figures as a single set, described as #50: Mounted Officers. There were supposedly eight of them to each pack, but I suspect the eight contained therein may well have varied a bit from pack to pack as there seem to have been more than eight variants produced.

Five of the command figure variants are in the Hinton Spieler collection and are illustrated below:

Three are clearly recognisable as close cousins of the Hinton Hunt Russian, British and French generic generals figures. The chaps on the far left and in the centre, however, look like conversions of the Russian figure.

As these are the only Russian command figures I have, it seemed sensible to choose one for my Russo-German Legion commander. The chap who won this gig was the one on the left, seen vaguely waving his sword around. I thought he'd need a bit of tidying up first, however.

The result is seen below. The new head is from a recast Hinton Hunt PN 5 Prussian line infantry figure.  I used the body of this figure to make a Prussian Foot Guards standard bearer over two years ago and the head has been rolling around in my bits and bobs box ever since.

The main task was to transform his infantry shako into an officer's schmirtze. I did this by sawing off the top and then simply dripping a large blob of molten solder onto it. All it needed after that was a bit of filing and cutting.

He is to be Major General Wilhelm Daniel von Arentschildt, who commanded the infantry of the Legion in 1813 and 1814. Arentschildt was a Hanoverian soldier who had served in India fighting against Tipu Sultan, interestingly enough. He entered Russian service, however, after the French occupation of Hanover and was instrumental in the setting up of the Legion in 1812.

I haven't quite finished the rest of the battalion but they shouldn't be tooooo far off.

Ta ta for now

WM