Baby Boomer

It's New Year's Day, 2021, here in the Land of the Small Flightless Bird, and so I've decided to start the year with a bang.

It is New Year's Day, 1813, and
the Emperor is reviewing his Guard

The newly-raised Horse Artillery are ordered
to demonstrate their remarkable manoeuvrability.

The Battery Captain shows off his stuff  by advancing...

.....deploying and pivoting with speed and precision.

The Emperor is really quite chuffed.

My new battery looks ever-so-slightly ridiculous with its tiny wee Hinton Hunt gun, so perhaps it's less of a bang and more of a pop and and puff. Nevertheless, I'm delighted to have finally got my hands on one.

Happy New Year, everyone

WM

Edit: The gun, of course, is a vintage Hinton Hunt A3: French Field Gun. It's missing its little ammunition chest, unfortunately, but I have another gun which still has this which will be making an appearance eventually.

Horse Artillery Captain: What are you looking at, old boy?
Foot Artillery Captain: I'm trying to see what he's going to paint next.

Guard Horse Gunners

I ran out of time over the weekend to post these, so I'm doing it on a Monday night instead.

If there's the one thing I've learned from playing Muskets & Marshals, it's that it's very important to have a strong gun line. My latest effort in this direction is pictured below.

They're all beautifully crisp examples of vintage Hinton Hunt French Horse Artillery of the Guard, being codes:

FN 180: Officer pointing;
FN 181: Gunner with porte-fire;
FN 182: Gunner ramming home; and
FN 183: Gunner carrying cannon ball.

I even have a little Hinton Hunt gun to go with them that ought to be ready by next weekend.

Best regards

WM

Mind the GàP

I'm off to Auckland on a work gig this weekend, so this week's post is a little earlier than usual.

Officier: Bataillion!

The Grenadiers à Pied have arrived hot foot from the Interior

The Emperor Arrives for the Review

The Guard goes through its evolutions

La Garde réunie. Napoleon: Je suis content!

To recap, the figures are:

Hinton Hunt:
FN 29: Grenadiers of the Old Guard, marching x 20
FN 28: Grenadiers of the Old Guard, Sergeant, marching x 1
FN 27: Grenadiers of the Old Guard, Officer, marching x 1
FN 25: Grenadiers of the Old Guard, Drummer, charging x 1 (a David Clayton casting); and

Der Kriegspielers Napoleoniques set #20: Infantry of the Old Guard Command Group, Grenadier Eagle bearer x 1

They're going into battle next week.
Have a great weekend

WM

Edit:

What with all the talk of being shot to pieces and running away in the Comments, I thought I should post this quick test shot of the Guard getting ready for their grand photo session. Muskets & Marshals make guards units almost impossible to beat. That big red splodge, it occurred to me, is probably all that's left of  the last lot to tackle with them.

Guard update

Even after twenty battalions I still remain absurdly optimistic when estimating the time things are going to take. When I woke up this morning my woman had left me and the dog was dead (she's only away for the weekend, and the dog died several decades ago, but it's still true) , but aside from that I thought my remaining eight guardsmen would take, oh, no more than an hour and half to finish off, easily.

The Hateful Eight

Eight hours later (with only a very short break for lunch) they have just received their varnish and will need at least another 8-10 hours to dry, which is why I haven't been able to mount them and show them off properly in time for this week's post.

Next week should be good though.
TTFN

WM

On Guard

I've been hard at it on the Grenadiers à Pied this weekend, and have a command group to show for it:

They're a bit of a mixed bag of figures, being (from left to right):

Hinton Hunt FN 28: Grenadiers of the Old Guard 1804-15, Sergeant, marching;
Der Kriegspielers Set # 20: Guard Infantry 1809-1815, Infantry of the Guard command group, Eagle bearer;
Hinton Hunt FN 27: Grenadiers of the Old Guard 1804-15, Officer, marching; and
a David Clayton casting of a Hinton Hunt FN 25: Grenadiers of the Old Guard 1804-15,, Drummer, charging.

I'm particularly chuffed by the sergeant, who is an absolutely glorious little casting.

Only eight more grenadiers to go!

Yours,
WM

Filling a GàP

To my shame and dismay I still haven't finished my write up of Blasthof. Part of the reason for this is illustrated below.

The figures are all really splendid vintage Hinton Hunts, being FN 29 Grenadiers of the Old Guard 1804-15, Grenadier marching x 12. As an incentive to get the battalion finished I've decided to save all the fancy command figures for the second half. This was an idea suggested by Rob G and it's working just fine so far.

The next post really is going to be Blasthof, I promise.

Best regards

WM

Edit: I meant to add, those Lamming test figures ought to be appearing over the next few weeks too,

Conversion Therapy

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the first squadron of the Estorff Hussars have traumatised me or anything, but I've decided to spend a little time away from them and work on some conversions instead.

I've just the one to show at the moment. He's the charging Prussian Foot Guards officer figure from the Der Kriegspielers set # 125: Prussian Infantry 1813-15, Command Group (Landwehr, Jaeger, Guard). I've removed his greatcoat roll and given him a Litewka.

The original was clearly based on the Hinton Hunt figure PN 10: Prussian Garde Grenadiers (in plumed shakos and jack-boots), officer (charging). The example I painted for my Prussian Foot Guards battalion way back in 2014 is pictured below.

I think my painting has improved a bit since then!

I may post a few more conversions over the coming weeks. It will depend on how well I'm doing with the hussars.

Best regards

WM

Guard Gunners

Gunmen on the grassy knoll

War is about to break out chez Wellington Man and so I have been rushing to finish my last phase-one French battery. They will be receiving a newly painted gun in due course and a gun team and limber, which are all sitting on the painting table but couldn't be completed in time. What has been achieved, on the other hand, is a basic war games table and terrain. All will be revealed in the next post.

For the record, the figures are all vintage Hinton Hunts, and are described in the Hinton Hunt catalogue as follows:

Hinton Hunt, French Foot Artillery of the Guard 1808-15:

FN 172: Gunner ramming home
FN 173: Gunner holding cannon ball
FN 175: Gunner - ammunition carrier, running
FN 170: Officer looking through telescope.

The enemy is in sight....

The last has got to qualify as one the most attractive HH figures of all time. What a magnificent and really rather sinister looking uniform!

à bientôt

WM

Old Chestnuts

Christmas came early in the Wellington Man household, heralded by the arrival at astonishing speed of the Archduke's guard dragoon reinforcements. I am at a loss to explain how this happened. Wasn't there supposed to be a postal strike going on or something? Whatever the case, it means I've been able to squeeze in one more post for 2016.

Thanks to the Archduke my Guard Dragoons are now over 80% Hinton Hunts and what would otherwise have been a rather weedy Der Kriegspieler squadron is now something altogether more intimidating. The best chestnuts are the old chestnuts, ladies and gentlemen.

So, without further ado, here are the results:

To recap, the figures are:

Hinton Hunt FN 60 Empresses Dragoons x 10, with various repairs and conversions; and
Der Kriegspielers 48: Guard Dragoons x 2

The DKs are not actually all that bad. The main differences are in the position of their swords, the left forelegs on their horses and, weirdly, the details of their pistol holsters. These are already rather strangely modelled on the Hinton Hunts. On the nearside of the Hinton Hunts there are three overlapping holster covers, but on the offside there appear to be only two, or perhaps three rather oversized versions. The DKs, on the other hand, have only two on the nearside and three on the offside. It was doing my head in for a while, I can tell you. The pictures below should show what I mean a little more clearly:

Left: Der Kriegspieler 48
Right: Hinton Hunt FN 60

Left: Der Kriegspieler 48
Right: Hinton Hunt FN 60

My first French cavalry brigade is finally complete!

Happy New Year everyone. I have to stay that mine has got off to a flying start, and it hasn't even started yet.

WM

Thank you Archduke. *Cough*.

Hintonstein's Monster

Er....there's been a slight delay to the Empress Dragoons due to the wrong kind of figures on the production line. Painting will resume with the arrival of yet more Hinton Hunt replacements. These are even now winging their way across the globe, courtesy of the Archduke!

This should have been the perfect opportunity to crack on with my final French battery, but what I ended up doing instead was obsessing about something else entirely. This was: what to you do when you're one figure short of a regiment of Chasseurs and all you've got is a ropy old Lamming French hussar officer, a spare Hinton Hunt horse and box full of unwanted Scruby, Hinchliffe and Minifigs bits and bobs?

And the answer, two very nervous weeks later, was:

an officer of the Chasseurs à Cheval de la Garde Impériale. 

Mrs WM, on the other hand, refers to him as the "Essex Hussar", but then she's like that.

It was the horse, of course, which was the really nerve-wracking bit as I had to detach him from his base and reposition one of the hind legs in order to get him to rear up properly, as well as more or less completely reconstruct his left foreleg. I had to resort to a bit of Scruby assistance for the last part.

The hat is a Hinchliffe creation with the original Lamming French officer's plume grafted onto it.

He's not quite the Théodore Géricault masterpiece I had in my mind's eye, but he'll definitely fill the gap.

As this is likely to be the last Hintonspieler post for 2016, it only remains for me to say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

WM

With sincere apologies to Géricault .
Note to self: don't try to get a job as a Photoshop artist.

Here be Dragons

My first squadron of Hinton Hunt Dragons de l'Imperatrice are ready for their photo session.

They required a lot of preparation as they were covered in a thick coat of house paint which took a week in the dettol jar to get off, only to reveal some very flashy and bashed-about castings underneath. They made my heart sink a bit when I first saw them. The swords, muskets and aiguillettes on all but one of the troopers had been either cut away or otherwise damaged, but in a way this was an advantage as I could take my drill and soldering iron to them without too many qualms! The results are quite pleasing, I think, as no two are completely alike.

First up are the officer and the standard bearer. Both have had their muskets removed and been given new aiguillettes on their right shoulders and fringed epaullettes on their left. I also contemplated removing their portmanteaus, but my nerve failed at that point!

The standard bearer's original arm had been severed at the elbow and replaced with a bit of scrap lead, so the only thing to do was to replace it altogether with another one of John Cunnigham's very useful recast lancer arms. The flag is made from another bit of that wonderfully thin piece of brass donated by my neighbour, Richard. The eagle comes from an old Minifigs guardsman that I found in a local junk shop.

In the next photo the troopers on the left and in the centre were also missing their aiguillettes, so I replaced these too. I rather like the effect of seeing them flying about in different directions.

The second squadron are on the painting table and I'm very pleased to report will now be a mixture of Der Kriegspielers and Hinton Hunts. This is thanks to a very generous donation by the Archduke.

His Royal Highness also sent me this beautifully realised self portrait. It commemorates the moment, he tells me, when he personally seized the colour of a faltering infantry regiment at the Battle of Aspern-Essling and ran forwards with it to great morale boosting effect. Now that is classy!

The Archduke himself!

Until the next time,

WM

The Duellist

What with earthquakes and so forth, I haven't got quite as far with the first squadron of the Empress Dragoons as I'd hoped. However, I have finished their commander. He is Général de Division Phillipe-Antoine d'Ornano, who was a colonel of the Empress Dragoons from 1813 to 1815.

The figure I've used for him is a vintage Hinton Hunt FN 362: General Baraguey d'Hilliers, Colonel General of Dragoons. He was missing his horse (which should have been an FNH 10), so the mount I've given him instead is an FNH 2: French Guard Heavy Cavalry Horse, which was kindly donated by Hans. I've modified it slightly to turn it into an officer's horse by removing the portmanteau.

Born in Corsica on 1784, d'Ornano was a cousin of Napoleon's and served with distinction as a cavalry officer, fighting at Austerlitz and Jena. In 1808 he was made a Count of the Empire and spent the next few years in Spain and Portugal where he was promoted to général de brigade  at the battle of Fuentes de Onoro.

In 1812 d'Ornano took part in the Russian campaign. At Borodino he charged the enemy at the head of the cavalry of IV Corps, for which he was promoted to général de division. During the retreat he was wounded and left for dead but he clearly got out of Russia somehow as in 1813 he became a major colonel of the Empress Dragoons and would go on to fight at Dresden, Kulm, Leipzig, and Hanau.

When Napoleon returned to power in 1815 d'Ornano was placed in charge of the Empress Dragoons, but his hot-headedness prevented him from taking part in the Waterloo campaign. When General Bonet refused to salute him, d'Ornano considered himself insulted and the result was a duel.

There are various versions about what happened next, but it seems that the duel was fought on two consecutive days and ended when d'Ornano was gravely wounded. Bonet, it is said, was saved by a 5 franc coin in his pocket, which deflected d'Ornano's bullet.

D'Ornano eventually recovered from his wound and was briefly married to Napoleon's former mistress, Marie Walewska, with whom he had a son before her untimely death in 1817. D'Ornano himself lived until 1863. His descendants went on to found a perfume empire!

WM