Bring Me Sunshine

I promised something really special a couple of weeks ago and so here it is. It's the absolutely stunning Neuchatel Battalion painted by Alastair Morrison. The figures are all from the iconic 25mm Napoleonic range produced by Jack Scruby in the early 1960s.

When Aly published these on his Aly's Toy Soldiers blog a wee while ago, he mentioned that he'd decided to replace them. As I've been hankering after some Scrubys for ages, I asked him if I could have them, and he gave them to me.

These particular figures are the remastered 25mm Scrubys available from Historifigs in the United States. They are the most beautifully hard, clear and crisp castings, unlike the very soft and 'leady' figures originally sold by Jack. You can spot vintage Scubys a mile away in wargaming blogs because of all the excessively bent muskets!

Jack's 25mm range was designed to be compatible with Hinton Hunts, which these last two pictures demonstrate very well. The Neuchatels and the 3rd Swiss will make a spectacularly attractive brigade, I think. I'll also need to paint a commander for them, of course, and I've got just the fellow, as it happens. He'll be making an appearance in a week or two, with a bit of luck.

As the last photo shows, however, to make them fully compatible with my army I'll need to rebase them, so right after these photos were taken. off they went into a shallow warm bath to soak them off their bases.

Judging from the Historifigs 'Classic 25mm Armies' of the Napoleonic Wars' catalogue, the figures are:

3053: French Fusilier, advancing to the attack, x 10;
3054: French Voltigeur, advancing to the attack, x 12; and

3064: French Officer, shako, leading, x 2, with one converted by Aly into a standard bearer.

Thank you Aly. They're like a gloriously golden ray of sunshine, and I will treasure them.

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

Swiss Mobilisation

Waiting for Russians!

Marching through the Russian forests

The 3rd Swiss are complete and ready to take the field.

Now, I could say lots of seemingly plausible things about how collecting vintage figures makes it next to impossible to reconstruct historic orders of battle, and that armies consisting of an eclectic mix of styles, nationalities and periods are more or less inevitable in a project such as this. However, nobody forced me to paint my DK Swiss as actual Swiss, and I certainly didn't have my arms twisted to paint French chasseurs and Dutch Grenadiers as Swiss either. So let's be honest: it was the spectacle I was after!

Having said that, Napoleon's Swiss regiments provided much more than just bling battalions. Although they had a somewhat mixed record in Spain, including the surrender of a couple of battalions to the Spanish at Baylen in 1808, in Russia they fought like tigers. On several occasions single Swiss regiments more than held their own against entire Russian divisions.

Enemy in sight!

As my French have now reached close-order parity with the Prussians, the logical choice for the next unit would be a French skirmisher battalion. However, I still don't have any cavalry. Completing Ian's cavalry has given me a bit more confidence in this area so perhaps the next post should be devoted to thundering hooves and flashing sabres. I'm very tempted to try some hussars, but this may be a little too ambitious!

WM

Form Square!

The 3rd Swiss will advance!

Fancy Flankers

It will come as no surprise to anyone at all that I have completely caved in and gone for both voltigeur and grenadier companies for the 3rd Swiss. However, I have an excuse.

The figures are from two different sets: DK 4: French 1809 Légère, assaulting; and DK 220: Dutch Grenadier Battalion, defending. In both cases I've turned their heads ever so slightly to the left to make them blend in a bit more with my DK 176: Swiss Line Infantry.

The DK 4s are not particularly lovely figures, but I think they'll look OK as a company. The Dutchmen, on the other hand, are very handsome indeed in my opinion, despite being somewhat precariously balanced on their bases! I was very lucky to find a couple of battalions of these, with six left over for spares.


My excuse for this extravagance is that I've found two more Swiss fusiliers (complete with musket butts, I'm glad to say) from the small stash of unidentified figures I have in my collection.These two will provide me with just enough fusiliers to fill out the two centre companies of  a second Swiss unit. The beginnings of the Neuchâtel Battalion, perhaps?


The origin of these last two figures is a bit of  a mystery. I'm convinced they are neither Hinton Hunts nor Der Kriegspielers, but something else entirely. Inscribed under their bases is what looks like "FF", followed by something undecipherable. If anyone has come across anything like these before, please let me know!

WM

On a Swiss Roll

Swiss Fusiliers. But what to do next?

Now that Ian's cavalry are on their way back to Blighty, I've turned my attention back to the Swiss!

With only three main colours to worry about (Red, White and Black), they were very quick to paint.

The big decision now is whether to give them a fourth company of either grenadiers or voltigeurs. If I did both I'd be left with 6 DK 176's spare, which would be be a very inefficient use of the figures!

One to ponder......

Have a good one!

WM

Wrestling with Redcoats

DK 176: Swiss Line Infantry Battalion

Ian's second squadron of Prussian lancers are well under way, but I'm sorry to say they're not quite finished and would have been too late to take part in the spectacular fight which  has broken out at Mont Saint Jean in any case. As a result I've decided to post something that I started working on a few weeks ago when it seemed that Ian's cavalry were never going to arrive.

One of the things one quickly begins to accumulate when collecting vintage figures are various problem castings that it's difficult to know what to do with. In my case the worst example was a set of sixteen DK 176: Swiss Line Infantry. These rather promising figures had everything going for them except one thing - a complete lack of musket butts! What made this especially annoying was that they were just what I needed to go with Chuck's 1809 French standard bearer. Even more importantly, I wanted some redcoats!

After considering various options involving milliput and superglue, which didn't look very promising from a strength point of view, I decided there was nothing for it but to have a go at making some of my own using a soldering iron. I've never dared to do this before, but having consulted an expert (yes, that's you Roy), I equipped myself with some self-fluxing solder, a soldering iron, some micro-files and a pair of flat sided pliers. 

DK 176 with modifications!

The hardest part was to get a blob of solder attached that was long enough. However, once this was achieved a bit of pinching, cutting and filing was all that was needed to get the right shape. The result of my first attempt is in the next photograph.

The next thing I had to know, of course, was what Chuck's DK 7: French Line Infantry Command, Standard Bearer would look like standing next to him. I'm not exactly sure how I managed to squeeze the lettering onto this, but let's just say that it's a relief to know I won't be doing any more of these for a while!

DK 7: French Line Infantry Command, Standard Bearer

Well, one thing led to another, so pictured below him are the DK 7 drummer and charging officer figures needed to round off the command group. The drummer has been slightly modified to create the swallows nests favoured by the 3rd Swiss Regiment.

I chose the 3rd despite the fact that, "as any fule kno", almost all the depictions of the 3rd show they had the peculiar habit of wearing their pom poms slightly off-centre and wore their shako cords even more eccentrically. My excuse is that, as neither Marcus Hinton or Duke Siefried catered for such peculiarities, I didn't have any choice, and besides, not all the pictures of them show them like this! The truth, of course, is that I just couldn't resist their snazzy black facings and white piping.

Normal Prussian Lancer service will resume in the next post.

WM

DK 7: French Line Infantry Command, Drummer

DK 7: French Line Infantry Command, Officer, Charging