Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Thursday 2 June 2011

Foy's Sixth Law Revisited - NapoleoN Miniatures (yet again)

Just because it follows on from the last post, and the comments thereon, and because it is another appropriate reminder of Foy's mighty Sixth Law, here are some pictures from the old NapoleoN website of 20mm British Peninsular cavalry.





I did obtain a unit of the hussars, but would welcome any suggestions (on a used 5 pound note to Chateau Foy, please) as to why I never got around to buying the heavy dragoons, when I knew they were available and needed quite a few.

4 comments:

  1. Because you never appreciate what you have. Though it just occurred to menthat those heavies are wearing their cocked hats fore and aft, while my Newlines wear theirs athwart. I've seen both illustrated, wonder what the significance is.

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  2. Dashed good question, sir. I thought that the chinscales (visible in the NapoleoN picture), which make fore-&-aft kind of necessary, were an eccentricity of the KGL heavies, but I'm really not sure.

    CE Franklin says that the bicorn was originally just a fashionable evolution of the tricorn, and was worn sideways with the cockade over the left eye and the right point slightly forward. He also says that many officers wore the hat "in the French manner" (which presumably means en colonne), and the plate for the Horse Guards includes a hat with what looks a bit like chinscales.

    I read somewhere that the fore-&-aft configuration was ideal for squinting down your nose in contemptuous fashion, but sideways was better for seeing where you were going.

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  3. Greta figurines! This is a pity that NapoleoN miniatures dissapeared from the market
    Rafa

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  4. Tony, you tease! Stop it! I'm crying as I type this :-(

    I've also read that a metal frame was sometimes worn underneath as a rudimentary head protection, which also may have had some influence on how it was worn eg. amidships or fore-and-aft (sorry, mixing my services there).

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