More Generals

I am very partial to the Miniature Figurines 20mm OPC celebrity figures. I don't have many, but they are fine chaps. The casting detail is a bit approximate, but they are vigorous, pleasing sculpts, and - apart from potential bending of the rear ankles (fetlocks?) of Ney's rearing horse, they are robust and very practical. Clive very kindly sent me Thomas Picton, whom I have rebased and who has now replaced my (later) S-Range version.

Sir Thomas

Since I had the tools and the brushes out, I also painted up the Napoleon figure from the same MF20 series - this came through eBay a little while ago, and had so many coats of paint that I failed to recognise who it was (how embarrassing is that?). After some sessions in the bleach, he has now been painted as Joseph Napoleon. This is only slightly outrageous - I am happy to assume that there was an uncanny family resemblance, and there is a mounted Joseph in Strelets set 048 which looks pretty much like a smartly dressed Napoleon. For preference, I would have liked my new Joseph to have epaulettes, but he is the King, for goodness sake, so he can wear what he likes. I had also thought of giving him a new head, with a less identifiable hat, but I don't much like hacking about with rare old figures, so he obviously gets his headgear from the family supplier. His sidekick is another eBay recruit - pretty much as I got it - just a wash and some varnish. This figure is Hinton Hunt's Marshal Soult (FN357), but it is not painted in Soult's colonel-general's uniform colours, so in my army this is some illustrious member of Joe's staff - maybe Marshal Jourdan, or General Hugo, if it matters.

King Joseph with support - "So let's get this straight - the cavalry are the ones on the horses?"

In passing, you will note my colour coding for generals' bases - division commanders have a white border, and army commanders are in a 2-man group with a border in the "national" colour - thus Wellington and his ADC have a red border, French army commanders blue (as shown), and I am pondering what to do with the forthcoming Spanish C-in-C - yellow? The borders are really just to help in spotting the fellows on a busy battlefield but, like a lot of features of my collection, this simple convention has become a house rule in its own right!

I have a number of generals being worked on at the moment. The arrival of a mounted Joseph is a slight embarrassment, since I was also contemplating having a Joseph on foot (also Napoleon, though this time a Qualiticast one), standing with his carriage - anyone got a 20mm scale chamber pot for Vitoria? I'm sure that Musket Miniatures must make one - they make everything else.

I also have a lovely set of French staff (on foot), by Qualiticast, to be painted. This is down the queue a bit. I had a painted French staff group before, and they never got on the battlefield, so in some irritation I sold them after about 10 years. Groundhog Day coming up.

Speaking of generals, I like the look of the new Zvezda Set 8080 - French Napoleonic HQ Staff. If I could find a use for them (and - let's face it - if I didn't have such an unreasonable reluctance to use plastics), I would buy the set just for the ADC mounting his horse.