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


Friday 16 August 2013

Just Like Christmas

Since it would be churlish to comment on the fact that it took Royal Mail’s guaranteed-next-day Special Delivery service two days to get the thing here, I shall simply state that I was very pleased to get a parcel this morning from Norfolk. Inside were all sorts of good things – converted Hinton Hunt models, the work of the esteemed Pete Bateman, and all for my Peninsular War armies.

There is something very pleasing about good conversions based on Hinton Hunt figures – I don’t have a great many, but they always feel like the sort of thing a proper wargames army should have (strong echoes of Peter Gilder), they bring a unique element and some welcome variety to the forces in The Cupboard, they provide troop types which otherwise would not be available and – especially if they are the work of someone with a lot more skill than I have – they are interesting and good to look at. Also, because this lot are individually converted, heads are all at slightly different angles and each figure is a character in his own right.



I’ve started basing and organising the new arrivals, and here’s some early results, which I’m very happy with. I have two new light cavalry units for the Spanish army, which fill a very prominent gap in the OOB. [Please note that my artificial light photos have started washing out red tones again – the paint is much brighter than this, and the reds are RED.] The horsemen in green are the Voluntarios de Espana, who, despite their name, are an old-established unit of regular Cazadores a Caballo. The other fellows are the Husares de Extremadura, formerly known as the Husares de Maria Luisa – I have no idea why they changed their name – maybe Maria Luisa lost them at cards. Both these units fought throughout the war, and they are presented here with hats which would fit any period from 1810 onwards. They have no flags yet, but I’m working on it.

There are also some cheerfully eccentric Spanish staff figures...


...and an interesting custom figure for General Von Neuenstein, who commanded a Confederation brigade in the Armée du Centre. Von Neuenstein is, authentically, wearing the uniform of a general officer of the Duchy of Baden – HH enthusiasts will spot that part of him may have been Russian in a previous existence!




Tomorrow, time permitting, there are some artillery and logistics items to sort out, so this is a particularly good parcel. Unpacking this lot has been just like Christmas...

7 comments:

  1. Some lovely conversions there and the staff figures are superb! Always good to have a few HH in the ranks...

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    1. I thought you might enjoy spotting the donor figures, Ian! Some are easy even for me - the officer of hussars used to be Junot, I think (or at least he has Junot's hat, c/w meringues), and the Baden general is a Russian OPC general with a new hat/head. Beyond that I don't know the catalogue well enough, though I expect you probably do.

      Every time I base up a unit of light cavalry I have a brief moment where I wonder why I use a wider frontage than the heavies (30mm vs 25mm). I have difficulty imaging hussars charging stirrup to stirrup, but the real reason is because that's what the WRG said all those years ago, and it would take a lot of rebasing for me to change it now, so I stick with it, on the grounds that I could probably justify if I thought about it long enough. Maybe I just did!

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  2. You've obviously made the nice list this year. Lovely, lovely figures. The chap in the top hat in particular - is he anyone in particular?

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    1. Just some crazed, French-hating guerrillero. My irregular leaders have a high rate of attrition, so he will probably get to be a variety of people.

      Perhaps he's Juan Martin. Maybe he could be one of the dreaded Gomez brothers, back from the shadows...

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    2. I really like that figure too - he is made from the HH Ponsonby figure with Picton's head grafted on!

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  3. Very smart additions.

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