Join the Queue

Some new figures in the painting queue this week - well, not new, exactly - some of them haven't been owned before, but they aren't new.

Some real Old School French chaps in here - HH Guard Engineers and Line Artillery, and some Alberken Guard Artillery. The Engineers still had the original mould flash under the paint, so I'll try to improve on that this time round

This is a random bunch of old figures which have been fermenting in the Clean Spirit jar for about 10 weeks. Since there were still traces of gloss black and gloss red which refused to shift, they finished up with a few hours in the Domestos - that did it. Like me, you might wonder why I bothered with the 10 weeks in the Clean Spirit, but it's the principle of the thing, really.

10 packs of OOP Falcata Spanish cavalry - once again, I have killed off one of the world's endangered species - I believe they are now officially extinct. This should be enough for 4 regiments, with luck. Put them next to the White Rhino

Probably more interestingly, I also have a little shipment of the much-missed Falcata Spanish Napoleonic heavy cavalry - now rarer than hens' teeth. My mysterious friend and advisor, Count Goya, was recently in Spain. Goya's adventures can only be guessed from occasional glimpses and hints - tantalising, really. Sunset verandahs in Mandalay, a half-seen shadow in a village on the Adriatic, whispers of the Spice Routes, blood and sand...

Anyway, he spotted some OOP Falcata figures in Spain, and very kindly brought me back a pack. I, of course, was much less calm about the matter, and promptly lit up the Internet in my searches to see if there were any more. I am pleased to say that I seem to have managed to snaffle the world's final stocks of the Spanish cavalry.

To save a little on postage, since shipping rates from Spain are famously extravagant, I arranged with my friend Jack the Hat that he would collect the goods for me next time he visited Barcelona (he has an apartment there), and the deed was done last week. I think I have enough for 4 units of line cavalry. They can go in the Spanish box, and I'll get to them.

Jack the Hat, cunningly disguised (without  hat), does the messages

To give an idea of Count Goya's exotic lifestyle, he even has his own food manufactured and supplied when he is on his travels

French Refurb: ex-Eric Knowles units

Just a quickie - these chaps appeared fleetingly here the other day - they are now properly based up and supplied with my home-made flags, so I've taken official photos for the Service Catalogue, and they can stand ready in The Cupboard. They are now the first and second battalions of the 1er Ligne, who are perfect for Thomieres' Divn at Salamanca or for service on the Danube.

Figures are, for the most part, Eric's 1960s Hinton Hunts, and as far as possible I have preserved his paintwork. I obtained some suitable HH drummers, but the rest of the command figures are SHQ, which fit in well both for size and style.

It is indeed an honour to be able to keep Eric's soldiers on active service. I'm confident they will march on for many years. Thanks to Dave Crook for rescuing them!

1st battalion

2nd battalion

Guest Appearance: More ECW Hinton Hunts

I received a very nice email from Steve Cooney, who sent me some pictures of soldiers in his collection. Always worth sharing, I think.

Steve describes them thus:

Meanwhile if you want to have a break from all those Napoleonics, I have attached some pics of Sir Thomas Blackwell's ECW Royalist Regiment of Foote; all Hinton Hunt figures except for the modified Les Higgins drummer and the thinned-down SHQ Officer on foot.

Hope you like them.

Steve, I like them - thank you!

Janitors of the Guard

Goya very kindly gave me these chaps some weeks ago - three odd figures from the collection of my late Edinburgh friend and erstwhile wargame opponent, Peter Gouldesbrough. They are, as you see, French engineers - Peter converted these from Hinton Hunt French line artillery gunners. I never saw his 20mm armies in their glory, since he had moved on to 5mm by the time I met him.

I have smartened them up a little (I hope you can tell). I guess Peter probably painted these around 1968-70, and he didn't really believe much in varnish, so there was some touching-up required to get them ready for duty. I thought they looked a bit like janitors, with the home-made hammer and shovel - ideally the third fellow should have had a bucket of sawdust. So they are currently known here as les Concierges de la Garde.

Of course, they are nothing of the sort. These are regular line engineers - I also have some more sappers and miners to paint up for the French Siege Train box, but they are all in full cuirass and helmet order - I didn't have any in campaign dress until now.

Peter had something of an Impressionist painting style - I've deliberately tidied them up a bit. I think he might disapprove of my painting, but he would be pleased that his boys are still around to cope with the odd job. Anyway, they're fun and I'm pleased with them. If you need any shrubs planted, please get in touch.

French Refurb Project - Yet Another Sanity Check on Scales

I have had some problems getting hold of command figures - especially drummers - to plug the gaps in my refurbished French infantry units. Once again, I find myself trawling around ancient blog posts and forum threads, reading old debates about whether figures from Maker A are compatible with those from Maker B. My perception is complicated somewhat by the fact that individual models from the same manufacturer can vary a bit in scale, by the fact that I frequently disagree with the views expressed in the discussions and by the fact that I tend to forget whatever it was I decided last time.

Round and round we go. I had a couple of email exchanges recently which suggested that, despite my previous investigations, Newline might be OK with Hinton Hunt/Der Kriegsspieler-sized troops after all - especially since I could claim that the drummers were mere lads. I have found old discussions in which some worthy swore blind that Newline were a good match with HaT plastics, and they used them all the time, and so on.

My armies are (unofficially) 20mm or "true" 25mm (an old-fashioned term which is no more helpful than more recent ones). I look for figures which are 21 to 23mm soles to eye, which have hats and equipment which look about  the same - thus 1/72 should fit nicely, though some 1/72 figures don't seem right to me in this context. The important thing is that I should think they look correct - it is my game, after all.

Anyway, I thought I would go around this loop again, and I ordered in some Newline samples (last time was maybe 6 years ago, I think), to see if I have changed my mind, or if recent developments with the Higgs boson particle have somehow changed the size of the millimetre.

Once again, I have produced one of my occasional strange green photos, just to give myself some evidence next time I become confused about this, and to confirm the Groundhog Day nature of these continuing investigations.

You will observe that Newline are quite a bit smaller than all the other figures illustrated. Apart from Newline, these figures all group nicely around the 22-23mm soles-to-eyes mark (the little squares on the cutting mat are 5mm) - the Newlines are a lot smaller. I might just about persuade myself that a very small Newline drummer boy might fit with my Der Kriegsspieler repaints (which, though not included, are the same as Hinton Hunt), but I might have to be pretty desperate to believe it.

So - in case I forget again - here you have it. Newline figures are too small for my armies, though of course they would be perfectly lovely in someone else's Newline army. Oh - and the Hat soldier has a small head. Just saying.

French Refurb Project - Getting Organised

The bewildering thing about a big refurb project is that every time I look in a known box of figures I find when I count them that the number is not what I thought it was last time. On occasions, this is because a new box has materialised somewhere else - one which I have forgotten about. It is possible for the effort of trying to keep track of what I'm doing to become so great that it leaves little time or energy for doing whatever it was I was supposed to be doing.

Enough.

The refurb figures which are painted and finished are now properly mounted on magnetised bases, and everything is logged on a proper spreadsheet. If I leave gaps on the bases where the figures are missing, or still being painted, then I can see at a glance where I'm up to. Another (cunning) advantage of this approach is that if on a short evening I decide to paint half-a-dozen figures, I can plan exactly where they will go, which is a considerable help with stuff like company pompom colours - not to mention motivation.

When a unit is actually complete, I finish off the bases, supply an official 110mm x 110 sabot, give 'em a flag, and they move from the box-files to The Cupboard, ready for warfare. Snapshots of this morning's state show two box-files in use - one for the Hinton Hunt and Der Kriegsspieler battalions and one for the Les Higgins battalions. The figures are not incompatible, but I keep them separate for historic reasons which are a bit dim and distant now.

Higginses on the left, HH/DK on the right. The big brown areas are where I've got masses of rank-&-file on bottletops in a big Really Useful Box, being worked on; the smaller brown areas are usually because I'm missing a command figure or a flanker (which may, of course, be on a bottletop as well) - there is a general shortage of drummers for the HH/DK units at present - I'm hoping to make use of some Schilling castings to plug the gaps.

And here are the boxes the other way up, so you can see I have nothing up my sleeve. A lot of the DK figures are ex-Steve Cooney. The furthest-away columns in the left hand box are ex-Eric Knowles Hinton Hunts - waiting only for drummers - I believe I have some proper HH drummers lined up for these. Nerds with exceptional eyesight may detect some HaT plastic eagle-bearers in the right-hand box. That's how desperate things have become in the world of 20mm French light infantry. It's OK. Everything is beautiful in its own way.

In addition to this lot, the recently-arrived Freitag Battalion flashed through to completion without loitering in the boxes, so that's already in The Cupboard. I have two further battalions away in foreign parts, being worked on, I have two battalions of Higgins figures on my own bottletops, being retouched in the evenings, I have three Higgins light infantry battalions waiting to be started (though they look pretty good to start with, so that might not be a big job - put your hand up if you've heard this song before), and a further Higgins battalion which is currently scheduled to be retouched as the 3eme Suisse, though I may have a change of heart and transfer them into the French army (which would involve stripping and repainting from scratch). Then there is a mass of DK figures - also on bottletops, which are in the current queue. I also have some (small) shipments of command figures coming from Art Miniaturen and Old John, plus a trial pack from Newline, to see if I can live with undersized drummer boys. And I have some command figures at a painter.

Yo.

After that, I am hoping to slow right down on the French army. I have Higgins figures for yet another light battalion (though no command at present) and also for a battalion of Young Guard voltigeurs (same situation). I am going to have to train myself to stop buying old figures I don't really need. What happens is that the planned army establishment gets a hike to accommodate the extra figures, and it all justifies itself. So all I have to do is stop.

Easy. What could go wrong?

Anyway, organisation is the key at the moment.

French Refurb project - Fettling & Filing

I'm trying to speed up progress with getting my various heaps of French infantry refurbed. I'll use a painting service to help with this, since otherwise I am likely to be outfaced by the size of the task, and to hide in a corner somewhere and wait for it to go away.

Not suitable for children under 3 years old.

As a background job I work away on restoring the pre-painted rank and file, but progress has been disappointing lately - it would give me a big lift to get some of this stuff finished and in The Cupboard - it would also ease some of my storage problems.

Over the last few years I've accumulated yet another pile of pre-owned French infantry - mostly Les Higgins and Der Kriegsspieler, but some Hinton Hunts and other things too. I've now organised my ideas on this lot so that I'm aiming at a definite number of battalions - I have mentioned this number to friends, and the reaction is usually rather uneasy laughter, so I shan't mention it today. The big shortfall is in command figures and Higgins flank company chaps. For the HH and DK battalions I have some suitable command figures already in the spares box, but it's mostly going to be SHQ/Kennington to fill the gaps; for the Higgins battalions I have a decent number of the Higgins officers (all standing pointing, foot on a mole-hill), and will make up the shortfall with Art Miniaturen, Qualiticast and also Schilling, who make some very nice voltigeur/grenadier figures which are a nice match for Higgins.

I'm scratching away at a first shipment to go to the painter - command figures for light infantry and line infantry. As long as there's plenty of decent music and coffee, time spent grinding off spare metal and stabbing myself with needle files is not as bad as I think it's going to be - and it will be a relief to get stuff away to the painter. First package should go away at the end of this week - probably about 4 dozen castings, counting a mounted colonel as 2.

Hi ho! Ouch.

Bavarians - The First of the Cavalry

I'm very pleased to welcome the first cavalry unit for the 3rd Division of the VII (Bavarian) Corps of the Grande Armee of 1809. These are freshly painted by my friend Goya, for which kindness I am deeply grateful; he and I agree that painting Hinton Hunt figures is challenging because some of the detail on the old castings is implied rather than in your face - thus the exact location of the piping around the lapels on these chaps (for example) is partly a matter of guesswork.

We are also agreed, however, that the figures really do look very good if they are well painted. I bow to his efforts on this lot! Thank you again, Count G.

This is the 4th Regiment of Chevauxlegers Bubenhofen, all ready to fight on the Danube. This regiment also fought in Russia and in the 1813 unpleasantness, but by that time they had become the 6th Ch-Leg for reasons which are too fiddly to go into.

Anyway, here they are, and very welcome. The officer and trumpeter are both conversions, for which thanks are due to Wellington Man.

The number of new painted units here recently has finally outstripped my stock of bases and sabots, so I have had to order some more from Uncle Tony at ERM. In the meantime I am very pleased to have dug out some pre-used bases which were previously attached to a unit of Brunswick Hussars (now departed). Considering that wargames collections (well, mine, anyway) are a veritable hymn to self-indulgence and waste, I can't understand why re-cycling a few penceworth of old bases would give me any pleasure at all - very strange.

They'll be provided with a smart new sabot of the correct size as soon as Uncle Tony sends some along.

Bavarians - Where I'm at, and What's Next

The next thing to do is to get the 3rd Divn of Lefebvre's (Bavarian) VII Corps of 1809 finished off. I still need two infantry brigadiers, a brigade of cavalry (2 regts - one of dragoons, one of chevauxlegers - plus a brigadier) and two artillery batteries (including one of Light Artillery). That will be the main components - I can add sappers/engineers and limber teams as time permits.

I may have posted pictures of some of this stuff already. Here are the raw materials for the next steps. The cavalry will all be Hinton Hunt based, and the artillery equipment will be Franznap - for gunners I have a choice of SHQ or Franznap.

The cavalry figures set out here are (L to R) an original HH Chevauxlegers trooper, then conversions produced by Wellington Man of a Chevauxlegers officer and trumpeter, and a dragoon trooper (different-shaped shabraque). I am still doing some experimentation for the command figures for the dragoon unit, but the most likely solution at present is SHQ French line lancer command figures, with HH heads and with the uniform detail re-carved as necessary, mounted on 20mm Garrison horses - we'll see how that goes.

The artillery figures are (L to R) two SHQ figures and three Franznap. Though a good height match, you can see that the Franznap figures are slimmer, and I'll avoid mixing the two breeds in any one unit, though the different makes can co-exist on the table in separate units, I think.

Interestingly, Franznap only make gun crews for the Light Artillery, which brought me back with a bump to the small matter of how the Light and Heavy(?) artillery differed. I have not had a great deal of help on this from the better known modern sources, but in fact it's all OK. The Bavarians did eventually have horse artillery, in the French style, but in 1809 the Light Artillery was simply artillery who were equipped with - erm - lighter guns (6pdrs), and the gunners had a tendency to ride around on those splendid Wurstwagen things. Uniforms? - no real difference, as far as I can tell. So that simplifies matters a bit - I might think about getting a Franznap Wurstwagen - sounds like Phase 1(c) to me.

At risk of sounding like the Golden Globes, I thought I'd mention a few people without whose help I couldn't have made the progress I managed to date - not even close, in fact. Flipping back through this blog, I see a first mention of a possible Bavarian contingent in my State of the Union report in August 2017. By 2nd April last year I was experimenting with preparing some Der Kriegsspieler castings for the first infantry. This week I have 10 battalions ready to fight - I'm really pleased with that. For help with sourcing figures, painting, encouragement, consultancy, charitable donations of effort and castings I have to acknowledge sincere thanks to Evan, Stryker, Ian P, Aulus Grammaticus, Goya, David M, David Y, Old John, Matthew, Uwe and Andreas (die Spielzeugmacher, or Brothers Grimm) and to Chuck Gibke in the US for his knowledge of the old DK ranges. If I've forgotten to mention you, then you know I'm grateful anyway - in particular Jonathan, Lee, Peter A, Ray, Aly, Ross and those others who have egged me on by making encouraging comments as the troops appeared.

Thanks very much!

Bavarians - 3rd Divn Infantry now complete

Bavarian 10. LIR "Junker"

The infantry for the 3rd Divn of VII Corps of 1809 are now finished. Both battalions of the 10th line regiment were based and provided with flags and sabots this morning, and photos taken for the Catalogue.

1st Battalion - that'll be Oberstleutnant Von Poellnitz on the cuddy

2nd Battalion

The cavalry are still to be painted, as are the artillery, but I now have the figures in stock. I'll put some photos of the artillery castings up here in a day or so. I still need to paint some brigadiers, and some sappers would be nice. It's all gone rather well thus far - I'm not sure when (or if) the 2nd Divn is likely to get started, but I have figures ready for that as well. One project at a time, if you don't mind.

And because it seemed a suitable occasion, here's a picture of all the finished infantry - here you see General Deroy, with the 5th (Buttler) and 7th (Gunther) Light Bns, and the 9th (Ysenburg), 10th (Junker), 5th (Von Preysing) and 14th Line Regts, all the line units being of two battalions.

Deroy with the infantry of 3rd Divn, VII Corps, all ready for the Danube campaign

Same Old Painting Style, and a Brush(?) with Technology

Reports of my passing have been premature - I've been a bit preoccupied...

This afternoon I've finished off painting the mounted officers for my next Bavarian infantry regiment. These figures are new releases from Hagen, which turned out rather nicely, I think. They are uniformed as LIR 10, Junker.

Yesterday I visited the Stryker Estates, up in t'North, for a proper Old School style wargame, and very nice too. A new departure for us was live posting on Instagram - if I'd known I'd have arranged to take my make-up crew with me (my hairdressing people only work part-time now). The game was loosely based on Plancenoit, and finished as a draw, which surprised me since I had the impression all afternoon that my lot were getting thumped. Now that we have an international online audience available, it could be that a rematch will be almost as big a draw as the Fury vs Wilder refight. Stryker will have to get his advertising contracts dusted off.

General view early in the game

My French skirmishers were lethal

Stryker's splendid Old Guard - mine for the afternoon - pinned in square by Prussian uhlans - no-one came near them!

Excellent day, as ever - my thanks to Baron and Baroness S for their kind hospitality, and my compliments to Stryker and Goya for their company and the excellent toys. 

Ready for The Cupboard, with a Quick Flash of Nipple Pink

All based and flagged, the two battalions of the Grenadiers à Pied de la Garde are now finished and looking for a fight. The guardsmen are 1970s Les Higgins NF1, and the command figures are modern Art Miniaturen castings.

Also completed today are another 2-battalion Bavarian line infantry unit, this one the 5. LIR "Von Preysing", resplendent in pink facings (Nipple Pink paint, thank you Foundry...). Their command figures are a mixture of Hinton Hunt and Falcon (from Hagen), the other ranks are Der Kriegsspieler. Too late for Eggmühl, but I'm sure they'll be in action before long.

Guest Appearance: ECW Hinton Hunt

Steve Cooney sent me an email, and was kind enough to include some photos, which are definitely worth a look, I think. Steve makes the point that, for devotees of Hinton Hunt, since tabletop Napoleonic battles normally feature large numbers of units, the small matter (literally) of keeping the footprint down, plus the limited availability of figures, mean that there has evolved a standard battalion size of two dozen or so figures. On the other hand, the smaller numbers of units needed for ECW actions have allowed Steve to experiment with larger regiment sizes, with greater emphasis on the look of the thing. His preferred unit size is 42-45 men for foot - you can see the effect in the pictures.

Nice, eh?

Thanks Steve - I for one am now crippled with envy, but I'll be all right...

Another Bavarian Paint Test - 5th Line Infantry

Time for another test figure for my first Bavarian Division - this is a fusilier of the 5th Line Infantry Von Preysing. Once again this is a Der Kriegsspieler casting, but this time it's a slightly different pose - this is the first one I've done from the DK set 175 "advancing"; the previous line infantry figures tested and painted up have been from set 174 "at ready" (which, confusingly, looks very like the Hinton Hunt "charging" pose).

I was nervous about the pink facing colour - I've used Foundry's Nipple Pink [yes, all right, thank you - calm down now]. It worked out better than I expected. This unit has a rather unusual uniform. The good news is that there is no piping around the lapels or the collars, which simplifies things a lot, but the pink is potentially a bit weird with the red turnbacks, cuff piping and shoulder strap piping. The shades chosen seem to work OK - the red and the pink are clearly different. This pose has a rather more open stance than, and looks a bit more slender than, set 174.

Current record of getting units finished after production of a test figure is good - really much better than I had expected. Once this regiment is painted (maybe a month or 6 weeks?), there is one line regiment still to do for this Division (10th LIR), then there are two cavalry regiments, a horse battery, a foot battery and some staff. That sounds like a fair amount of work - especially since I am busy refurbing various French units as well - but I'm keen to keep cracking on.

The cavalry will be Hinton Hunt OPCs, with various conversions and (probably) a few Garrison horses drafted in. The artillery will almost certainly be SHQ (I'd have loved some FranzNaps for this, but they're expensive and tricky to get hold of). I have a very limited range of general officers available at the moment, and no ADCs at all, so some creativity is needed here. There is a chance that General Deroy may be in a carriage - still thinking about this.

More Bavarians Ready

Back to the toy soldiers. Some progress with painting this week - including the completion of two further battalions for the 3rd Divn of Lefebvre's VII (Bavarian) Corps of 1809.

Here are the second battalion of the 9th Line Regt Ysenburg, at the top, and the first of my Light Battalions - this one is the 7th, commanded by Major Günter, in the lower photo. The line infantry are Der Kriegspieler figures, with Hinton Hunt and Falcon command, and the lights are all Falcon.

 Photos taken by the light of my painting lamp are a bit washed out - the reds really are more vivid than they look here. The light infantry are shown with the skirmishers deployed - they get tucked behind out of the way when the unit is in close order column!

Bavarians - Getting Back to the Project

I'm now trying to make a bit of progress on the painting front, after some weeks' interruption. Yesterday I completed a painted test figure for the 7th Light Battalion (Günter), circa 1809. The casting is one of the old 20mm figures which were formerly made in Germany under the trade name of Falcon, and which are now on sale again from Hagen. I like them. My current plan is that my Bavarian light infantry will be pretty much built from Falcons.

Skirmisher from the Light Battalion Günter - seems OK

I have become a firm believer in the value of producing a test figure for each painting batch - it's useful for deciding on shades (the sky blue collar here is a second attempt - I finished up using Foundry's Tomb Blue, which is much lighter than my first guess), and for identifying which paints to use, and in what order - and I then set the pots out in a row in my workbox (I don't always use the same logic - in my recent work using Der Kriegsspieler line infantry castings I have been painting the lapels and cuffs before the main coat colour, which to me seems unnatural, but it helps to preserve the rather sparse cast detail as long as possible - horses for courses). I also get a chance to find out which are the tricky bits. I think this chap shouldn't really have a moustache, by the way, but - hey - they're on campaign. He will be one of the 6 skirmishing figures included in the battalion.

Hinton Hunt BVN 44 - this picture is pinched from Stryker - I hope he doesn't mind. It
shows rather nicely the mysterious object under the trooper's right arm, which isn't a
sling but points down towards his carbine

Yesterday I also finally worked out what has been something of a puzzle. The time is coming when I'll have to start producing some Bavarian cavalry, and initially I'll be using Hinton Hunt's OPC Chevauxleger (BVN 44) as the mainstay of this. Work has been going on in the background, converting some of these to produce command figures (results should appear here eventually), and even some dragoons, and in the course of this I became interested in a mysterious object in the HH casting. Between the lower right breast of the trooper and somewhere near the muzzle of his carbine there is a straight, narrow object which I took to be part of the suspension system for the carbine, but study of uniform plates and so on indicates that it obviously isn't. I asked a number of knowledgeable people about the object, and did an amount of poking around before I came up with this plate by Knoetel, which is a definite clue.

I now have a proper answer. Sometime after the Rumford uniforms were scrapped, the Bavarian cavalry were supplied with a new, steel ramrod for the carbine - this had a loop on one end, and was suspended from a leather thong which was fastened to the stud which secured the two parts of the leather carbine sling. So Marcus was correct (I never doubted it) - the ramrod just dangled from the carbine bandolier. So now I know.

The Bavarians were beset by things which dangled, apparently - the badge of rank of the Unteroffizier was a cane of office, which had a wrist strap. The cavalry used to hang this next to the sabre when mounted, but in everyday dress it was correct for the cane to be suspended from the upper section of crossbelt for the cartridge pouch, so that would be swinging about too. I assume these gentlemen used to sit down very carefully.

Bavarians - 1/9. LIR ready

King Maximilian's heroes - Oberst Delamotte leads the Ysenburg regiment towards
the front lawn. Some fool parked his car in the wrong century.

Here we go - all based and flagged, this is the 1st Bn of the 9. Linieninfanterieregiment "Graf Von Ysenburg" ready for action on the Danube. I have another two battalions almost ready, and I was holding off to post a photo of all of them, but time is passing and I thought better of it.

The others will be along on the next bus. Two posts for the price of - well, two, I suppose.

These are a bit special - they were painted by the illustrious Count Goya, who - when he is not painting the horrors of war - can apply his skills to turning out some very nice miniatures, as you see. This allows me, now I think about it, to focus my attention on the horrors of war. Anyway, my grateful thanks to the Count - I'm delighted with these fellows.

20mm as it used to be - guilty as charged, Your Honour. The rank and file are Der Kriegsspieler, the mounted officer and the Fahnenjunker are from the old Falcon range, which is now available again from Hagen, and the foot officers and the drummer are Hinton Hunt.

They probably felt a bit conspicuous marching round the garden, being the sole representatives of the VII Corps at present, but some friends will join them shortly, and they were enjoying the sun.