Peninsular War - Spanish Mules and Oxen

Just a quick post to show off my Spanish Peninsular draught animals to get 'The Gun' to Ávila while avoiding the French.  It's not their first appearance as they did get a walk on part in my first ever post.

First, an overview of the whole baggage train.

The ox-carts.

The mules.

The postillions on the mules, like this figure ...

... were all fairly straight-forward conversions of the Jacklex Colonial figures inspired by Suhr's contemporary illustrations of Romana's Spanish Division in Hamburg, 1807-08. 

And the reason for it all, The Gun, complete with Cary Grant, Sophia Loren and Frank Sinatra.

Yes, the gun is ridiculously over-scale being a Warhammer Great Cannon, but the Hollywood version is even further over the top.

In C S Forester's 'The Gun' it's only an 18-pounder, and in the historical event on which the story is based it's a 12-pounder.  

Bring on the Empty Horses

Just a quick progress update on my Hinton Hunt French hussars which have suffered from a number of distractions slowing progress.  The latest distraction from the hussars is their mounts.  As I've no doubt said before, I enjoy painting horses a great deal more than their riders, and the net result is that I've finished their mounts while making little to no progress on the hussars themselves.

I'm pleased with how the horses have turned out so thought they deserved a quick post.  So here are the 'empty horses'.

And some close-ups of the different painting schemes / markings - some of these show up some of the casting flaws in some horses that escaped my clean-up and fill process.

That's all for now, but for anyone following the Caesar's Camp, Chain of Command, campaign the next game is now scheduled for the 15th of the month.

Lasalle & Drumming Up a Special Figure

A while ago I posted a WiP piece, the French 4th Hussars, and a personality figure of Lasalle.  As I find painting one-off figures much more enjoyable it's no surprise that Lasalle is the first to be finished.  I present: General Antoine-Charles-Louis, Comte de Lasalle.

The figure is a Hinton Hunt (HH) casting except I added a pipe in his right hand, as he is so often depicted with one.  I painted his uniform, horse colour, tack and shapbraque based on an illustration by Patrice Courcelle (I think) showing him leading a charge by chasseurs á cheval.  

I'm guessing the picture is meant to depict him at the Battle of Medina de Rioseco (14 July, 1808), and as my collection is primarily Peninsular War focused that seemed most appropriate.  Anyway, that's why he's not on a tiger skin as in the famous painting of him by Detaille.

Give us a twirl Antoine ...

... and then a curtain call in close-up.

In the meantime, while Lasalle has been hogging the painting table, and now the limelight, the lack of progress on the 4th hussars is getting embarrassing - see below.

But, Lasalle doesn't deserve all the blame for the sluggish painting on the hussars, as I've had a fairly ambitious conversion job running in the background.  

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For some time now, I've been rather taken by this Knötel image of a Prussian drummer mounted on a coach horse during the Prussian pursuit of the French army after Waterloo.

The story goes that the sound of the drum convinced the fleeing French that Prussian infantry, as well as cavalry, were on their heels and thus they'd keep running.  Whatever the reality, I wanted to make this figure, and here he is.

He is an amalgam of an artillery draught horse (unridden), a pair of hussar legs and, from the waist up a Prussian drummer courtesy of 'Wellington Man' from 'The Hinton Spieler' blog.  I had all but given up on this conversion after working on the separate bits, but while cleaning up Lasalle and the hussars I put the bits together and realised it looked much better when assembled.  This was enough to revitalise the project, and it, together with Lasalle, then claimed most of my recent painting / modelling time.

So first, as I'm rather proud of him, a couple more photos ...

... and yet more.

This was a pretty ambitious conversion as removing the drummer's legs while keeping his coattails attached was a long drawn out and fiddly job.  Other challenges included: rebuilding some of the detail on the drum (it had to be repositioned for a riding figure); adding straps on which the drummer is resting his feet for balance; and, building a more animated horse tail out of solder.  The following montage shows some of these points in close-up.

Now he's off to find a Prussian army that needs him to help them whip the French and chase them all the way back to Paris.

WiPs and Butchered Bits

With the WW2 items finished it's time to do some more vintage 20mm Napoleonics; in this case the French 4th Hussars, courtesy of a very kind gift from a fellow blogger (Hinton Hunt Odyssey).  I had been trying, without success, to obtain some of these figures since I had been seduced into this vintage madness by 'The Hinton Spieler' back in 2017.   So, having finally obtained some, they have been fast-tracked to the front of the painting queue.

Now, as is ever the case with vintage OOP figures, comes the inevitable cleaning up and repair of the castings; plus, converting some rank and file into command figures that were sadly lacking in the Hinton Hunt range.

First up the horses.  These have been cleaned of any flash and had any holes from in the castings filled with Milliput. 

The filling is rather simple but cleaning out the excess metal between the horses back legs would be a real bore without my trusty Dremel rotary tool and grinding bits.  As I didn't take any 'before' photos of this process, here's one of a handy one-piece casting showing the problem next to one of the 4th Hussar horses that was free of this flaw.

The troopers, seen in the first photo, now need cleaning up and the following photo shows the figures selected for conversion into an officer and trumpeter, ...

... together with one trooper who needs his sword repaired, the photo below showing the missing point that needs replacing.

The 'butchered bits' in the title to this post are standing by to be cannibalised for these figures; including a Newline Design trumpeter - trumpets are just too fiddly to fabricate from scratch.

To command these hussars, I've included a personality figure in this painting batch, and who better to command a regiment of hussars than the man himself, General Antoine-Charles-Louis, Comte de Lasalle.

I hadn't originally intended to do any mods to the figure but his right hand resting on his thigh was just begging to have a pipe added as I've never seen an illustration of him without it.  

That's all for now, but these will take some time to complete so there will probably be another WiP post before they are completed and ready for a full-dress parade. 

Rabbit Holes and Sidetracks

A few posts back, before I started playing in the current Chain of Command campaign (the last three posts), I posted on some work in progress (WiP).  I had hoped to have completed those items by now, but in addition to the campaign and some DIY chores I also started on some other items.  Anyway, here's a quick update on what has been finished, including a few of the distractions.

First, here's my Bromefield[1] M1800 Iron 10" Howitzer, being tried out for size by one of my RHA crews (the RA crews are still in the painting queue).

Also, as I'm rather proud of them and haven't posted them before, here's my rocket troop, featuring a Phoenix Miniatures crew and scratch-built launcher.

Getting back to the original WiP items, here are the WW2 20mm items that have made it across the finish line.  

The Unic P107 half-track and Daimler Scout Car, with their respective crews are the only original members of the last WiP post.  So, they deserve a few more photos, starting with the P107 with driver, gunner and a few infantry ...

... and then removed for when they disembark to be replaced by based troops.

These figures are joined with steel wire inserted through them, the rigid grouping being enough to hold them securely in place without wobbling.

By contrast the Dingo Scout Car has its crew fixed in place - there is a driver in there, honest, you just can't see him.

The other completed items, indicated by yellow arrows[2], consist of two MG, and one ATG, entrenchments, a kneeling figure and some casualties.

The entrenchments were the result of messing with Milliput when filling the tanks that haven't as yet been completed - I always make up too much.  The larger gun emplacement was a set of plastic 1/72 sandbags that came with a Checkpoint kit (Hasegawa IIRC) and thought I might as well do them as well.

The dead figure was found when going through my stash looking for crew for the P107, and got included as I'm short of German dead.  Likewise, the kneeling figure was missing his right arm, and half his right leg, cut off for use in a previous conversion, but as I also found a spare arm I thought I'd repair him being short of kneeling figures.  And with some other spare parts (6 legs & 1 arm, mostly from the crews for the Dingo and the unfinished tanks), together with some of the spare Milliput I fashioned another grisly addition to the collection.

The final distraction was finishing off a Hinchliffe 25mm Hellenistic General that had been sitting half-painted on the window ledge for longer than I care to admit.

So, as the next CoC campaign game is not scheduled for a while yet, I should be getting on with completing the tanks[3], which are pretty well advanced, for my next post.  Well, once the last of the DIY chores is done - they don't take that long but I'm a world-class procrastinator.

Notes:

[1.]  I have seen various spellings for 'Bromefield', and last time went with 'Blomefield', but Bromefield seems more common so I'm now using that until corrected.

[2.]  The MG teams and ATG occupying the entrenchments are just added for aesthetic effect and to show the fit.

[3.]  A Tetrarch, a Pz II Luchs and a Pz III J.

The Old, the Quick and the Obsolescent

With another so-called heatwave making painting difficult / unpleasant, I am using the time to make up some metal kits.

First out of the blocks was a British M1800 Bromefield 10" Iron Howitzer ('The Old').  This will be a drop-in[1] option for my 20mm Napoleonic gun crews.  This piece, was only used in sieges during the Napoleonic period and rarely at that, BUT it's just so full of character I couldn't resist getting one.

The armoured vehicles are to fill out my 20mm WW2 collection, and add some recce capability ('The Quick'), and some second-rate equipment ('The Obsolescent') that was fielded in NW Europe when there was nothing better available - it's also cheap (support points) in Chain of Command.

The kits are by the now sadly defunct MMS Models, and clockwise from bottom left are: a Panzer II 'Luchs' (light recce tank); a Panzer III Ausf J (still awaiting its main armament, a 5cm KwK 38 L/42); a Unic P107 half-track (a French hand-me-down used by 21st Pz); a Daimler Scout Car[2]; and a Tetrarch CS to support my upcoming Airborne platoon.

Of these, I have to say my favourite is the Panzer III, and I'm justifying getting one on the basis of several being in Panzer Kompanie Mielke at Arnhem; and I'm particularly partial to the marks with the short 50mm gun.  But, having put the kit together I have to say I found the Luchs has rather caught my fancy. 

All these kits will need some additional cleaning and filling, but I'll do them all together in a single session when they're all ready.  With the exception of the Tetrarch, I will be fitting figures to the vehicles (removable in some cases) which is why most still have their hatches missing - they will be fitted when I work out how the figures will be placed / posed.

Notes:

[1.]  I mount my gun crews on a large base and their guns on a separate base that can be dropped in amongst the gun crew.  This has two benefits: one the gun being on its own base is closer to the correct height compared to the gun crew; and, two I can easily swap between 6pdrs, 9pdrs and howitzers.

[2.]  Note the roof folded back, Chain of Command only lists the Daimler Scout Car as roofless but all marks after the first had a roof that could be folded back.

Modified Vintage 20mil Naps Complete

At last, my 2nd Burgos Regiment is finished, this was quite a long job given the amount of modifications made as covered in earlier posts.  That said I'm rather chuffed with how they turned out so now it's time for their curtain call:

First, the regiment in line, accompanied by a previously painted Major General.

Then some drill practise in formations less used by my Spanish troops, such as attack column[1] ...

... and square (I have a habit of relying on musketry to stop cavalry).

And, finally a close up of the command group.

Notes:

[1.]  In this photo an interloper can be seen behind the general - this was the test figure I did first just to be sure I could pull off the conversions before beheading an entire unit's worth of figures.  When I did the unit's rank and file, I did an entire unit's worth in case one of the conversions failed - they all worked so he's now a handy spare.

Figure Mods - another WiP Update

While the rank and file were held up waiting for new drill bits the trial figure was finished and the command figures painted, only their gloss varnish to do now.

First, the trial figure.

The Officer (not my favourite).

The Drummer (my favourite).

And finally, the standard bearer - you'll be able to see how 'impressionistic' (messy?) the painting is in gory detail in the close up if you click on the photo.

The rank and file have all now been re-headed and are being painted, so hopefully not too long now.

Figure Mods - Waiting for Bits

I wasn't planning on another update this soon but I broke my last decent drill bit for my Dremel rotary tool so thought I'd post some more on the command figures while waiting for some more drill bits[1] to arrive courtesy of Amazon (hopefully today).  

My last post saw the three command figures largely dismembered; the ensign needing a new head, the officer a head swap, and the drummer a head and arms swap!  So, after crafting another solder hat for the ensign, here they are put together and starting to take on their final appearance.

Since then, all I have managed is a bit more filing and some final detailing added with greenstuff as going near them with a soldering iron at this stage would undoubtedly see any solder on them revert to a shapeless blob. 

So, with still some tidying up of the greenstuff still to do, here's the officer, ...

... the ensign, ...

... and, the drummer.

I'm quite pleased with these, especially the drummer as he looks quite natural despite being a fairly extreme cut and shut job.  The officer and the ensign will both have boots, the ensign some nice tight ones that can just be done with a paint job.  I'm not sure whether the ensign would've worn a bicorn but I didn't want him in a round hat or competing with the officer's cocked hat.  Anyway, I think he's turned out okay and I like the tilt to his head that looks like he's paying attention to what he's doing with the colour.

Notes:

[1.]  Good drill bits are essential for drilling holes into the heads and torsos of figures having head-swaps to allow a steel wire to be inserted in both to provide a robust joint.  Without one I can't get on with all the rest of the planned head-swaps.