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. 

WiP Complete - 3 Rare Tanks

With various jobs around the house complete I was able to focus on finishing the three tanks I started some time ago.  They are rare-ish because few were made in the case of the Tetrarch (100-177) and Panzer II Luchs (100); and the more numerous Panzer III was reduced to a handful of survivors by the late-war period which I game.  They are all 1/76 scale, white metal kits, by MMS Models.

The A17 MkVII Tetrarch, in this case the CS version, is intended to support my Airborne platoon and is painted in a two-tone brown camouflage pattern.  I had thought it was going to be pretty dull when I put it together but I find the finished look rather pleasing.

The Pz II Luchs, this was a nice kit although there were some casting flaws but it captures the rather 'cute' (can tank be cute?) look of the original.  The markings, for a 9th Panzer vehicle in Normandy, were a real pain.  The red, four-digit serial goes over some vision slots and decals refused to adhere to this uneven surface.  So, I had to paint these freehand, not great up close but from a distance they're okay.

The Panzer III, Ausf J, is one of my favourite tanks and I've painted it up as one of the training tanks forming Panzer Kompanie 'Mielke' at Arnhem.  That unit had several Pz III of various different marks not all of which are known so I've taken the liberty of assuming one was an Ausf J.  I've given it the serial number '28', as what I've read says they had black two-digit serial numbers on the turret and one of them was '29'.  The commander seems to be doing his Usain Bolt impression, what that's all about I'll leave to the imagination.

And finally, an even rarer flight of fancy.

ADDENDUM: I perhaps should've pointed out that the Airborne flashes on the Tetrarch are my first attempt at printing my own decals.  Didn't do too good a job of varnishing them before use to protect the ink from the water - but live and learn.

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.