Sculpting again

Had a bit of a break from painting recently and over the holidays did a little bit more sculpting. I'd done those new heads a while back and also had some basic walking dollies which I'd drop cast ages ago. I've worked one of these up into a SYW period Hanoverian Infantryman (or an approximation thereof) Its a 30mm ish figure of similar size and dimension to a Willie one (which is the sort of style I was trying to go for). I'm reasonably happy with the way he's turned out, so might get him cast up and then work up some variants with different heads etc

More train

A couple of little vignettes while I work on painting up the next unit.

Both Connoisseur items, the french female sulter and the mule team.

Mule guy is a conversion, the head on the original figure is a real huge "pumkin head" effort, most un-gilder like! So I chopped it off and put on one of the heads I scuplted myself. It's still a little too big (it was made for 30mm figures) but it's better then the one that was on it!

Restoration Complete

I've spent a good chunk of the last year (and more!) progressively working through the various French and allied units that I picked up ex WHC. Each unit has been cleaned, repaired, and rebased and the work involved has varied from fairly minor repairs to some comprehensive restoration and repainting.

Anyway, I've just completed the last two units and here they are:


The 33rd Ligne

And the 9th Legere

At times this work has been a bit of a chore at times, not as enjoyable as painting "new" units from scratch, but in many ways it was worthwhile and rewarding for me in a different way.  Restoring these "old campaigners", every unit of which is real quality, felt like I was bringing back to life work that was worth maintaining, and with a little bit of TLC bringing them back to their full glory after so many years of hard action.

I now have a very solid core collection, consistanly based and of a very high standard. I'm delighted with them.

One thing I have been trying to do as I worked through these units, was to paint the odd "new" thing as I went along. In that regard, here is the latest command base addition. A French General of Division, with an escort of two elite company dragoons from the 24th regt. The General is a Willie figure, the dragoons, are old Hinchliffe figures, with heads swapped for a couple of bicorne ones that I had in the spares box.

Hessians

As I said in my last post, been trying to sort out various bits and bobs of things that have been kicking around on the workbench for a while half done. That, mixed in with some major DIY work at home, has slowed progress, but starting to get there now.

So just for interest, here are a couple of Minden Artillery crews painted up recently as Hessians for Doug and I's AWI adventures.

And there's enough Germans now that some command is required, so here's a Command base made up of a couple of Willie "gentlemen" types from "the hunt" set, tweaked a little with sashes etc. Mounted on a Foremost and Connoisseur horse respectively. Back to Napoleonics next.

Something Old, Something New

Been busy sorting out various "odds and ends" over the last month or so, some AWI "old school" hessian commanders and artillery for one, but a few Napoleonic items as well. So here we have another  ex WHC "restored" unit, its the French 39th Ligne

And also managed to complete a "new" French line Artillery battery of 8pdrs. All Connoisseur with a few head swaps and minor tweaks, except one of the officers who is a Bicorne with a head swap

Murat

Been working on a few Command bases recently and here's the latest thats been completed, Joachim Murat, King of Naples, complete with an escort from his Gardes d'honneur. Connoisseur Figures mounted on Foremost horses.

Somebody has to!

Whenever you read accounts from any period of warfare, it's clear that every army has a huge "tail", yet for many of us gamers, this is something that at best tends to take a rather unrealistic back seat on the table.

So, in an attempt to reset the balance at least to some extent, here's a couple of French limber teams to help bring the firepower into action.