Scotland Forever!

Here they are The 2nd (Royal North British) Dragoons finished at last. The figures are all vintage Hinton Hunt castings brought together from different sources over the course of thirteen years, stripped, repaired and repainted by me.

Lock up your Eagles, here they come!

Ponsonby with the full Union Brigade - the Scots Greys, the Irish Inniskilling's and the English 1st Royal Dragoons. 

I’ll be staying in Heavy Cavalry mode for the next unit – The Blues.

Painting Rocking Horses

Looking back on the blog I see that it’s thirteen years since I last attempted to paint horses for the Greys (click here). This time around at least I have those original figures to use as a painting guide and fortunately I made a note of the colours I used.

Restoration work complete, the six figures are currently on the painting desk. I had to abandon painting tonight as the temperature outside the hut has dropped to minus 2 and the heater was struggling to get up to +8 inside, hopefully it will be warmer tomorrow.

I don’t usually make very much effort with my horses, but I’ve had to with these and in this instance they have taken almost as much time to paint as the riders. Hopefully I’ll have the whole lot finished sometime next week.

Greys Anatomy

Last year Mark very kindly sent me six Scots Greys castings he had spare from his own project. The figures had all seen better days with swords missing, limbs detached from bases, and some tails docked but I thought it would be a good challenge to restore them.

This is how they arrived, rather sorry looking but full of potential.

The first step was to insert a brass rod into the docked tails (Ooh Matron!) to give the putty something to stick to.

Here is the tail built up using Magic Sculp putty. This was quite fiddly and my first efforts resulted in tails that were too fat ("you're not going to leave them like that are you?" said Mrs S, who had suddenly become an expert on miniatures restoration) so I had to carve away my handiwork until they looked right.

I gave one of the figures a trumpet as he was already missing his sword. This is now my tried and tested method - glue a piece of brass rod to his mouth and hand and then build up the trumpet shape with putty.

The missing swords were replaced from some donor DK figures I had lying around. These were spliced into the figure's arm and then made good with putty, not perfect but should look ok when painted.

And here they are finished (a couple of bases needed filling too as there were holes).

The plan now is to paint them and add them to my current squadron of six figures to make up a full unit – you can never have too many Scots Greys.

Black Watch on parade

Finally finished off and based up – the 42nd Black Watch on parade. They’re going to need to brush up on their drill (particularly forming square) if the rumours are true that the ‘monster’ has escaped from Elba!

Scotlands finest in column of march.

 The regiment deployed in battle-line.

All the figures I used for this unit were vintage Hinton Hunt castings with the exception of the two colour bearers who were converted from DK figures. The unit is made up of:

18 x BN/36 Highland private (marching)
3 x BN/30 Officer (charging) – two converted as colour bearers
1 x BN/37 Officer (marching)
1 x BN/31 Sergeant (charging)
1 x BN/38 Piper (playing bag-pipes)

"Jock, is there anything worn beneath your kilt?"

"Nae sir, it's all in perfect workin' order!"

A taste of things to come? The regiment forms square to defend against French cavalry.

The preparations for Vintage Waterloo are continuing at quite a pace – Roy seems to have every skilled brush-smith in the land (actually the world) beavering away painting up his troops. If you haven’t already seen them take a look here at Matt’s blog and here at Lee’s blog.

So the pressure is on – next up for me will be a squadron of Grenadiers-a-cheval of the Guard who will be brigaded with my Polish Guard lancers for the game.

Fall in the 42nd

Somehow I’ve managed to finish painting the Black Watch in the record time of only three months! Actually, sarcasm aside, that really is quick for me considering the amount of tartan and other detail involved. Strangely I really enjoyed all the faffing about to produce this unit although I’ll say right here and now that this will be the only kilted unit I’m going to paint for this project.

I just need to finish the detail on the top of the flag poles and then base the whole lot up before they can take their place in the British order of battle ready for Vintage Waterloo.

According to Roy things are progressing well (only he could email me with the line “I found 24 painted Old Guard today”) and at some point in the next month or two we intend to get together for a dry run and to thrash out the details of the game.

Highland Officer

Work continues on the Black Watch at a slightly slower rate than I had hoped due to the real world intruding somewhat on my time. This is all the more frustrating as I’m really enjoying painting these figures having got over my tartan jitters; in fact I’m now in the happy position of having finished the tartan on all 24 figures.

This is a vintage casting of BN/37 Highland Officer (marching). In common with their other ranges Hinton Hunt produced two highland officer figures, one in the charging pose and one marching. I’ve included both types in this unit.

With luck I will have the whole unit finished and based up soon but I do still have all the hat bands and stocking tops to do on the last 12 marching infantry so bear with me.

Black Watch flag bearer

This is one of my finished flag bearer figures for the 42nd Black Watch. The figure, as I already mentioned, is a conversion of a Der Kreigspieler officer. The figure appears to be a straight copy of BN/30 from the Hinton Hunt range and although not pukka HH is at least contemporary with the original range.

Interestingly (in an anorak kind of way) when I took a closer look at the other DK highlander figures that Jack sent I noticed that the rank and file were sporting sporrans which were never worn on campaign during the Napoleonic wars. Was this a romanticised addition by the Americans at DK or an attempt to change the figures in way that might prevent them from being obvious copies of Hinton Hunt? We may never know.

I had to fiddle about painting and re-painting the stocking tops and hat bands on all the Black Watch figures to date as I wasn’t happy with my initial attempts. It pays to look at a lot of pictures of uniforms sometimes to get things right and I’m satisfied now that this is as good as I can get. This figure (and his friend) will eventually receive a Revo flag and homemade green stuff finial on his flag pole.

WIP Black Watch Colour Guard

I found a little time last night to start work on the Black Watch colour guard. The converted figures are the DK version of BN/30 Officer (charging) that Jack sent to me last month.

The conversion job required a bit of arm bending (nerve wracking) followed by the creation of bionic green stuff hands to hold the flag-poles. Please take note (Roy) that I have gone to great efforts to correctly position the flag pole against the body rather than take the easy option of having it resting on the ground.

I’ll post pictures of these lads again when I’ve finished painting them.

Highland Sergeant

This is BN/31 Highland Sergeant (charging), another part of my rather large command figure contingent for the Black Watch.

I’m working on the flag-bearers now which will take me to the halfway point of the unit. With a bit of luck I will have the whole battalion finished in a month or two.

If you haven’t seen it yet you should check out the Hinton Spieler blog from Matthew in New Zealand. Some lovely Hinton Hunt figures rejuvenated with some equally lovely brushwork!

One piper piping…

Not quite the twelve days of Christmas but it’s a start I guess. This is a vintage Hinton Hunt casting of BN/38 Piper (playing bag-pipes).

I read in my Blandford (Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars) that the Black Watch pipers had kilts with ‘Royal Stuart’ tartan rather than the ‘Government tartan’ of the other ranks so I’ve tried to represent that here. I really enjoyed painting this one and spent way too much time on him but I’m quite happy with the result.

This will probably be my last post until after the festive season so “Happy present giving day” (yes, I really did see this politically correct but sad seasonal greeting on TV yesterday) and a Happy New Year to you all!

Highlander update

I’ve just finished a further five figures to make up my first company of the Black Watch. Painting these figures is pretty time consuming the way I do it but they haven’t proved as tricky as I thought they might. I have another twelve of these to go plus the command figures.

Six down, eighteen to go...

To break things up a bit I’m allowing myself to paint the first group of command figures next including the piper. These figures are all vintage ones: BN/31 Sergeant (charging), BN/37 Officer (marching) and BN/38 Piper (playing bag-pipes).

 Now who doesn't love to paint a piper?

Finally, thanks to Jack, I now have two DK versions of the charging officer figure and I will be converting these for use as standard bearers. Jack also sent me a DK highlander in a ‘high-porte’ position. This is an original DK model I believe as there is nothing like it in the Hinton Hunt range – a superb little figure.

The two DK officers and the 'high-porte' figure - nice!

Where’s your troosers?

Although I’m half Scottish I’ve only even worn a kilt once and that was at my daughter’s wedding last year. It was a bit of a strange experience but I have to say that I found it surprisingly comfortable and the sporran came in very handy for holding my mobile phone. I’ll probably never wear one again but I’m glad I did it.

 Luckily for all my nobbly knees are just hidden from view.

During the Napoleonic wars the Highland regiments didn’t wear the sporran on campaign but then again they didn’t have mobile phones. The photo below shows my test figure for the 42nd Black Watch listed in the Hinton Hunt catalogue as BN/36 Highland Private (marching). I was surprised to find that over half of the figures I have assigned to this unit are vintage ones with the remainder being Clayton castings of very good quality.

 It's a broad bricht moonlit nicht tonich the noo!

I followed the Hinton Hunt painting instructions on this one as Marcus Hinton even included detailed instructions for the tartan. I think the effect is pretty good and it was less of a fiddle to paint than I had feared.

 A view of a Highlander that no Frenchman is likely to see (unless the pub has just opened)

I’m hoping to get on and get a few more of the rank and file done before Christmas but I have a bit of a problem with the command figures as Hinton Hunt didn’t include any standard bearers in the range. I only have one officer figure suitable for conversion so I’m considering using a couple of converted charging figures instead.

Scotland Forever (2)

I finally got around to transferring my old photos onto my 'new' laptop this week and whilst perusing my Hinton Hunt folder I discovered this one.

The figures are Hinton Hunt BN49 one-piece casting of a charging Scots Greys trooper painted by me nearly six years ago (yikes!). Looking at them again I'm pretty impressed with the result and I doubt if I could turn out such nice looking figures now.

Here's a little quiz then - what old school wargaming book cover does this photo bear a passing resemblance to?

Union Brigade

Here are some shots of my Union Brigade taken during the recent troop review. This unit is my current favourite due to the rather pleasing splash of colour it makes when set out on the table. It’s not strictly speaking historically correct but it does consist of English (The Blues), Scottish (The Grey’s) and Irish (The Inniskillings) elements combined under the famous General Ponsonby.

I was very interested to read some of the comments re the film Waterloo left on my Sir William Ponsonby post. The film had a great influence on me back in 1970 when it came out, prompting me to go and buy loads of boxes of the Airfix British and French figures that were being released at about the same time. I knew there was no way I was going to be able to paint them all so I left them in bare plastic and mounted them on balsa wood bases painted red (for the British) or blue (for the French). They sidelined my Hinton’s for a while and took part in several battles including Waterloo played out on my bedroom floor.

Tony’s comment that the scene in the film of the French cavalry charge had to be shot three times is fascinating. I always wondered why the film makers never bothered to find a piece of ground that resembled an actual ridge but if they’d already had to move everyone twice before it makes sense. It was a great film though and nothing like it is ever likely to be made again using live extras – computer generated soldiers will always do just what the Director says. If you look at the amazing battle effects in films like Prince Caspian (one of my Christmas acquisitions) or Gods & Generals the next generation of historical war films should be well worth watching!

Scotland Forever

Surely one of the most famous cavalry charges in history – the charge of the Scots Grey’s at the battle of Waterloo. Here my Hinton Hunt Scots Grey’s troopers are about to collide with the French 45th Infantry Regiment. Sergeant Ewart (that must be him on the horse out front) is just moments away from snatching the Eagle from the hands of the French.

The Scots Grey’s were brigaded with the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons and the 1st (Royal) Dragoons to make up the famous Union Brigade at Waterloo. There were six troops present commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton and they suffered over 200 casualties on that one day of action. Interestingly the Grey’s spent the whole of the Napoleonic Wars except the last 100 days at home in blighty. I haven’t been able to find out exactly what they did during that time but I guess they must have been employed on policing duties. No wonder they were a bit keyed up by the time they finally got to make that charge.

There was a rumour that the Grey’s were drunk at the time of their famous action although some believe it may just have been a mix up in the translation of the word grey into French. I am half Scottish myself and many years ago had the experience of being in the middle of Glasgow at closing time on a Friday night. I can confirm that the average Scot has difficulty negotiating Sauchiehall Street on foot after a wee dram so I think galloping about on a big grey horse is definitely out of the question.

Royal North British Dragoons

You may have grown bored waiting for them but here at last are my Royal North British Dragoons – the Scots Grey’s. Six troopers mounted on the finest dapple-grey horses I have EVER painted. The figures are all vintage Hinton Hunt castings of BN49 Scots Grey’s Trooper Charging.

The models are one-piece castings from the horse-attached series, which as I’ve said before are something of an acquired taste. Excellent little models that I really enjoyed painting – once I got over the dapple dilemma.

Napoleon was greatly impressed with the Grey’s when he saw them in action during Waterloo apparently exclaiming “Qu’ils sont terribles, ces Chevaux Gris”. Now, I gave up trying to learn French at the age of thirteen but roughly translated I think this means “those blokes on the grey horses look a bit tough”.

Grappling with dapple… again!

Well it had to happen didn’t it? I did say that I was only 90% happy with the painting of my Scots Grey’s horse and things only got worse when Mrs S said she didn’t think it looked very good either. That was it – the more I looked at it the more it began to resemble the spotty dog in the Woodentops*.

So it was back to Dallimore to re-read his tips on painting dapple grey’s – “not as difficult as you may think” he says! With that, some tranquillisers, and a few pictures of horses I Googled I was ready for another bash.

By starting with a darker grey as my base tone and putting black socks on the legs I seem to have achieved a slightly more realistic result. This time the finished article looks less like an extra from Mary Poppins and a bit more like a menacing trooper from the Royal North British Dragoons. I hope you agree but to put me out of my misery please feel free to leave a comment!

*If you don’t know who the Woodentops were click here.

Grappling with dapple

This is my test figure for the Scots Grey’s. Whenever I start painting a new batch of models I always have a run through with one figure first. This is pretty vital with Hinton Hunts as there are so many grey areas (no pun intended) and it makes it a lot easier with the rest of the figures if I have already worked out the best way to paint each bit of detail.

As I suspected, the dapple grey effect on the horse has been the hardest part of this one. By referring to my Foundry Kevin Dallimore bible I felt confident I could achieve the right look but my first attempt ended up looking like a rocking horse – not very likely to terrify the French! I had to strip the paint off that one and start again.

This is my final offering. I am 90% happy with the result although the horse still has a touch of the fairground ride about it. Anyway, I know I don’t have the skill to make it look any better so this is how it will stay. The rider is more successful than the horse in my opinion. I have another five figures to paint to complete the full squadron.