Hinchliffe 20mm Equipment Range

In the comments on a recent post about French line artillery on Stryker's Hinton Hunt Vintage Wargames Figures blog there has been a little discussion about the Hinchliffe 20mm equipment range. These were generally reckoned the best 20mm equipment available, significantly better than Hinton Hunt guns and limbers, and with a slightly bigger range. 

Although the moulds were lost a long time ago I was surprised how little known they appear to be even among aficionados of vintage 20mm figures so I am posting the listing and some photo from the 1972 Hinchliffe catalogue. They certainly deserve to be better known.

Below are two photos of a Peter Gilder French Old Guard Artillery crew with a Hinchliffe 20mm French 12 pdr gun.(These are Hinton Hunt figures which were originally owned by Peter Gilder).

A British 10" howitzer, suitable for both Napoleonic and Crimean Waes

British Colonial Elephant team and 40 pdr gun

4 sets, with the 40 pdr gun versions on each side and 2 sets with the 6.3" Howitzer in the middle. (I know the tubes of the 40 pdrs are in firing rather than travelling position but I didn't want to have any of the guns only in the travelling position This set was the first metal figures I ever saw, in a hardware shop in Durham in the early 1970s. I can't remember the cost but it was astronomical when Airfix figures had been 2/11 a box. More than 40 years later and with the help of eBay and others I now have about 12 sets of them, which may be overcompensating.

And finally a pair of British Colonial Baggage wagons. These came without horse teams or divers/crews, so these have been completed with S Range draught horses and Jacklex drivers.

Hinton Hunt Original Painting Instructions Transcribed

Over on my Hinton Hunter blog I have posted on my project to transcribe all the original Hinton Hunt painting instructions I could find for their 20mm Napoleonic range.

Following the link to the blog post will provide more information and how to get hold of the transcripts if you want them.

The old and the new: Command&Colors: Napoleonics with vintage figures

I'm not really sure which blog to put this on, so I'm posting it here and on the Hinton Hunter.

This weekend saw a visit almost to the Kingdom of Fife, to join Tony of Prometheus in Aspic in test playing Richard Borg's new Command&Colors Napoleonics with vintage figures - Tony's Peninsular French against my Hinton Hunt and Der Kriegspieler Russians and Prussians.

An emergency visit to my local timber merchants on Thursday morning equipped me with around 40 120mm square sabots made from 4mm MDF (£6 the lot); with these and three trays of figure we were good to go.

Others have been playing C&C: Napoleonics with figures (see Conrad Kinch's recent excursion on Joy and Forgetfulness) but the combination of Tony's hex based set up, and the vintage figures we used, made for an interesting spectacle. We played three games - the Rolica first French position and second French position scenarios to a conclusion, all within one day including lunch out and an Indian takeaway. The Russians and Prussians stood in for the British in these scenarios, using French (rather than British) unit characteristics.

The game worked well, was easy to pick up, thoroughly enjoyable and somehow seemed appropriate to the figures. Along with Tony, I wouldn't want it to be the only Napoleonic rules I ever played, but it was thoroughly enjoyable and refreshing to get three games played right through in such a short time. Plenty of surprises to keep you on the toes, and of course Tony had done all the hard work of customising the dice and cards from the game.

Here are two slideshows, one for each of the scenarios (we played the second one twice.

Battle of Rolica: French first position

Battle of Rolica: French second position

Hinton Hunt Figures: advertisement in Miniature Warfare Magazine Vol 1 No 1, February 1968