The figures are nice but not the most interesting thing...

These were a reasonably recent eBay purchase. Good original figures nicely painted in a style which matches well with mine. Though I must have at least a hundred foot guards in bearskin by now.

But the really interesting thing was the hand made fitted box they came in. made by the seller's late father, they took me back to when if you wanted something you had to make it yourself - no kickstarters or cottage industry wargames companies. The box is beautifully made out of what I think is artists mounting board, among other things. I have two other purchases from this seller, both with boxes - another Hinton Hunt foot unit and an S range French cavalry box, which is substantially larger.

The fitted boxes reminded me of one of my all time favourite eBay purchases, from a good few years ago, which was a series of Jacklex Colonial artillery and equipment in a purpose made plywood box.

As ever apologies for pictures which are not the best.

Hinton Hunt Painting Instructions

After a significant amount of work I have now finished transcribing all the sets of original Hinton Hunt Painting Transactions I have or which people have kindly sent me.

These originals are typically slightly (at least) fuzzy carbon copy type documents. They don't reproduce well when posted so transcribing them seemed to be the best way to preserve them and make them accessible and usable.

Marcus Hinton was not entirely consistent in style or spelling but I have tried to remain as true as possible to the originals, avoiding editing and keeping as close to the original text and layout.

All are for Napoleonic figures.

I have grouped them in seven separate documents:

A - Index - a list of all those included in the transcripts

1 - AN Codes - Austrians (16)
2 - BN Codes - British (24)
3 - FN Codes - French (51)
4 - PN Codes - Prussian (11)
5 - RN Codes - Russian (9)

6 - Smaller Nations - includes Bavaria (1), Brunswick (3), Netherlands (1), Hesse-Darmstadt (2), Nassau (1), Portugal (1), Grand Duchy of Warsaw (1), Wurttemberg (1)

These documents are pdfs. I hope there may be some additions in time as people may send me scans or copies of sets I don't yet have.

As there is the potential for these documents to change I am not making them available at the moment for download. Instead, you can send me a comment (which I won't publish), giving your email address and saying which of the seven documents you would like me to send you.

It may be that more recent research has overtaken some of this information but Marcus Hinton was serious about his research and they give the authentic answer to how he expected his figures to be painted in the 1960s and 70s. Having transcribed them all I can confirm I think they will be very helpful for anyone looking to paint these vintage figures (provided, of course, the particular set of instructions you need were available to me and are included in my list0.

As I am doing this because once I had done it for myself I thought I would share the information with others, this is all on a good will basis so I make no guarantees about how quickly I can deal with any requests I receive, but I will do my best to respond quickly.

This information is provided on condition no commercial use is made of it, and on condition you do not copy and send to anyone else. If you know of anyone who would also like them, please direct them here to obtain them from me.

Two more Napoleonic units - British and Spanish infantry

I think both of these units may be Der Kriegspieler figures - I painted and based them quite a while ago and have only just got round to photographng them. When I feel brave I may get the Green Stuff out and have a go at adding greatcoats to some command figures for the British. The Spanish officers are from Douglas Miniatures - not a very good photo I am afraid.

I do have a large number of Spanish and Portuguese infantry battalions which I have acquired and which are waiting painting - the Portuguese are eight line and two cacadores battalions, all Hinton Hunt, with a third Der Kriegspieler cacadore battalion; and four and a half Hinton and three Douglas Spanish line battalions. It may be a while until I get round to these, but it will beef up all my Portuguese brigades in British Divisions to full strength, and bring my Spanish contingent up to one and a half strong or two weak divisions.

British Stovepipe Infantry

Not a great picture, but I have finished all my early war British infantry with this two-and-a-half-battalion brigade.

Peninsular early war cavalry

A long time following the last post, here is my completed Peninsular early war cavalry division (minus artillery and command, yet to be assigned - the Heavies will be Ponsonby's, I'm undecided about the lights - probably it will have to be Stapleton Cotton.

The Heavies are missing plumes, which seems right for campaigning, and the Spanish Dragoons are I think a conversion of the Austrian Chevauleger with a bicorned head, which have then been cast up.

I have always wondered why the rule for British Napoleonic ranges has been for them almost always to be in Belgic shakoes for the infantry and foot gunners, bell topped shakoes for light dragoons, and helmets for heavy cavalry. This tends to mean even where earlier war figures were produced, they have far fewer poses or variations, and are far harder to come by.

Stovepipe infantry, tarletoned light dragoons and bicorned heavies are far more versatile, so I am glad to have been able to add these early cavalry. I have two and a half battalions of stovepipe infantry which are the next in line for painting - that will give me 6 battalions in stovepipe, plus a battalion of marines and a naval landing party, supported by four battalions of sepoys, for my early war expeditionary forces. they also have access to vast numbers of horse artillery plus

BN 213 British Light Dragoon in Tarleton

My first Napoleonics completed in a while, and the picture was not helped by needing to use the flash.

I am hopeful of eventually being able to field three regiments of these light dragoons and two of their heavy counterparts in bicornes. These will then provide the cavalry element for my early war British. I have a division's worth of line infantry in stovepipe shakos and at least a division's worth of light infantry and rifles. Just need to properly organise my French Line into pre Bardin and post Bardin divisions.

Reinforcements

Thanks to Paul in Oz for a number of reinforcements - first, and most marvellously, 6BN 213 British Light Dragoons in tarleton helmets - top of my list of wanted figures - if anyone has any BN 206 Heavy Dragoons in cocked hat they want to send me that would be wonderful too! I know have 6 battalions of British infantry in stovepipe shakos so having some of the earlier British cavalry gives me an reasonably sized accurate British early war/Peninsular force.

Only marginally less marvellous are 16 marching Bavarians plus officer, which will bring my Bavarians up to full Regimental (brigade) strength. I know I had an idea of painting up a spare Prussian adc as a Bavarian general, I will have to have another look at Knotel to see if this is feasible.

Equally valuable are some Russian gunners and three very nice pairs of French artillery horses. All are very valuable items in bringing some of my national contingents up to strength and I am very grateful to Paul.

I have also added the picture to the previous post for BN 213.

Can you ever have enough artillery?

After the last three weeks, my answer is yes, especially if you have to paint them all.

Things have been quiet here on the posting front as I have been conducingd a major audit of my French and British artillery, sorting into crews, allocating guns, and painting and basing the unpainted and unbased. The results are posted below.

I had thought I had finished, but have found one extra painted British gun, for which I will paint up one further RHA crew, and also I need to paint up a small number of extra French artillery drivers.

Though I wouldn't swear to it, I think the final tally is in the region of:

French

23 guns and 3 howitzers
4 caissons
6 limbers
around 30 horses

British

24 guns and three howitzers
Siege train of 2 18 pounders and a 10" howitzer
A rocket troop in light order (pack horses rather than rocket carts)
1 ammunition limber
12 limbers
around 50 horses

Guns are a mixture of Hinchliffe 20mm, Hinton Hunt, Der Kriegspieler and Newline Designs. There are also a couple of Fine Scale factory siege guns

It has to be said that Marcus Hinton was not at his best with artillery guns and equipment - managing to get them looking chunky and underscale at the same time.

The old Hinchliffe 20mm pieces are miniature masterpieces. The best currently available substitute for Hinton Hunt guns and limbers are those from Newline Designs - a big range, and as they are small 20mm pleasingly recall the slightly undersize look of Hinton Hunt ones, while being considerably more detailed.

My French artillery arm suffers from the usual over-representation of Guard units and the absence of line horse artillery from the Hinton Hunt range. I am intending to second some Guard horse artillery units to support of my Grand Duchy of Warsaw forces.

The acquisition of 30 or so Der Kriegspieler Royal Artillery gunners helped achieve a better balance between foot and horse artillery units for the British. I am also pleased with the siege train - I will sort out some trains for these, as I have considerable numbers of Jacklex oxen which serve a bridging train and colonial artillery units, and which can easily do double duty for the Napoleonic period.

Next task is a second (Der Kriegspieler) Hesse Darmstadt battalion. This will leave me with some new Russian and Prussian acquisitions to complete; and audit of my Austrians; and then facing up to around 100 battalions of French and British infantry - and then the cavalry.... I think in the circumstances the approach of completing national contingents has worked quite well

British Artillery - Royal Horse Artillery

Eleven RHA crews, all Hinton Hunt figures, serving a mixture of Hinton Hunt and Newline guns.

British Artillery - Royal Artillery

Thirteen Royal Artillery crews - a mixture of Hinton Hunt and Der Kriegspieler figures - with Newline guns, including 2 howitzers (can you spot the deliberate mistake in the first photograph?)


Finally, a third howitzer crew, this time Alberken/Minifigs 20mm figures, also serving a Newline gun

British Artillery - Royal Artillery siege train

Produced for the siege warfare try out with Tony over at the Prometheus in Aspic blog, the gus are a Hinchliffe 20mm British 10" howitzer and two Fine Scale Factory 18 pounders. The crews are a mixture of Hinton Hunt and Der Kriegspieler figures, and the gun emplacements are from the Italeri plastic artillery sets - these come in both the Napoleonic French and American Civil War large sets.

Bases are some of the emergency MDF sabots I had cut at my local timber merchants for our Command & Colours Napoleonic excursion. I am not sure yet whether to leave these as they are or to try to add some landscaping to the bases. I rather like them as they are.

British Artillery - Rocket troop conversions

Bought on ebay a while ago, I think these may have been from Pete Bateman, but I am not sure

British Artillery - Royal Horse Artillery Limbers

Eleven British Limbers and a single British Ammunition limber (on the left hand side of the front row.

Four of the limbers (two of which are on flocked, two on unflocked bases) are Hinchliffe 20mm models, the rest are Hinton Hunt. I am not sure about the ammunition limber, I suspect it is also the Hinchliffe 20mm one rather than the Hinton Hunt AL2A, as it is a much better and finer model than other Hinton Hunt artillery equipment.

British Artillery - Royal Artillery Limber

A Hinchlifee 20mm limber, ridden by S Range Royal Artillery limber twins (Hinton Hunt didn't do such figures), with a Hinton Hunt driver and horses. As these are my only RA limber riders, I have only one RA limber.

British Artillery - Limbers and horse-saving system

As mentioned elsewhere, because I am better supplied with limbers than horses, I have a modular system designed to stretch a limited number of horses as far as possible. Each limber has a two horse team; I then also have some extra pairs and four horse teams on separate bases, which can be added to limbers as required. My idea is that perhaps when guns are being moved this will be marked by the use of these extra teams.

The two pictures show the modular system with the teams and limbers, first separated and then closed up.

Additionally some of my limbers have longer bases to accommodate guns being towed behind them.

Wargames Holiday Centre: British Units: 1st Foot (Royal Scots)

The sergeant looks to be a conversion of an Alberken/Minigigs 20mm British infantryman with the addition of an outsize poke.

Wargames Holiday Centre: British Units: 40th Foot (2nd Somersetshire)

The officers seem to have been given over-length replacement wire swords.

Units - Landing Parties

More views of Royal Marines and Royal Navy landing figures. Some additional figures have been added. You may also spot two Minifigs 20mm Marines mounted in a three together with a S Range Marine officer.

More Peter Gilder pictures from Miniature Warfare

These photographs from Miniature Warfare September 1970 were taken by Peter Gilder.

In the first picture, captioned The Imperial Guard move forward, I suspect the Mamelukes are Garrison and I have the feeling the infantry at bottom right may be Minifigs. I am not sure about the Cuirassiers - they may be Garrison too?

Peter Gilder Waterloo picture from Miniature Warfare cover September 1970

From the cover of Miniature Warfare magazine, photograph by Peter Gilder, captioned "View from behind the sand pit to the left of La Haye Sainte". You can just make out some Alberken British within La Haye Sainte's courtyard.