Ode to Quarrie and Bavarian Cream

 A New Twist on an Old Favorite

As many of you know, the Tennant Collection of miniatures features many that were used in the pages of the Airfix Guide to Napoleonic Wargaming by Bruce Quarrie.  Dick Tennant and Donald Featherstone worked together to make the images that were used in the guide, by photographing parts of Dick Tennant's collection in painstakingly arranged scenic vignettes.  I have been working to bring that collection back up into top notch condition, repairing chipped paint or broken ankles and bayonets, adding some shading and highlighting, as well as rebasing and giving all a hard protective shiny coat.  In some cases I have added new figures to bring them up to a full wargaming compliment.  Recently I finished painting a scenic backdrop of my own (or at least got it close enough to finished for a debut), so I decided to recreate one of my favorite photos from the Quarrie guide - The Vistula Lancers.

Originally only twelve figures of the fourteen were shown, as the officer and trumpeter were not included in the selected image.  As part of the upgrade of this unit, I pulled out the Colonel to be mounted singly, added a standard bearer and four new troopers, bringing the total to 18 and a Colonel. The end result can be seen above.

Here they are in a setting and angle more similar to the original photo.

This is the original colour photo used in the Quarrie guide which Dick Tennant kindly included in his notes for the collection.  You can see that originally, Dick had painted the plumes yellow over blue, but at some point he had corrected it to blue over black.

As seen in the page of the Airfix Guide

My take on the original

Here is one of the original photos that was unused showing the Colonel and trumpeter.

The Bavarians

Now that I have taken ownership of the collection, I have tried to expand it into the Tennant/Crenshaw collection.  The Bavarians have all been painted by me in a sympathetic style to the original figures in the collection.  Dick was not above mixing manufacturers, and while mostly Hinton Hunt, and Alberken figures, some SHQ, Les Higgins and a lot of Dave Clayton HH castings are included.  The Bavarians feature mostly Der Kriegspieler copies of the original Hinton Hunt figures, as well as a highly modified metal casting of some Airfix figures that are as far as I know, unique.  The wagons, artillery and command are all beautifully cast and sculpted modern Franznap figures (with the exception of the Colonel of the Chvaulegers, which is a slightly modified Hinton Hunt trooper - https://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2021/07/bavarian-5th-chevauleger-regiment.html).

General Major Franz Xaver Graf von Minucci has ordered an inspection of the completed Artillery train and has ordered the rest of the contingent to turn out for inspection as well.

The Artillery train preparing to unlimber.

Sighting the guns

The Ammunition wagon prepares to loop around to the rear before the guns open up.

Here are the afore mentioned homecasts of Airfix plastics.  I have no idea of their origin story, nor did I realize at the time they were recast from Airfix plastics.  The muskets were horribly cast so each was replaced by had in a painstaking and tedious process!  https://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2019/09/bavarian-infantry-regiment-kinkel.html

The second battalion was made with Der Kriegspieler miniatures.

The Whole Bavarian Contingent; 2 battalions of infantry, a detachment of Light Infantry, a small regiment of Chevauleger and the artillery including the limber horses and ammunition wagon.

The Franznap figures are such a pleasure to work with.

Everyone is in position.  Time to fire the guns!

Just for fun, the Bavarians in their own picture perfect moment harkening back to the 1970s!

Up next time - Refurbishing the Baden infantry battalions and artillery.