Legion Irlandaise

They are a little late for their St. Patrick's Day debut, but I am happy to show of the refreshed Legion Irlandaise, originally painted by Richard Tennant.  My good friend Wellington Man has just posted his beautiful take on this regiment on his blog, The Hinton Spieler,

 https://thehintonspieler.blogspot.com/2024/04/united-irishmen.html, 

 I thought it would be fun to post these as well to compliment his work.  I am fairly certain these are made up of David Clayton castings, as they tend to be a bit smaller than original Hinton Hunt figures.  Nonetheless, they are beautifully cast and painted.  It was a pleasure to just touch these up a bit and add some shading and brighten the colors a titch.  I did add a new flag as the previous one was a bit too ordinary for such a splendid regiment.  I decided to model the 2nd battalion of the Regiment that served in Spain.  They are not quite as fancy as Wellington Man's 1st Battalion with their full plumes, but I do like their workman like simplicity.  They are lead by Lt. Colonel Jeremiah Fitzhenry, who is modelled with a lovely modern Franznap casting of a French Light Infantry Colonel.  He is the only figure I can claim as my own, but hopefully my touch ups have improved ever so slightly on the original rank and file.

Louis Baraguey d'Hilliers in 54mm Painted by Rob

Some time ago, in a somewhat brazen act of imposition, I asked if some of my fellow Hinton Hunt collectors would be interested in showing off their painting skills by painting a 54mm Hinton Hunt or Stadden figure and sending it to me as a memento of our friendship.  Aly was the first to complete the task, (https://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-first-of-54s-classic-marcus-hinton.html), with Rob fast on his heals.  While I am waiting on a plinth for display, I simply could not resist going ahead and posting some pictures of this magnificent piece.  Thank you Rob!!!

I will let Rob's work on this figure speak for itself.

And y'all thought he was engrossed in a map of the battlefield...

Just a final word of thanks to Rob for his magnificent work on this classic figure.  I am truly lucky to have such friends!

Napoleon's Beautiful Daughter - All 12 Pounds of Her!

I've been slowly expanding my French Imperial Guard forces made with Der Kriegspieler 1/72 scale metal miniatures.  Sometimes the Der Kriegspielers can be challenging castings to work with but these turned out to be pretty good quality.  In particular the canon and limber set were nicely cast.  

While I normally just model a four horse limber, for the heavy twelve pounders I felt like I had to go with the full six!

The traces for the horses were made from a spool of twisted wire.  I was hoping it would give the traces a rope like look to match the work done by Dick Tennant on the line artillery limbers, but it came out looking more like leather, which is actually fine since that is what was actually used.

In the old school rules I use the gun represents two actual canons and each crew member represents a canon.  So here is an eight gun 12 pounder battery deployed for action.  As casualties are assessed, the loss of a crew member equates to the loss of a gun.

The 12 pounder French Canon is my favorite of the DK artillery.  I added the drag chains to the carriage and the fuse to the slow match of the corporal in charge of firing the canon.

I can't imagine they actually worked the guns in their bearskins, backpacks and slung rifles, but it looks cool!

The Battery commander is a fantastic casting and looks spectacular in his gold aiguilettes and cords.

Next up - The 2nd Battalion of the Irish Legion.  These were originally painted by Dick Tennant.  I am just giving the a good cleaning and sprucing them up a bit as a compliment to the 1st battalion currently under way by Wellington Man that can be seen on the Hinton Spieler blog.