15e Chasseurs a Cheval Expanded and Up to Strength

The 15e Chasseurs a Cheval with New Recruits!

I had always hoped to find the figures needed to bring the 15th CaC up to strength, and until recently had despaired of ever finding some.  Hinton Hunt figures from the dismountable series are terribly hard to find. I was elated a few months back therefore to find some, and in my excitement, purchased them without looking as closely as I should have.  It turned out their mounts were terribly undersized and not even by Hinton Hunt, and frankly may not have even been from the Napoleonic era.  I was sorely disappointed.  Somewhat later I was looking through my spares box and realized I had some elite Chasseurs a Cheval that were recasts, which I had forgotten about.  They just happened to be mounted on the correct horse and I was able to find four castings that were reasonably well done.  A bit of work with epoxy putty to fill the holes in the bases and pits from poor casting and voila - the horses I needed.  So without further adieu, I present the completed regiment of the 15e Chasseurs a Cheval.

The biggest challenge when matching an existing unit is getting the colors right - which I almost did.  The horses turned out a hair darker, but not distractingly so.  The new company is at the front left of the line in this picture.

Here's a comparison shot - very subtle differences, but I was extremely pleased with the final match.

The new company is on the right.

Here is the command stand, now with an added trooper from the newly painted castings.

Dick Tennant's brushwork on these was spectacular, and I was hard pressed to match it!

Close-up of the newly painted company

Note the solid red pompom of the newly painted company.

Some of DTs work for comparison.

In the originals painted by Dick Tennant, the company pompom was red with a white line.  The other company distinctives are light blue, and light blue with a white line (not pictured here, but in the second rank of the main picture).

Newly painted four figures on the left.

New figures once again on the left.  They fit right in as if they had always been there.

Next Up - Elite Voltigeurs Skirmishing and Carabinier Command for the 6e Legere

French 1st Hussars Regiment

The French 1st Hussars are an iconic regiment resplendent in their fur lined pelisses encrusted with lace worn over the shoulder of their laced dolmans, with elaborate sabretaches dangling from corded waistbelts.  They really were quite the spectacle.  These Hinton Hunt figures were originally painted by Richard Tennant and came to me as part of his collection.  I am pleased to say they have been painstakingly restored and are now once again ready for battle on the tabletop.

Clearly this photo was taken sometime during their deployment in Austria, long before they travelled along the dusty roads of Spain.

I had originally intended a new addition to the unit to serve as the Colonel, but Richard had done such an amazing job on his own colonel, that I demoted my addition to a company Captain.

With all of the work that went into the leopard skin saddle cover I simply could not make myself hide him amongst the rank and file.

Here is the command stand with a Franznap interloper painted as the company Captain.  The Franznap figures are slighter in build and more finely sculpted, which is why I had originally intended for him to be mounted as the colonel and thus on his own base.  Despite the mis-match in styles, I like this look and don't mind the commander being a little stylistically different, it distinguishes him from the other ranks after all.

The trumpeter is one of Mr. Tennant's lovely conversions.

Horse butts.

Arrayed for review.  There are two squadrons represented here, each of two companies.  Each company has its own distinctive pompom at the base of their plumes, and of course the elite company is distinguished by the red plumes and fur busbys.

More horse butts and a whole lot of lace.  Thank god I did not have to paint all of that lacework on the dolmans and pelisses!

Next up on the painting desk are four Chasseurs a Cheval that will be painted to match Richard's work on the 15th Chasseurs.  He has some incredibly fine detail work on the vests and jackets of these figures, so it is with some trepidation that I will try and match them.

The riders are original Hinton Hunts, but the horses are recasts that I have repaired and in the end I believe will be very difficult to distinguish from the originals.  I guess we will know in a month or so...

Rob's Regimiento de Dragones de Almansa and Some Upcoming Projects

My good buddy Rob recently shared his stunning brushwork for the Spanish Regimiento de Dragones de Almansa with a few of our fellow painter/collectors.  Yellow coated Spanish Dragoons really are a must for any Peninsular army, so I asked if I could share his work on my blog.  Rob did an extraordinary amount of customization and prep work on these.  In his own words:

"I’m not sure but I believe they were okay, but not great, copies of [sic Hinton Hunt] BN/206 (the muskets were crap which was why I definitely wanted to replace them).  The horses all had ‘swallow-tailed’, light cavalry, shabraques but no idea of the code for them – the exception is the officer’s horse which was, I believe, a genuine HH French officers horse, again don’t know which one.  Pistol holsters are solder with holes drilled for steel wire pistols the butts being topped off with some ‘5SecondFIX’.  The trooper horses had the shabraque tails cut/filed off and the edge restored with some Green-Stuff – their rolled cloaks were filed down to better fit the riders as I didn’t think about the fit when adding the longer coat-tails to the riders and was not going to re-do those again! 

 

All the figures had lost their swords so I added new white metal ones.  I have some old white metal spears in my bits box and these are squashed with plyers to get a flat section which is cut and filed to shape (an easy job).  The hand is then drilled and the sword inserted and glued – too frail to put a soldering iron anywhere near it. 

 

The musician has his right hand cut off and his sleeve drilled out then a new hand and trumpet added from Newline – the arm being filed to be thin enough to be inserted up the ‘sleeve’.   The trumpet banner is just aluminium foil super glued on.

 

The coat-tails are solder with, for the rank and file a final finishing off using Milliput as it’s easier to get them looking similar that way than just using solder. 

 

The command figures had their plumes extended with solder and filed to shape – the pictures I have show the plumes long or short so went for showier plumes for the command figures.  I also gave them gauntlets – the rank and file having bare hands as they want to use muskets on foot – this was also the reason for filing the boot tops down and using a bit of green-stuff to build them back up as gaiters.

 

Finally, which delayed things a bit, the manky horse bases (very irregular in shape) were built up with some Milliput to look more like HH bases.

 

The muskets were from that very helpful chap, Sean, at Newline, God’s gift to 20mil convertors.  The cross belts for the cartridge box (that was added with solder and filed to shape) and musket are Green-Stuff and added after the muskets were glued on (Super Glue).  I filed a bit of a groove in the backs of the figures for a good join for the musket and so it wouldn’t have to curve to follow the figure’s back."

 Now that Rob has completely showed up any of my previous efforts, I thought I would at least post a few odds and ends of things to come in 2023:

I was never happy with my 3rd Battalion of the 6th Legere, it being a mix of Der Kriegspieler, Alberken, and Hinton Hunt miniatures.  I have decided to reorganize what was the third battalion into smaller skirmish units, as if the whole regiment of three battalions had combined their elite companies.

I retained one unit of these wonderful Alberken figures painted as Chasseurs, but if you ever see any more let me know as I would love to add another skirmish unit or two of them.

I'll be adding a new skirmish unit of 9 Voltigeurs in busbys of course, because they just look so cool!  The bugler is one of my all time favorite figures so I was very glad to find one to add to this unit.

The Carabiniers will act as a reserve along with the Colonel and standard bearer.

These fine looking chaps will be my own attempt at some Spanish Cavalry, Caballería de Línea Regimiento del Rey, made with Minifig S-series figures.  Despite being intended as British Dragoons, these figures work almost perfectly as Spanish cavalry and almost no modifications were needed.

This fine chap is another S-series Minifig of a Spanish General.  Thanks to Terry Webb for the gift of him as he will lead the regiment to glory on the field of Talavera where the Caballería de Línea Regimiento del Rey made their mark routing the attacking French columns.

These gents are currently on the painting table and will be the first to be featured when finished.  The French 1st Hussars were originally painted by Dick Tennant. I have cleaned off ~40 years of dust, made structural repairs, and will be repairing chipped paint and adding some depth through shading and highlighting before giving them a nice glossy protective coat.  There is one interloper from the 2nd Hussars mixed in who will also be getting a new jacket.  Have to love the officer with the red shako and trousers!

They will be led by a new addition to the collection, a magnificent Colonel of Hussars from the Franznap line.

Thanks to Wellington Man, this battalion of Lamming Grenadiers will be coming soon, as I will need them for my next planned historical battle, the attack on Vimiero Village itself.

And finally I have some original Hinton Hunt Chasseurs a cheval from the dismountable series, but who are unfortunately seated on recast FH 7 horses.  When I purchased these I did not realize the Hinton Hunt horses had been replaced with what could only be described a steppe ponies.  Fortunately I eventually remembered I had received some elite company chasseurs as part of a larger lot, that were recasts of OK quality (probably the same source as Rob's Dragoons), but I too will be doing a lot of work on the bases to fill in all of the gaps.

Well that is quite enough to keep me busy for awhile.  With any luck I'll have them done by the end of Summer.  Till my next post, hope you all have a remarkable and joyous 2023!

Works in Progress - DBX/ADLG Late Medieval or Italian Renaissance and Napoleonic HH Conversions

For quite some time I have wondered what base model Dick Tennant used as Portuguese Dragoons and Mounted Royal Horse Artillerists.  It seems so very obvious now, but not knowing the figure line as some it just took me a looooong time to put the pieces together.  I have two planned conversions in the works to make two Colonels for the remaining Portuguese Dragoon regiments, so I needed to find the right figure.

Below are Dick's Portuguese Dragoon conversions.

Note the shoulder scales.  DT did such a great job with these that for awhile I was convinced he might have opened up a chop shop and was putting random body parts together.  Then I remembered the lead foil in his miscellaneous hobby supplies he sent.

At first I thought the position of the right arm indicated the model started life with a shouldered sword, but if so, why cut it off?

Note the smooth front of the jackets - I believe some file work was key here.

This was a real stumper for awhile, but when examined closely, or blown up as in this photo, it becomes clear that the shabraque and scabbard and sword hilt were custom made for each trooper.

Lastly, note the remnants of the button hole impressions on the trousers.  DT's fine paintwork largely concealed these, but in my effort to add some dimensionality to the figures, my wash for shading the figure inadvertently showed up these depressions.

The Mounted gunners were a similar mystery, but I soon realized with the exception of the officer, they were derived from the same figure.

The boots and shouldered sword make this officer figure likely to have started life as a Light Dragoon in Tarleton.

The gunner on the other hand shows the same custom addition of a scabbarded sword as the Portuguese Dragoons as well as the aforementioned trouser/overall buttons.

  

Note the hand positions of the mounted gunner, that in my mind makes it clear is the same figure as the Portuguese Dragoon.

The end result of all of this is that I finally realized both the Portuguese Dragoons and the mounted artillerists must have been derived from the same figure.  And the winner is: BN 28 mounted on a cavalry horse (Anyone know which one?  DT ground the bottom of his bases flat for a good glue surface, so the codes on the bottom of the bases are usually missing).  You can see a picture of the figure here:

http://findthatfigure.blogspot.com/search?q=BN+28

In other projects on the workbench, I have been preparing an addition to my Late-Medeival/Renaissance army for DBA/ADLG.  Unfortunately I have just learned that I have another commitment the weekend of the ADLG tournament, so I am afraid these poor fellows may not make it to the table for some time.

Here we have a mish-mash of Ral Partha Gendarmes and German Knights with Thunderbolt Mountain (same sculptor, Tom Meiers) lances and axes and flails.  Also at left are a commander from the condottieri line as well as a Reiter and a Dellis from the Ottoman line.  The Reiter and Dellis will be used as Stradiot light horse.

Ral Partha fantasy foot knights

These really work pretty well as 16th century knights

Ral Partha really had only one very awkwardly sculpted English longbowmen, so these are borrowed once again from a fantasy line sculpted by Tom Meier and sizeed as 25mm just like Ral Partha, so a very compatible fit. 

They are part of the Thunderbolt Mountain Arthurian line.  Eventually I will use wood putty to build up the base and paint it to match the rest of the army.

The Billmen are also from the Thunderbolt Mountain Arthurian line.

Here we have the city militia used to fill out the ranks of the professional men at arms or city garrison.

Here's the rest of the army awaiting their compatriots: