Thursday, February 4, 2016

New Miniatures: French Dragoons, British Officers and Naval Infantry

Hello everyone!

So last week the buying bug bit me and I placed an order with Brigade Games. Earlier this week a parcel arrived in my mailbox from New Jersey, and I proceeded to tear into it with childish delight in anticipation of my new shiny soldiers! Here they are in all their wonderful, 28mm glory:

First up, the reason I placed the order in the first place: Dismounted French Dragoon command figures, both a trumpeter and an officer. These will form the basis for a dismounted Dragoon command stand.

Next, two Peninsular War British colonels, wearing bicornes and reminding all within earshot that they are in charge! Also included with this set is a British pioneer in full kit, featuring two head options: either the earlier stovepipe shako or the later 1812 pattern Belgic shako.

Finally, the bulk of my purchase: enough Jolly Jack Tars to form a full 'battalion' of men, i.e. six 4cm x 4cm bases with two figures each, like my American militia. The top row contains (from left to right) a Lieutenant, a Boatswain, and two Midshipmen, while the middle and bottom rows contain armed seamen with muskets, pistols, and various hand weapons. One of my favorite figures is the chap second from the left in the middle row, who is armed with only a cutlass... because he only has one arm! The empty sleeve is neatly pinned to his jacket, a detail that I very much appreciate and come to expect from figures sculpted by that maestro Paul Hicks.
In addition to these new figures, I managed to finally base the painted French Dragoon from my last post:


He's mounted on a 50mm diameter round wooded base from a package of wood shaped that I found at the local Michael's craft store for very cheap, less than $3 for the whole pack, which contains two different sizes of wood circles and several different oval shapes.


I think that there were ten of the 50mm circles that I use for brigade commander bases, but this is okay since I really don't need a whole bunch of brigade commanders at a given time.

Finally I added four more books to my Napoleonic library:

Die Hard! Dramatic Actions from the Napoleonic Wars by Philip J. Haythronthwaite. I bought this off of eBay for a song, mainly because I enjoy reading accounts of ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances.

I found this (slightly faded) copy of Osprey's Nile 1798: Nelson's First Great Victory by Gregory Fremont-Barnes and illustrated by H. Gerrard. I was on the fence about buying this one as it falls outside of my Napoleonic "niche," but then I saw an illustration within that showed one of the French captains who continued to fight his ship even though he lost both legs and an arm to British round shot. As a Navy man myself, this kind of bad-assery was not lost upon me, and I subsequently purchased the book.


These last two Osprey titles, Napoleon's German Allies (5): Hessen-Darmstadt and Hessen-Kassel by Otto Von Pivka and Bryan Fosten and Napoleon's Egyptian Campaigns 1798-1801 by Michael Barthorp and G. A. Embleton , were purchased from my favorite second hand book shop. Again, whilst not in my "niche" per se, they were cheap and were the last Napoleonic Osprey books the shop had.
This brings the total number of Napoleonic books I've acquired this year up to 11.

"These go to eleven."
Coming soon: Work continues (slowly) on my Nassauers... work's been busy as of late, but I will soldier on.

Questions, comments and suggestions are always welcomed and appreciate. Thanks for looking!

-Chuck

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