Hinchliffe 25mm Personality Figure - Prince Poniatowski

 This is another of the Hinchliffe Personality Figures (PF 17), Prince Jozef Poniatowski.  He rose to fame as one of Napoleon's best commanders, leading the Polish contingent of the French army.  He was made Minister for War by Napoleon and was a notable commander during the 1812 invasion of Russia, where he commanded the largely Polish 5th Corps. He was made a marshal of the empire by Napoleon.

At the battle of Leipzig in 1813, Poniatowski was charged with holding the the rearguard as the defeated French army attempted to withdraw over the Elster river.  Poniatowski and his men fought bravely during which time the Prince was severely wounded while leading several counter attacks.  Unfortunately the Elster bridge was demolished early and the rear guard was trapped on the enemy banks.  In the confusion as his men attempted to cross the river, the weakened Prince was thrown from his horse and was lost under the water.  His body was found five days later.

Another lovely casting from Hinchliffe:

Hinchliffe 25mm Personality Figure - General Lasalle

 Antoine-Charles Lasalle, was a napoleonic French cavalry general who rose to fame as a dashing commander.  He fought with the Army of Italy, campaigned in Egypt, saw action in the European theatre, especially against the Prussians.  He met his end in the Austrian campaign, being killed at the battle of Wagram on 5th of July 1809 leading a cavalry charge.

This figure is listed in the Hinchliffe 1976 catalogue as PF21:

He was a joy to paint and will take his place amongst my 25mm French armies.  I have a number of the Hinchliffe personalities and plan to paint them from time to time.

Atlantic 1/72 Egyptian Chariots

 I have had a box full of plastic Atlantic ancient Egyptian chariots and never got around to doing anything with them.  By way of a test, I assembled two and painted them, just to see what they would be like.  They are not very accurate representations of Egyptian chariots and the crew compartment is too small for the figures, however, I cut the figure bases to just a sliver and by placing them at a slightly odd angle I managed to squeeze a driver and an archer figure in.

I am quite pleased with the result and I would have thought that 10 or 12 of these would look quite good, painted and based:

Splendid Ancient Skirmishers

 In a recent batch of figures I found four light infantry figures with broken weapons.  They are by Miniature Figurines and are North African troops.  They are still in production and I obtained two more to make up a unit.  I replaced all of the javelins to make a useful little ancient unit.  I just love the hair style!

Hinchliffe Prussian Cavalry Renovation

 This turned out to be quite a challenge.  I was given three badly damaged Prussian, 25mm Cuirassiers by a friend.  The figures had lost their swords and were bent out of shape.  The horses were even worse.  However, Phil is a collector of old Hinchliffe for his wargames armies and I asked if he would like them after I had renovated them.  I also found three more on eBay, which were also broken.  

After quite a bit of bending back into shape and the addition of new swords and some reins on one of the horses they were ready for painting.

Here is the result:

A useful little unit.  I am also working on some British Fuiliers from the same manufacturer.  These are in reasonable condition, with most bayonets intact, but not well painted.  The officer is an old Lamming figure, but since the picture was taken I have acquired a Hinchliffe fusilier officer:

Hinchliffe Egyptian Heavy Infantry

 Another refurbishment, this time some 25mm Ancient Egyptians.  I bought them secondhand and they had simply been sprayed white and were missing their weapons.  Once again I have used Warlord metal spears. cut down to size.  The figures represent heavy infantry with hardened leather helmets and body armour.  Shields are animal hide:

My next project, close to completion, is a unit of Hinchliffe 25mm Prussian Cuirassiers.

The Young Pretender

 I painted this figure some time ago but never got around to posting the picture.  The Young Pretender is encouraging the troops, originally from the Bob Black collection.  The 54mm Bonnie Prince Charlie figure is from Steve Weston Figures and is painted using Speed Paints.  

I got rid of the original horse and replaced it with a Britains Deetail show jumper mount:

The tartan trews and cloak looked a bit of a challenge, but I borrowed a technique seen on Youtube, that emplos crisscross lines and spots.  It worked quite well.