Siggins Again Again

This time some of the good guys; two anonymous English gents, and the Old Guard equivalent (in that everyone has some) of the British army - the Scots Greys (or North British Dragoons if you want to annoy a Scotsman). Not that you really needed me to tell you that....

Is it just me or is the bloke in the second pic puckering up (perhaps he brought his mistress on campaign, or maybe he's ex public school)...?

The Napoleonic splurge is set to continue for a while with more great stuff from Mike and a couple of other fine gentlemen.

Siggins Again

More splendid Connoisseur personalities from Mike. Other than being Austrian (presumably) i have no idea who these chaps are - win absolutely nothing if you can enlighten me.

Siggins Goes Shiny

Regular readers of Mike Siggins' columns in WI and Battlegames will be aware that he's a long time fan of the great Mr Gilder, and if you've browsed his website you'll be aware that Mike is a very accomplished painter. So it should come as no surprise that he's a dab hand at the shiny style.

Mike was good enough to send me some images of the Connoisseur Napoleonics he has been working on recently. Obviously i'm impressed. To my eyes Mike has that artistic flare that can turn a pedestrian piece into a work of art with a few swirls of the brush - something that all the great painters i have admired over the last 30 years have had. I am even more impressed that Mike has achieved all this with acrylics (though the horses were painted with oils).

Napoleonics are of course the archetypal 'Grand Manner' wargame period, and Connoisseur the ultimate range (for me at least), so i'm glad to be able to feature some at last. More Napoleonics from Mike (and a couple of other talented painters) soon.

Frank and Norman....

...both designed rather splendid equipment pieces and set a standard that few have lived up to since. Frank Hinchliffe began his commercial model making career designing 54mm artillery pieces in the late 1960s. Of course he went on to expand into other scales, hire Peter Gilder (and others) to design wargaming figures in 15-30mm, and work with sculptors such as Charles Stadden, Julian Benassi, Dave Jarvis, etc. to create an extensive range of model soldiers in 54-90mm - all of which made Hinchliffe Models one of the dominant companies in wargaming and military modelling through the 1970s and 80s.

I have fond memories of receiving Hinchliffe equipment sets in those little blue boxes - complete with extras such as lengths of chain, harness and stirrups for horses, etc. Hinchliffe definitely 'went the extra mile' - not cheap at the time, but worth every penny.

Norman Swales first broke cover (to my knowledge at least) as an illustrator for Hinchliffe in the mid 1970s. By the early 80s he was designing equipment for the original Wargames Foundry. Foundry presentation was a bit rough and ready (remember when they gave you a nail for an axle?) but the design of the pieces was first class.

The first picture above is a Hinchliffe ammunition wagon - 30+ years old, and still a fine model. The second picture is 1980s vintage Wargames Foundry model. Both are accompanied by converted Hinchliffe horses and attendants.

I've always been keen to add the 'tail' to my wargame armies - not just as table dressing but because i feel it's important to incorporate some aspect of logistics into wargames. In our current AWI games this is reflected in restricted ammunition supply - hence the two pieces pictured.

I'm sure you'll agree that that's quite enough of my old tat for a while. Next up i'll be focusing on a couple of guest contributors.

Garrison ECW

More Phil Robinson creations. These Garrison figures form the pike element of two of the regiments in my ECW collection - the musketeers for which are Hinchliffe, and i think the second photo shows that the two ranges work quite well together (the officer and drummer being Hinchliffe). This particular figure (EW11) is not currently available from Garrison but Rob Young tells me it will be within a couple of months.

I have a couple of Hinchliffe pike blocks sans musketeers and i'm planning to make good on that deficiency via the Garrison range. I could also do with another unit of ECW dragoons... and more Garrison SYW Prussians to serve as Hessians in my AWI armies, and ...

Minifigs ECW

No, really, this time they really are (at least 3 of the crew anyway). After my identification faux pas in the last post i thought i'd post a few genuine Minifigs ECW. As before these were painted by Phil Robinson and feature in Asquith's Naseby Osprey.

With all that red hair i wonder whether they are Scots or Irish.....

'70s Baggage

Nope...i'm not referring to your collection of Hawkwind LPs, i mean this collection of Hinchliffe ECW wagons and limbers painted sometime in the mid 1970s by Phil Robinson (he of the big hair, and even more impressive SYW and WW2 collections that featured in early editions of Miniature Wargames).

Robinson's painting style back then could perhaps be described as 'basecoat, highlight and line'. Lining in was done in brown ink drawn on with a mapping pen (i've read of pens being used to line in before but this is the first time i've actually come across someone who's used the technique successfully) - sadly the last 30 years have not been kind to these chaps and the brown ink has turned black, making the overall effect somewhat less pleasing than originally intended.

Much of my ECW collection was painted by PR, so there's more to come. As with the other ECW pieces i've posted these chaps can be found pictured in all their fresh-faced original splendour in Asquith's Naseby Osprey title.

Now then chaps - spot the Minifig.......?