HELMET Soldiers

This is my first Blog posting for some considerable time, and as usual I have plenty of excuses for the non-arrival of any new news. However as this is a toy soldier Blog and not another of those that allow the author to sound off on their favourite subject (themselves) I shall limit my defence to the fact that I needed to find gainful, full-time employment and following a period of contract work in the Autumn, I started a five day week at the end of November. All this has meant that I have not been able to focus on HELMET Soldiers at all, nor this Blog. Excuses over.

I have been painting Napoleonics in my limited spare time in order to have a decent sized wargame starting on Boxing Day. I tend to paint the British with an eye to the War of 1812, so generally light on troops that were in both America and Europe in the period, but more of that later.

I took the opportunity of attending the London Toy Soldier Show in early December, as a punter and not a trader, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, my wallet took a hard pounding, mostly on the new Harpers Ferry figures by Replicants, bought from the ever friendly Steve Weston, I also picked up some useful bits and bobs, spare heads and stuff for future conversions. Finally I had a brief chat with a fellow converter ending in an agreement to produce some figures for a possible Siege of Vienna, 1683, game sometime soon............. more news later.

I also bought, via mail order, a box of the new(ish) Victrix Napoleonic British Infantry in hard plastic kit form. These are great with terrific characterisation and detail, the downside is that they are large figures and will not fit with any of my existing regiments. I guess they could be used separately as skirmish pieces.

So to the pictures. Our son, back from Uni, and I try to start a wargame each Boxing Day, and these few photos show the start of that event, if people are interested I'll post more to show how the game develops. We use our own simple rules which are still sort of in development, we need simplicity due the the large (ish) number of figures we deploy and the need to keep the game moving along.

The first picture shows Jonathan - the new Corsican Ogre - beginning to set up the Frenchies, I took this photo without him knowing, or so I thought. He took the second picture, of yours truly, setting up the gallant allies, definitely without my knowledge. So ignoring the ugly old gentleman in the background, it does show the very basic terrain,a crossroads with a scatter of walls and ruined buildings. The third picture shows some of the first British to arrive, Light Infantry and Rifles on open order scree a Foot Artillery Battery, a weak company of Redcoats and some Light Cavalry acting as escort to the general, in this instance Lord Peregrine D'Arcey and his servant, a corporal in the Staff Corps.

Picture 4 shows some French skirmishers, dismounted Vistula Lancers and Foot Dragoons, part of a screen also comprising a full company of Light Infantry, apart from the Replicant officer these are conversions from Accurate and Armies in Plastic with head swaps and greenstuff additions. Finally the French begin to arrive in force, Guard and Line Infantry in the background along with a couple of guns, Dragoons in the middle instance and Hussars in the foreground. Behind the Dragoons is the Emperor himself with his escort, backed by a half squadron of Mamelukes and a pair of giant pink hands which could cause problems later. Figs here are mostly Italeri and Armies in Plastic with A Call to Arms and Airfix as well as some Irregular metal models, as per usual most have been converted to some degree or other.

Enough for now, comments, questions and feedback welcome. I'll publish more pics if there seems to be a demand, in the meantime enjoy what remains of Christmas and look forward to a Happy 2010!

Cheers

Eric