Thursday, March 18, 2010

Identifying Battle Honours Napoleonic British

I was rummaging through the Spare Oom and the Mojave Lead-Lined Bomb Shelter (otherwise known as the garage) the other day.  I unearthed a stash of unpainted 15mm British Napoleonics for the Peninsula: both "small" figures (Naismith, Battle Honours) and "large" figures (Old Glory, and again Battle Honours).   I tried to place the larger Battle Honours figures.  They clearly were not sculpted by Anthony Barton, and I remember picking them up at a Napoleonic Show in London, not long after Battle Honours had been sold and relocated to the London area.

I asked on The Miniatures Page:

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=193989

...and received some helpful information.  For the TMPers, here are samples of what I have (click on the image to expand it):


From left to right, the figures are: two variants of flank company men; two variants of center company men; two variants of ensigns; a drummer, and an officer.

Now I'm not absolutely sure about the officer; he's the only officer I got in this batch of about 120 figures.  I bought these in eight-figure packs, and oddly, he was the sole officer figure that came in the command packs. 

On TMP, Mark and Jay and Nigel helped nail these down.  Nigel pointed out that a figure like these is illustrated in Extra Crispy's review of the Battle Honours range:


As Jay says--and he would know!--they are still available from Old Glory 15s (Battle Honors USA), which is good, as I have extra command figures, and so can build more units!

Here's a comparison with similar figures:



On the left is an original Battle Honours flank company man; these should also be available from Battle Honors USA.  I use these as light infantry alongside Naismith Designs British.  I suspect this is the style that Mark ("Extra Crispy") Severin discusses when he lists the pack contents having one infatry pose and officers with cast flags (I have those, too).

The next two are the center company men in question.  Notice how much larger they are!  Finally, on the right is an Old Glory flank company man; I bought a passel of these to use as light infantry and skirmishing light companies, along with the larger Battle Honours figures.

So it seems that the puzzle is solved.  But I thought it might be helpful to display these, in case anyone has questions about the size variation in the (now) Battle Honors Peninsular British.  As Jay says, if you want these guys, they're in pack BBR05, Line Infantry, Stovepipe, Campaign Dress, Assaulting.

Allen


1 comment:

Galpy said...

It is interesting finding out where figures are made, I painting a commissionjob now and it has at least 5 different makes of figures in it, and i must admit i keep wondering where some of them come from as they look real old,
Keep up the good work
Cheers Kent