One Last Post for March '22

 A few new painted figures and the arrival of an experimental investigation tonight.

I recently came across a post on McPhees Miniature Men, where the bloggist presented images of some very nicely painted HaT "hard plastic" 28mm French Napoleonic Chasseurs. 

I had come across reference to HaT "wargaming" (as opposed to 1/72) plastic figures before and had taken a look. This time, when I Googled them, one of the first hits was a model supplier in Paraparaumu - a town 50km or so north of our capital city, Wellington. This seemed like a good omen, so I investigated further, and long story short, purchased one pack each of 12 British Light Dragoons and 12 Heavy Dragoons. The images of the painted figures on the manufacturers website seemed promising....

The cost per pack was around NZ$18 (£9) - two packs with postage was $42 and they arrived the very next day - pretty good. 

Nice artwork on the boxes! 

Upon unpacking the figures, the first thing I noticed was....they are NOT hard plastic - in fact, they are more like very dense rubber! The second concern is that, despite several articles to the contrary on the web, they are noticeably smaller than what I would call standard 28mm figures.(the infantry may be different, as I have seen comparison shots next to Perry and a couple of other ranges, and the HaT figures appear slightly taller, although more slender.

Nonetheless, I have assembled and more or less finished painting one of each of the cavalrymen - results to be posted soon - and I shall finish off both packs. Whether I subsequently add more units is debatable - its unlikely to be honest - I think I would prefer to pay the same money for one pack of Perry plastic cavalry....

You get three sprues of four figures as per above - Light Dragoons to the left, Heavy to the right. A bugler arm is included on each sprue but another issue is all the figures seem to be standard troopers, with a cartridge box and musket/carbine - if I want an officer and standard bearer, it will involve some level of conversion.

In between ordering and receiving the plastic figures, I have also painted up a few more items from my small collection of unpainted lead. The first two I bought on a local auction site for $4 each - nice old Ral Partha figures that I think may find a role in my Pulp Project...

An African King......

...and his Queen.

I am considering a pack of plastic Zulus for their followers!

The last figure for tonight is one that I bought from Col Bills via his second hand figures collection - £3 or something like that, which I thought was a bargain for a numbered, limited edition figure....but is it?!

When I Googled John Churchill Uniform, this image came up - it seems to imply that the figure may be commercially available from North Star - which is why I wonder if this is REALLY one of only five hundred figures in existence - not that it concerns me overly!

(You may spot some slight similarities between my version and the one above 😀 )

Finally - the day after we got home from a week long trip consisting almost entirely of 15-25km walking every day, my dear wife decided that what we needed by way of a change on Saturday was - a walk to the trig point on the top of a local feature, Mount William! I have been up there a couple of times previously and it was a real bstrd of a route - my clever wife chose the alternative route, where we would start already half way up the hill! 

It was actually a pleasant change walking over open terrain (farm land) that allowed constant views of more than the three feet of path in front of us, disappearing into dense bush, that we normally see! The Lake District a la Matts "Dungeon" blog it was not, but I still enjoyed the views and took a few images to share with the group!

The entire route was across private farmland, following fence lines for the most part, and orange topped poles when the route went across a field rather than along its edge.

Trig Point on the summit

View from the summit

The route we followed from about the midway point on our return trip - the trig point is on top of the peak between the two areas of bush

Pick n Mix

 Tonight its back to present day figures as I think I have exhausted my pool of forty year old lead. 

First up is a rather nice donation to the 20mm WWII cause from Andrew, in the shape of a ready made and pre coloured 1/72 model of a Wespe self propelled gun, or to give it its correct Wehrmacht title: the le.F.H.18/2 auf. Fgst.Pz.Kpfw.II (Sf) (Sd.Kfz.124)....a bit of a mouthful, I am sure you will agree - I will continue to call it a Wespe I think!

Next, I finally got around to finishing of the 3D printed 28mm WWII figures I bought a few months back

Hopefully nobody is offended or upset by their nationality

Tank crew member with LMG

NCO with field glasses - I received two versions of this figure - I think because one of them was less than perfect (but perfectly useable for wargaming purposes

Two views of a prone sniper

Unarmed but marching confidently forwards

Kneeling with Mosin - Nagant rifle

Kneeling officer with field glasses

Female casualty being evacuated by a male colleague

Following are the last of my holiday snaps from our trip a fortnight ago now. We only had two or three hours on the Friday morning before the four hour drive home, so headed to the local city park, Pukekura.

First sight on entering from where we parked was this artificially created waterfall

A bit further on, we came across this old waterwheel that is still in operation

I pressed a button to activate the fountain - but its on a fifty MINUTE cycle! We hung around for a few minutes but nothing very dramatic had occurred

Views up and down the central lake

Overall, Pukekura Park covers 52ha (128 acres) right in the heart of the city and is one of New Zealand's premier botanical gardens.

After about an hour we repaired to a local cafe, had a cooked breakfast and a coffee and then headed to the last stop before hitting the road - a return visit to Te Henui cemetery

Without much effort, I managed to locate the "military" section of the cemetery, and wondered around taking a few shots as my wife perused random gravestones of the former residents of New Plymouth

Once again, more evidence of the service performed here by regiments of the British Army during the Victorian period of colonisation and European settlement

The following regiments served in New Zealand during the period;

12 East Suffolk 1860 - 67

14 Buckinghamshire 1860 - 66

18 Royal Irish 1863 - 70

40 2nd Somersetshire 1860 - 66

43 Momouthshire Light Infantry 1863 - 66

50 Queens Own 1863 - 67

57 West Middlesex 1861 - 67

58 Rutlandshire 1845 - 1858

65 Yorkshire West Riding 1846 - 1865

68 Durham Light Infantry 1864 - 66

70 Surrey 1861-66

80 South Staffordshire 1840-45

96 Foot 1841-45

99 Lanarkshire 1844 - 47

Royal Artillery 1845 - 70

Royal Navy 1845 - 70

Royal Marines 1845 - 70

The cemetery is very well laid out, like a Commonwealth War Graves site, but on a smaller scale. Most graves are of ex servicemen ie they served in WWI but died in 1962 aged 80 etc

But not all the stones are of men who lived their full span of years

That's our lot and the last of the New Plymouth pics. The good news is that we are off to Queenstown, the self proclaimed jewel in New Zealand's tourist crown, a very picturesque town in the S Island, at the beginning of May - so only about six weeks and I will have another five days worth of images to share with you, you lucky people!