"Older Battle Honours 15mm" Topic

I ran across a stash of figures yesterday; hoping someone can help with my faulty memory.

After Tony Barton ran Battle Honours for a while out in the deep, dark wilds of the West, the range was acquired by some fellows who ran the operation from London for a while.

During that period, they produced at least British infantry that were larger than the original BH British: the size of current Fantassin's and even Old Glory's. The sculpts were also a litle less… precise than Mr. Barton's.

My stash came from that period; I remember waiting for a very long time at the BH stand at a Napoleonic Fair behind some little who took about twenty minutes to pick out a couple of packs of figures with his mother; he's probably old enough to kick my butt now…

These figures don't seem to have made the transition to the later BH operation and certianly not to BH USA/Old Glory 15s; their British are remolded versions of the original figures. The figures I have used a completely different set of codes than the original figures; the line flank company pack, for example (the casting tabs are still attached to some of the figures) was BPV 11.

Anyone remember these? Know who the sculptor was? Know what happened to the masters and molds?

Thanks,

Allen

Allen,
I remember them. I don't have any, though.

They produced some British and French Line by another sculptor.

I'll check through some old copies of Wargames Illustrated tonight for an advertisement. I remember seeing at least one ad for them.

Not sure if they were still called Battle Honours then or if they were called Kitney & Company. I've no idea what happened to them.

A Google search brought this up from 2008: link

To further confuse things, Kitney evidently sold James Barton larger scale figures as well as Tony Barton Battle Honours. They do mention that they are (at the time)the legal owners of Battle Honours miniatures.
Pat

They were based at East Dulwich in London and a had a shop there. They traded as Battle Honours and there was bit of a to do, iirc, in the Wargames press. I think it may have ended badly. Cannot help you with the rest.

Originally Danny Boreham owned Battle Honours out at Kidderminster and Tony Barton sculpted the original BH range then. They then fell out and DB sold the operation which moved to London and East Dulwich. Whilst there very few additions were made as it was so hard to work to find someone to sculpt to AB's exacting and fine work- in fact Michael Percy did add some Spanish cavalry, if I can recall correctly, as well as a now- lost Ottoman range. It was then sold on to Kitney and Co and if any additions were made to the British infantry they can only have been made then.

Thanks, Pat and OB. When I picked up their figures at the show in London, they were definitely branded and trading as BH, but I do remember the advertisemenets for Kitney & Co.

On a subsequent trip, I tried tracking down Kennington Miniatures; they weren't open. I had thought to track down Kitney as well, but gave up after one wasted bus ride!

Kiney had a stand at Salute in 2000:

PDF link

I didn't go that year (I think); they weren't there the following year.

Odd for Kitney to be claiming ownership of the BH range in 2008.

Allen

Thanks, de Ligne. Oooooh, would like to have seen the Spanish cavalry! (Someone was speculating last year that Michael Percy had sculpted the Polly Oliver AWI, whereas Tony Barton had sculpted the BH ACW that went to Polly Oliver, as well as some assitional ACW sculpts for them.)

Given the quaility of Mr. Percy's 20mm ACW (at the Sergeant's Mess now), he would have been the logical sculptor to continue with the ranges, IMO.

Allen

Allen,
Michael did a mounted Spanish officer looking over his shoulder and a trumpeter with his bicorne tied to his saddle. The Ottoman range went to Kitney and Co (with all the other BH stuff)and where it went after that, I don't know (sadly).
I am not sure but I thought that AB did the Polly Oliver range, he (AB) certainly did the BH ACW range.
But if you were able to take a picture of the figure I would be able to tell you a) if it was sculpted by AB b) whether it was BH or AB and c) approximately when it was done.
Regards
Nigel

Allen,
Do the muskets look a bit thin and ill-defined?
I have some of the British – I think they were described as campaign dress as the trousers are a bit ragged IIRC. I like them despite the muskets.

I wonder if I have some of the Spanish cavalry mentioned. They are a lot smaller than the ones which I think are Barton ones.

Nigel, the British I'm inquiring about are certainly not Barton sculpts (and past discussions have asserted that he did not do the Polly Olover AWI). As Swampster suggests, the muskets are quite thin, without great detail. They are meant to be a bit ragged, with a mix of packs. I like them as a variation.

Thanks,

Allen

I did some 15mm and 28mm work for Kitney after they took over the BH line while they were down in Deal. I can't remember exactly what it was I made and its hard to find pictures on the internet.

I recall Gordon Kitney had some pretty bad ideas about how to reorganise the ranges and I expect that – and the transfer to OG 15's – would account for a lot of the missing figures.

I certainly made some Prussian Napoleonic and some ACW and I may have made those British as well. Allen, if you pop some pictures on your Blog I'll tell you if was me. I'm not too proud to admit I probably made some duff figures 10 years ago, no doubt I'll cringe when I see them :-)

I'll take some pics and post them, Mark: thanks!

Allen

Allen,

I think you are referring to the veteran packs they did. There was one for the Brits & one for the French they had patched uniforms etc as I recall. I always assumed they are the ones described as campaign dress assaulting in the current offerings but as I have not purchased any cannot confirm that. Think I have some of the Prussians Crusader minis sculpted. Bought them sometime between 1999 & 2002 from there shop in Canterbury it was when they were made in Sandwich near Deal IIRC. They were command packs definately not Barton sculpts as the flags were not cast on it was in the time when the packs included bases. Still have them unpainted I think they are quite good although the Fusilier/Jager officer has a levitating sword.

Allen,

Those figures are in BBR5. We still have the Ottoman range, but they are hard to cast and the ankles are thin so we retired them.

Jay

The figure reviewed by Extra Crispy came from pack BBR5

link

OK, gents, that seems to sort them out fairly conclusively. I've posted a pic of samples of what I have, a comparison pic with older BH and newer Old Glory 15s, and a summary of the now-resolved problem, on my blog at:

link

Kind of a shame that EC chose that version for the overall British comparison and to illustrate the range, since they are a minority, and quite different from the original Barton sculpts. But it's very helpful that he did provide a photo, and thanks, Nigel, for pointing it out!

Good to know that they're still available! I had originally purchased packs to make up small, 10-14 figure units. So after reorganizing them in 32-figure units, I have plenty of ensigns and drummers left over.

Mystery solved: thanks for your help and advice!

Allen

Not sure if this is overkill but I did some digging through my old paper copies of Wargames Illustrated. Perhaps this information could help jog some memories.

Issue #65 (February 1993) has an ad from Battle Honours, London, for the first of the Marlburians, MA1 British Infantry marching (suitable for Dutch, Bavarians, and Danish). No mention of sculptor.

Issue #67(April 1993) has Battle Honours, London, introducing a full page ad for the 18th Century Ottomans. They listed 15 packs of infantry, 10 packs of cavalry, 1 arty crew and 1 pack of Heavy guns. No mention of sculptor.

Issue # 80 (May 1994) had an ad from Polly Oliver Castings that credits Michael Percy as the designer of the AWI range.

I found in Issue #98 (November 1995) of WI a full page ad for Kitney & Company. They were located in Sandwich, Kent. There were 28 codes of Peninsular War Veteran Infantry. The packs were made up of Rifles (6), Line Infantry Center Co (5), Line Infantry Flank Co (4), Light Infantry(4), Highlander Center Co (5) and Highlander Flank Co (4).
BPV 11 is listed as Line Infantry Flank Co, High Porte.

Additionally, there were 12 packs of French Napoleonic Veteran Infantry. No mention of sculptor.

Thanks, Pat: I'll go look up issue #98, even though they're not ordered that way now.

It would be interesting to know who sculpted the British and French "Veterans".

Allen

PTCohn,
Thanks for that trip down memory lane. I'd completely forgotten about those Marlburians and indeed have forgotten who we asked to sculpt that range (and the Carthaginians we started too). Ottomans, as I said before, were MPercy. And if anyone wants a great 15mm Ottoman gun ask jsmcc91 if he'd run the mould again as those guns were terrific.
Its interesting to think that we are talking about 20 years ago and to some, myself included, it is like yesterday.

I think I may have done the veterans for both French and British – looking at the photos of the figures its slowly coming back to me, though I didnt think I made that many!

I would have remembered sooner but I expect its my memory failing because of the lead poisoning I got while casting all those BH figures in de Lignes shed ;-)

de Ligne,
No problem.
I used it as an excuse to avoid doing some gardening and wound up rediscovering some terrific articles and looking at some advertisements for great figures.

"…it is like yesterday."
Same here.

Just out of curiosity, how many Marlburians were made?
Pat

Pat,
I think about 4 or 5 fusiliers, don't recall doing any command though and don't think we got to grenadiers either.
Memory failing even though it feels like yesterday!

Mark,
And the worst bit is realising now that we had working under our roof a really great designer-to-be in Mark (you) and we never knew it. If you had not hidden your talent so successfully we might have produced dozens of new figures.

But 'if' is such a large word despite only being two letters.
And, Allen, thanks for starting the thread on such a long lost topic.

It's been fun! And it doesn't seem that long ago to me, either.

Allen