"Perry British for Peninsular Camp Scenes" Topic

My first attempt at this has disappeared into the ether. I imagine the BUG but let's try again;

Perrys today announced a series of figures representing the British army in the Peninsula, but now in camp scenes. (I mean in a tented area not that they are acting a bit, well….)
There should also be a cooking set but not yet on the website;
link
Very imaginative and great for collectors and for vignettes.

Very nice figures. I would like to add some of these to my War of 1812 collection.

Brilliant, just brilliant!

Excellent figures. Shades of obadiah hakeswill on the Donkey.

There should also be a cooking set but not yet on the website

Seems to be there by now:

I would not mind Perrys doing something similar for other periods, though on the other hand I would not expect these to be their greatest sellers.

These are great. Especially the cooking pot figures.

Brilliant work from Alan. Love the scenes. Really sets the tone for the period in question. Thank you.

Nice.

"I would not mind Perrys doing something similar for other periods, though on the other hand I would not expect these to be their greatest sellers."
Sometimes, you do things just for Art. I really appreciate it.

I would not mind Perrys doing something similar for other periods

Thinking better, Perrys do have two camp scene packs in their ACW range, though they tend to be on less active poses than these.

I agree the cooking scene is the best of the lot. Thanks for finding it. I am sure we will see them all in the Discussion Forum shortly (grin)

I also agree that the cooking scene is very nicely done.

My other favourite is the pack with the grunts getting off their kit – very nicely animated, and you can really sense the feeling of relief they are having after having spent a day marching under the Spanish sun.

Combining the two could make a great diorama – fresh reinforcements have just arrived into a small oupost, where the existing garrison is about to start cooking dinner.

Then there is also the old field forge that might not look out of place in a camp scene:

Very nice – my order should be dropping through the letterbox tomorrow. What's the view on the "Wee Willie Winkie" forage caps rather than the "Tam O'Shanter" style made famous in the " Sharpe" TV series and worn by many Napoleonic re-enactors in this country? I've seen a museum photo of the former version, albeit with a less fulsome tail, which was perhaps worn more in the manner of the WW2 era cap comforter?

goo.gl/images/64VPg5

The cap shown here is a surprise to me, but I am no expert I stress.

It is like the Bonnet de police of France and so many countries allied to….but this has a peak/visor and the top of the pointed cap is worn out and not tucked in.

The bonnet de police can look great (eg the Perry French plastic chasseurs) or awful (eg the Perry Grenadiers a Cheval, where far too tall and like something from International Rescue).

This hat shown here, though. I cannot find it in any of my references, but I suspect the Perrys do know what they are doing by now.

Personally I think it looks awful and would be astonished if it survived five minutes after disembarking into Iberia. The nearest I found was in "Wellington's Peninsula (sic) Regiments" from Osprey. D1 shows a Simian looking Corporal of 88th of Foot (as an Irishman I will not comment further) wearing "one of the many patterns of night-cap worn at the time". It is far more like a forage cap of WWII than this horrible creation.

I love the picture second down. Having retired, it is now three months since I last took out some tonsils (having first done that bit of butchery in June 1976) but that chap has all my sympathy. I do mean the surgeon however. He has no headlight!

The guy loading the donkey wears flank company wings but his cap plume suggests…oh forget it. What an imaginative release and yes, their ACW range has long had very similar figures (if not better)

Absolutely wonderful (of course). I shall keep my fingers crossed something similar one day emerges for British in 1815!

Totally. The Scots Greys awakening on that dawn (OK, too much to hope, but any cavalry figures dismounted, either side!)

The snag must be commercial prospects for such at rest figures.

French infantry with shouldered muskets will sell in thousands, especially if better than anything else currently out there.

Mind you, even then, will folk invest money and painting/basing time in what they probably already have, to saturation levels…however good? God help the manufacturers.

Wargamers make up the profits, let us face it, not the collector weirdos like me that want Gendarmes d'Elite in Parade rig, or Grenadiers a Cheval or Garde Dragons ditto, in small numbers.

It is creditable that the Perrys show the integrity to produce such figures (or indeed Scandinavian Guard Light Infantry Pontoniers a Cheval) without going for the obvious…the most famous units of the entire epoch.

Just imagine Perry Grenadiers a Cheval, Emperatrice Dragons, Gendarmes d'Elite etc in parade rig, without the slung water bottle/musket nonsense. On standing horses. Weep.

Wargamers make up the profits, let us face it, not the collector weirdos like me that want Gendarmes d'Elite in Parade rig, or Grenadiers a Cheval or Garde Dragons ditto, in small numbers.

I really don't think the Perrys give two hoots about what sells, I'm guessing they must be in the lucky position of it not really being a key concern anymore. They did, after all, make an entire range for a war that DIDN'T HAPPEN in 1861!

I would LOVE to know how many of those figs they sold; in fact, I'd be fascinated to know more about the stats for which periods, which units, which type of pose sell best. I've wondered about these things so often over the years.

I'm like you, Deadhead, in craving unusual figs for our collections that have less use on a Wargaming Table (I've been begging for British staff for Waterloo for years – ADCs, AAGs, DAAGs, AQGs, and DAQGs).
Some of the choices by manufacturers seem quite odd – there were THREE pipers at Waterloo but there are countless options from Perry, Victrix, Front Rank, Warlord, Old Glory, Elite. There were 51 AAGs/DAAGs/AQGs/DAQGs at Waterloo but nobody has ever made a single figure in their uniforms.

And there were many more horse artillery gunners riding horses…but not a single figure.

Oh yes……..

Let us say it again. Horse Artillery of any nation, Prussian, Netherlands, Swedish for God's sake…on horses. They are impossible to create as the ideal light cavalry figures all carry a musketoon/carbine. They are always covered with cross belts also.

British staff. Do not get me started. Look at what Boney's lads get in terms of admin.

But again. The finest figures of the era are surely the Grenadiers a Cheval, the Empress Dragoons, the Gendarmes d' Elite etc all in the cut away coat with the exposed waistcoat.

But what do they give us instead? I accept that plainer look could, stress could, be seen on many a battlefield.

But, if we can get Finnish or Swedish Skirmishers a Cheval d'Elite Command from Perrys…as recently….why not…?

BTW, Lord Hill, you cannot stop there. "There were only three pipers at Waterloo". That merits its own posting anyway. I always wondered about my 71st HLI and was sure he might be right enough back home, but not south of Brussels in the only battle that really mattered. Do you assume just the three kilted Highland Regts at W-loo had a piper each?

I really don't think the Perrys give two hoots about what sells, I'm guessing they must be in the lucky position of it not really being a key concern anymore.

Considering the size of Perrys existing range, there is certainly no need for the Perrys to worry that every new release is a best-seller. The sculpting time is their own time, and the investment in making moulds and casting an initial inventory is not very high.

That said, I am under the impression that in their previous assignments Perrys also had some freedom to sculpt also a bit odder figures – there are lot of oddities in the stuff they sculpted for Citadel in the 80's, like a stilt-walking dwarf. In the 90's the things at GW may have tightened up a bit, but they probably had some freedom at Foundry, which has some curious packs in the selection for some periods.

Do you assume just the three kilted Highland Regts at W-loo had a piper each?

Hi, Deadhead – yes, that was my thinking but I suppose the 71st might also have had one, and maybe the 73rd?

I've only been able to find one piper named at Waterloo – Kenneth Mackay of the 79th, none of the other musters make any mention of any of the men being pipers.

But then there's nothing on any musters about any men in any British regiment being "sappers" either. I know there's some obscure order somewhere but I secretly believe that the whole idea of "sappers" in British infantry may just be a myth spread by the kind of bespectacled, overweight, beardy, real-ale type called Dave who seem to comprise a disproportionate percentage of all reenactment groups. Any excuse to not shave that birds nest off. But I digress.

Sappers were Engineers. The guys you mean in each regt were pioneers, you know the beards, the apron the axe etc.

As for pipers. I am not sure they were officially labeled as such on regt strength back then……but that has no evidence whatsoever. did not Dickson say he saw his old friend, some piper of 92nd playing Johnny Cope…and gave his name?

Ah yes, pioneers – that's what I meant. It just strikes me as odd that there is no mention of them in any muster or inspection report, at least not in any of the hundreds I have pored over at Kew.

Inspection reports contain all sorts of fascinating minutiae – references to missing forage caps, tattered ammunition pouches, rusty bayonets, a lack of haversacks and blankets, buglers who can't play in tune, horses that are too short, paybooks that are not up to date, school teachers and surgeons, incompetent adjutants and hopeless NCOs, decrepit quartermasters, and so on and so on.

But not a word about beards, aprons or axes or even a mention of the word "pioneer".

How interesting. Seems very odd not identified as such. Two per company I somehow recall. Not too many contemporary illustrations ( I only know of this one but title seems confirmed by legend to illustration)