Rambling Roses

Back in September 2018 I posted on Vintage Wargaming about the acquisition of some Rose figures from Peter Goldsbrough's collection of 20mm Napoleonics. In addition to these I had quite a large number of unpainted figures from a previous purchase, which I intended to combine in a project I thought I would document on line. The Goldsbrough figures included a lot of conversions, some of them very interesting, and which required a degree of repair and refurbishment.

As an end of year thing I have just today published a series of posts on the Old Metal Detector blog to report on its completion a few months ago, That series can be found by following this link..

That original Vintage Wargaming post can be found here.

For various reasons all the fun and excitement were soon drained out of the project and I put it aside for eight or nine months, and even thought seriously of throwing all the figures away. However, then after finishing various other things I decided to have a go at seeing it to completion. This meant a further two or three months sticking at it and grinding out about 20 battalions and 10 or 12 guns and crews. While it wasn't very exciting while it was going on it was a good feeling of achievement to get it completed. It also meant I still haven't had to face up to painting hundreds of Hinton Hunt French and British line infantry figures.

I have always liked the stylised nature of the Rose infantry, all of which are in two poses, marching and advancing.They are almost semi flat or demi-ronde, and I had always thought they would look very good en masse. I also changed my normal basing standard (20mm x 20mm for foot) to two ranks of two figures each on a 30 mm frontage with a 40 mm depth to fit the style of the figures and was very pleased with the result.

This photo would have illustrated this point better if I had stuck the figures a bit straighter on the base.

Having acquired a large number of Rose officers of various types, but all in the same pose, waving their sword in a right arm that looked just a little too long, I got quite fond of using them with Les Higgins units, to give a slightly more animated command option than the LH bloke standing on a football and pointing.

The Rose Napoleonics range was small and doesn't seem to have expanded hence the need for conversions for anyone with ambitions beyond this original list. This might be to add more detail, to get the troop type you wanted, They were first issued in 1963-4,  therefore a little before the Hinton Hunt 20mm range, which took the alternative route of being as large and comprehensive as possible.

I had also come across the DBN Napoleonic Rules which operate at a grand tactical level and are really designed for 15 mm figures. In the couple of games I played  I found them really well thought out and clearly thoroughly play tested. Although this isn't the level I would choose to do moist of my Napoleonic wargaming I am now wondering whether the Rose armies might provide an option for DBN.

The Rose figures are a bit of a sideline and curiosity really - I'm not sure for example how they might work with my other 20mm figures, like Hinton Hunts and Alberken - so thinking of a particular role for them is a good thing and very welcome after the time and work put into them.

So in the end I think a useful project to create some unusual armies and I'm glad I stuck with it.

Roses grow on you

Recently I have had some success in clearing off long part finished units from my painting queue. One of these was a battalion of Rose marching Napoleonic Austrian Infantry painted as Hungarians. After I had based and plastidipped I realised I had forgotten to do the gold lace on the trousers, but decided I didn't want to  take them off the bases and redo them.

Part of the reason for clearing the painting table was to make room for a refurbishment project which had been on the back burner for a while. About a year or eighteen months ago I bought from the States a collection of around 800 original Hinton Hunt castings, which had all been bought in London from Marcus Hinton on one day in 1965. Among them are quite a large number of painted or part painted figures and I wanted to work through the refurbishment and basing of the painted figures.

Then a couple of weeks ago I went in with Goya on a purchase of old time wargamer's Peter Goldsborough's old 20mm Napoleonics figures, which he had gifted many years ago to the Edinburgh club after he went into 5mm regimental blocks and Plasticine hills.

My share was the sizeable contingent of Rose figures, which predated Alberken/Minifigs 20mm and Hinton Hunt, seem to be less common and also less collected. They were also a considerably less comprehensive range. One of the beauties of this collection is therefore the amount of conversion work which has been undertaken, including head swapping, creating buglers and trumpeters, and converting the mounted Wellington figure into mounted colonels of all countries. This is a reminder of the days when you had to make the best of what was available, rather than access huge ranges or back kickstarters for exactly what you want.

. Some of the figures didn't travel well, in particular heads and top halves of hats on conversions and bases on horses. Rose horses came without bases. The collection included many converted casualties - the horses seemed to have been Hinton Hunts with the bases removed and then used to which to attach the Rose horses, The cavalry have also had wire reins added along with very delicate pin swords.

I've spent a day doing repairs - pinning and gluing heads and hats, matching horses to bases, and when there were no bases using some steel ones. I have also started on the Rose refurbishment project and it is going well - I have completed five units in as many evenings and am pleased with the results.

My usual basing convention for 20mm infantry is 20 x 20mm per figure, but because of the almost semi-flat look of the marching Rose foot figures I felt closer order was more appropriate, and I have gone for four infantry on a 30mm x 40mm base. This is a small change but I think suits them well. They are fairly stylised figures with two standard poses - advancing and marching. The officers are waving swords and have arms which look slightly too long. (I have used Rose officers successfully with units of Les Higgins figures when I wanted figures other than the standard LH officer standing on his football and pointing.

I made a joint purchase a few years ago with someone else of a large number of unpainted Rose foot figures plus around 30 mounted Wellingtons, so with the unpainted figures in the new collection it should be easy enough to make up whole units. This older collection was particularly well provided with officers, drummers and standard bearer figures.

The progress of the Rose refurbishment project may well get diverted either by boredom and butterfly tendencies but I am hoping that given the rapid progress to date I may be able to maintain interest. I am thinking of running the refurbishment of the Hinton Hunt figures from the States in tandem, to add a bit of variety and make progress on both.

I will record progress on the Rose project to some extent on my Old Metal Detector blog, and if the Hinton Hunt one gets going as well that will be reported on the Hinton Hunter..

Bavarian infantry

The first Rose unit to be refurbished was this Bavarian battalion. It needed a little more work than most, as their coats were dark blue. The base figures seem to be French Guard Grenadiers with Austrian helmeted heads.

French line battalion - and separate shot of command element:

Old Guard Grenadiers:

British Household Cavalry:

At first I thought these might be heads from the French Carabinier but I think they are original british figures

Nassau Light Infantry

I will make a further post here and on the Old Metal Detector on the various conversions - highlanders from line infantry are mind boggling. It isn't always easy to identify the base figure, as bases may have been filed  and the codes on the underside not legible. In addition many of the codes which can be read start N, which is not reflected in any of the listings.

As examples, Highlanders and then a Rifleman bugler:

More Pathé - Russell Gammage

Thanks to Paul from Oz, who's tip about this next clip led to my wandering around the British Pathé archive a few days ago and unearthing the Portable Battlefield film.

While not as directly soldier related as Paul's previous find, the Marcus Hinton film, this shows Russell Gammage, the proprietor of Rose Miniatures, at work on a figure rather too large a scale to be classed as wargaming.

WOODEN ARMIES

Rose 20mm Wellington BR5 - one of the earliest 20mm figures?

As part of a large joint purchase of a collection of original Rose 20mm Napoleonic castings, I have acquired 32 of these figures (also 72 Old Guard Grenadier drummers, but that's a different story...). The figure is marked 001 Rose on the underside. Although it doesn't appear on any of the Rose lists it seems almost certainly to be a very early version of the BR5 figure mentioned in the write up on Rose on Vintage 20mil. As it might very possible date from the late 1950s this is quite a curiosity, hence posting it here. The 001 code suggests it may even have been Rose's first figure.