Battle_of_Laufeldt

Battle_of_Laufeldt

Tuesday 16 July 2013

The Grand Duke and others

Things are fairly quiet in the Duchy at present, though there are rumblings of discontent in the southern provinces. Grand Duke Hudibras has taken advantage of the good weather to take a ride through his country estate, in company with his secretary, Baron Pschmidt and his Quartermaster General Warnerhus de Tettingen.
The Grand Duke is dressed in the green and blue national colours, and is a Jackdaw Duke of Cumberland figure, Pschmidt (the p is silent, as in swimming pool - with apologies to P.G.Wodehouse) is in the yellow and is, I think, a Willie model), while Warnerhus is another from the Jackdaw British High Command group.


Later they were joined by the High Constable, Graf Aldrian von Tronek, who brought along  Lord Killwillie, leader of the free company (allright, mercenaries) known as the Celtic Ranger Free Highlanders. A group of Scots in enforced exile after the 1745, and doing what they do best - fighting anyone and anything, especially if paid for it. The Grand Duke is negotiating their services in the expected shennanigins.
Again, von Tronek is an old Willie figure though I can't remember which, while Killwillie is a Willie Bonnie Prince Charlie. The painting job on these figures is not brilliant (especially Killwillie's plaid, but my eyes ain't what they used to be.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest -
 The Grand Duke's daughter, Duchess Charlotte leads a small party of huntsmen in pursuit of whatever crosses their path. They are out for fun and the noise of the huntsman's horn is likely to frighten off any game. Along with the Duchess is an old school friend from England, Lady Anne Laurence, and bringing up the rear is the old Marshal Saxo, once a renowned soldier, now at 82 a tutor in military matters to the Grand Duke's sons, and here acting as bodyguard to the Duchess. (She doesn't know about the squadron of dragoons that follow ,at a discrete distance). The Marshal is held in great esteem by the Humperstinians in general, and is known affectionately as 'the old salt'.
Figures mainly Willie, from the hunt series. I hope I've managed to get a reasonable representation of  Dalmation in painting the dogs.

1 comment:

  1. Splendid post ,can we be allowed to be followers of this excellent blog?
    best wishes
    Alan

    ReplyDelete