With my ‘lead mountain’ again almost reduced to nothing, I’ve been going through my bits-and-pieces box to find models to paint during the holidays. This French artillery limber is the result (pictured here with a Perry Miniatures gun I had already painted some years ago).
My army has always lacked limbers, mainly due to the expense of such intricate models that are ultimately not much use for wargaming purposes. However, I did once buy two old limbers off Steve Sands about a decade ago, but never did anything with them because I felt the figures didn’t match the look of my armies. So up till now they’ve sat unloved and unpainted for years.
This month in my search for a little holiday project, I re-looked at these old limber models, and decided to paint the surviving one to see how it would turn out. Sadly the other limber had some parts missing (not Steve’s fault – I cut some bits off one limber several years ago to form part of a scratch-build of some sort).
I think, by the style, the limber is by Hinchliffe Models, though I could be mistaken. It was obviously already an old model when I bought it off Steve.
I’ve kept my painting fairly simple on this model, as the figures don’t really have much detail. The figures are also smaller and slighter than my Perry and Front Rank armies – but by adding a higher base than my normal style, this isn’t too obvious from a distance.
The horses also had rather odd anatomies, with very slender and high-slung bellies But once painted, this doesn’t seem too noticeable either. On the other hand, the horse harness is simply superb. And the easy method of attaching the traces is something modern companies could emulate.
Anyway, now I can tow at least one of my guns!
DRESSING THE LINES 
yes, definitely HInchcliffe. Their figures were always a strange mix of the active, the improbable, and the inspiring. Expert painters and converters could get them to look amazing. (Check out the Sasanian cavalry in the Airfix Guide to Ancient Wargaming for an example). They have turned out well though.
These look like the same figures pictured in a book called ‘The Wargame”. They are in the title page for the battle of Austerlitz. I got the book as a boy in the early 70’s. I still have it.