HAT Waterloo Dutch Infantry

HAT Waterloo Dutch Infantry

Warriors for the working day

Now as regular readers of this blog will know, there are only two things I hate in this world; people who are intolerant of other cultures and the Dutch.

I have had to overcome this particular foible in order to field appropriate troops for the Quatre Bras scenario in the Command & Colours rule book as not even the most crazed of chauvinists can say that Wellingtons army was an entirely British one*. Who says that wargaming doesn't broaden your horizons?

Happily, one box gives sixteen compatible poses,

a sergeant, an officer and a passable drummer

I had originally decided to leave the two Hundred Days scenarios to one side for a while, but I was returning from court recently to discover that my local model shop had a box of HAT Waterloo Dutch Infantry. I quick calculation convinced me that if I was willing to forgo my usual habit of assembling troops in Charge! style regiments, I could assemble two infantry units from one box. I paused for careful reflection for two, possibly three seconds and then bought them. It appears that I'll have to muster some Brunswickers, Belgians, Nassauers and Hanoverians before I can actually play the scenario, but it is no great sacrifice.

A box of Hats Dutch Belgians and Nassau troops should plug the gaps with very little difficulty. The Nassauers in particular are cracking figures. I shall have to get my copy of Mark Adkins "The Waterloo Companion" over from the old house before paint encounters plastic as beyond knowing that they were there and that Crown Prince William of Orange was an ADC in the Peninsula (thank you Georgette Heyer), I know scandalously little about their involvement in the battle.

So, anyone for a schmoke and a pancake?

*Down at the back, Hofschroer. See me after class.