Highlanders from Airfix

Mint condition box!! Even the inside paper bit is included.

The Highlanders were the set I always wanted but never got when I was a kid. 6 boxes in total was the high tide mark of my Napoleonic childhood. I remember drooling over pictures of this box in Airfix magazines knowing that I would never really get a chance to buy it (or having it bought for me for Christmas).  I picked this box up in an internet sale a few years ago and the front box cover is on my S5 phone! The cover art on these boxes is so fantastic and inspiring that I still get a little chill (or thrill) when I look at them. They are always a bit of an oasis just to view when life gets a little too hectic.

Speaking of which - that is the end of my reviews of my old boxes. As you will notice from my posts I haven't written that much. This year has been a real roller coaster for me. I've been growing the business, my wife is starting a new job, the kids are now all in Secondary school, music lessons and maths lessons are kicking off in earnest and we've just bought a house and have to tend my mum's house in Hampden which our family has decided to hang onto as a holiday house..  All of these things are conspiring to place this blog and my hobby on the back burner until winter at least. So until the nights close in and the fire is burning in the log burner it is au revoir from me.  

Vive l’Empereur!

Airfix French Infantry

These were the "meat 'n vegies" of the Airfix armies. The Brits always seemed to rout these guys pretty easily as I remember. No fun being an Airfix French infantry dude. They also didn't get the same painting attention as the Imperial Guard. Some (most ) never got painted at all. In my battels the British got to fire first and decimate the advancing French. These dudes were at the front and served as fodder for the Grenadiers at the back. In the end of my battle s on my bedroom floor it always came down to a fight between the Brits and the Imperial Guard. These dudes were always long dead.

British Infantry

 Here are the "goodies" which held back the French for a large part of my childhood. I notice that the officer's sword has either run through too many Frenchies or has been chewed by a younger me.
I had two boxes of these dudes to fight three boxes of French.  I never managed to get Highland Infantry during my childhood. I did manage to buy a box from an online auction a few years back. Finally the forces are all together to fight in Airfixland for eternity!

The first of the sets which got me interested in Napoleonics

This was an awesome set and I got it when I was about eight or nine I think. Being a kid, the original box didn't survive my messy room and being continuously being opened and closed.  My sister brought back three boxes of Airfix when she returned from her Dunedin Youth Orchestra trip to Hobart and I can still remember the thrill of getting such a bounty from the strange land of Australia. These figures formed the mainstay of my battles for the next five or six years and decades later I actually repainted them (pictures on previous post somewhere). Just seen these figures sends me back to my childhood!  I will post the remaining three boxes over the next few days.

Hiatus again....

Work has been busy and getting the kids back to school mode has been time consuming. Add to that the unexpected passing of my mother and this has meant that for the week at least hobbies take a back seat.  I might add some photos of my 1/32 Airfix Napoleonic boxes to the blog next week.  They are truly works of 1970s art. They have been in my little memories cupboard for several years but it is time they saw the light of day again...