Troop Time!: Hinchliffe

Tuesday, 18 January 2022

ADLG Palmyran Army

The first metal army I ever painted back in the 70's was a Hinchliffe Palmyran army to play WRG 5th Edition at the club in Redcar. For many years they campaigned with me but eventually I sold or swapped them for another army and they disappeared into the mists of time!

For a while lately I contemplated trying to get them back but, realistically, that wasn't going to happen. I couldn't remember who I sold them to or even if it was in Redcar or London. The clubs I played at then no longer existed and many of the people I played at the time would now probably be no longer active so while I'd definitely recognise them again if I saw them the prospects of doing so seemed minimal.

While looking at the Lancashire Games website for some 15mm Franco-Prussian wars figures I noticed that they had taken over manufacturing and selling Hinchliffe figures at very reasonable prices. Inspired by my new-found enthusiasm for 25mm ADLG and being tired of painting WW2 stuff I thought why not order a few figures and see how they came out? At worst I could add them to my existing Late Roman army to give it a few options.

As is often the case a 'few' figures ended up turning into 'quite a lot' of figures as I painted them up and placed more orders to add a 'few' extra elements...

Six bases of Regular Archers:

Six bases of Irregular Light Archers:

The green Cataphracts:

The red Cataphracts:

Regular Medium Cavalry:

Irregular Medium Cavalry:

Caravan Guards as medium camelry:

Caravan Guards as light camelry:

The blue Cataphracts:

The purple Cataphracts:

Irregular Light Horse:

Zenobia:

Sub-general:

The second sub-general:

All together easily enough for an ADLG Palmyran army especially as I can add all the Roman allied troops from my Late Roman army (though the original army had Hinchliffe Late Romans rather than my Garrison ones).

I tried to paint them in a similar style to the originals and even contemplated gloss varnishing them (does anyone do that anymore?!) and, largely they look similar apart from the irregular horse who were much more colourful than these new ones.

I think they have come out nicely but, as I suspected, they suffer from not being the original army and I'm not that happy with the way the irregular cavalry came out. Hopefully with some games they will develop their own personality and they certainly made a change from painting endless WW2 and Napoleonic figures!