As A Blood Red Cloud

Dybbol, 5th June 1848. After the opening battles of Bov and Schleswig the Danish forces had been withdrawn to Sundeved and Als. To celebrate the Hanoverian King's birthday, the allied "German" forces wanted a victory. They attacked at midday forcing the Danes into a retreat.
The 12,000 Danish reserves then launched a counter attack and as a "blood red cloud" they poured over Dybbol Hill to victory.

The "mystery project" is the First Schleswig-Holstein War 1848 to 1851. The first figures, sculpted for me by Mr Andrew Stadden are Danish infantry in the 1842 "red" uniform. I wanted to achieve an accurate but Old School feel to the figures and am very pleased with the results.

A new 1848 pattern uniform had been introduced by the outbreak of the war and was gradually being rolled out. Many officers had kitted themselves out in the new kit, but found that waving your arms around in a blue uniform in a real shooting war was rather detrimental to their health and soon put their old uniforms back on! Gaps in the junior officer ranks were filled as quickly as possible, including the promotion of veteran NCOs. The heavily bearded figure to the right of the command stand is one such ex-NCO.

The basic infantry figures I have had made consist of two advancing poses, one right leg and one left leg forward variant. Each has a bearded and clean shaven head variant. Figures come with the impressive but uncomfortable shako, the cap or the "hungarian" kepi. (Mixed headgear was common among units as old kit got lost). A little bending and tweaking produces an animated unit finished off with a senior officer, junior (hairy!) officer, drummer boy and flag waving NCO.

The opposition under production are for a Schleswig Holstein infantry firing line of 4 different figures plus 4 command figures. Once I have received them I will be sending off the masters for a "proper" set of moulds to be made. Then production can really begin!

For anyone interested their are only 3 books I am aware of in English. Without making this sound like an Oscar speech I really must say a huge thanks to Jorgen, who I got in contact through the Yahoo Schleswig Wars Group. He has supplied information that I doubt I would ever have found and answered my countless questions. Thank you sir.

So there you have it, the most expensive 20 figure unit I have ever purchased! Completed November 2008.