Happy Christmas - it's The Three Musketeers !

On a day when everyone gets presents they don't really want and then tries to slope off to think about what stuff they might buy online that they would have actually preferred to get instead of those socks, this post is intended as a timely reminder that whilst there are some figures you "actually" need, some you just, well, "need" even though you don't really have an army list drawn up to use them in, and some that you kinda think "well, I could probably find a use for them and they are quite nice, so as long as no-one notices....", there is a whole, separate class of figures that fall into an entirely separate "lets throw reason out of the window, I just GOTTA have some of those!" category.

And the latest contenders for the Gold Medal in this regard are very definitely the figures in Blue Moon Manufacturing's new Three Musketeers range.

In the French army from the early part of the Thirty Year's War, Field of Glory: Renaissance
allows you to field the Kings Musketeers as part of a tooled up (well, Superior grade) Light Foot unit armed with muskets. So, everyone wants 4 bases of them huh?

The Blue Moon figures however come in packs of 10 - 5 mounted and 5 foote. So, whilst somewhere in Madaxeman Towers a unit of 5 mounted and one pedestrian are being painted, some spare Testudo infantry were quickly pressed into service to add to 4 of the Cardinal's Guard to create the almost-useless unit of 4 bases of Superior LF Musketeers

The Testudo figures - here in the slightly blurred foreground - are a smidge
taller than the Blue Moon chaps, and also styled rather differently to the fairly cartoonish but eminently lovable Blue Moon - but its a very  good match at wargaming distances

Where the Blue Moon guys excel however is in their deployment of quite phenomenal Depardieu-esque moustaches ... (Testudo on the right here)

I actually bought the Cardinal's Guard set in preference to the actual Musketeers set as I thought they looked a lot more like the Hollywood impression of the Musketeers. (Testudo on the left)

"Have at you Sir!"   (Testudo on the right - although you'e probably picked up the style now..)

They truly are very loveable figures - and in the spirit of Hollywood-ization, my choice of uniform design for this unit was inspired by a classic Hollywood version of the tale of The Three Musketeers!

Blue Moon stuff is also available from Old Glory UK in the UK. 

Go on, you know you want some....