Musket and Tomahawk: which range?

Conquest figure

I finished my first French and Indian war figure at the weekend as it had been sitting around on the workbench for far too long.  It is one of the Conquest (now also Warlord) figures and is a very nice figure indeed, anatomically.  It is very "Perry" in style, size and proportions.  I've done a very simple colour scheme to get him finished quickly: no beading and no war paint.  When I bought these figures (off someone at Guildford Wargames Club) there weren't really any other FIW figures around.  Well, maybe Redoubt but I refuse to buy figures from a manufacturer who won't put photos up on their website and, anyway, they have a reputation for being very large. 

Now however, we have Galloping Major, North Star and Crusader.  There have been some posts on The Miniatures Page asking about comparisons between the sizes of the figures.  Well, as usual, I take no notice of people who say "X range works fine with Y range" as mostly people talk rubbish.  One person said that Conquest work fine with Galloping Major.  No they don't!  Here is my completed Conquest Indian with a Galloping major figure.  The size difference is huge!  The conquest figures is 24mm foot to eye and the Galloping major one is 28mm.  That's not compatible in my book!

So now I'm stuck as to how to proceed.  The Conquest figures are easily the nicest looking but the range is restricted and there is no clue that there will ever be any more.  I need certain types to carry on.  French and British regulars (including Highlanders for the British), canoes, French and British irregulars/militia, Indians for both sides (preferably differentiated) and civilians (armed and unarmed.  I don't think one firm currently provides everything.  

North Star Highlanders

Conquest are strong on civilians and irregulars.  Their regulars are famously posed wrongly and there are no highlanders.  Galloping Major are strong on irregulars, Indians and militia but have no regulars.  Their figures are a bit less refined than Conquest's too.  Some are very nice but some are a little awkward.  The Crusader figures come somewhere between Conquest and Galloping major in style but Crusader figures are often quite small so I doubt if they would go with Galloping Major.  It's not ranges of Indians that we are short of, anyway.  North Star are strong on irregulars and Indians but have no regulars (yet).  However they have announced some beautiful looking Highlanders sculpted by Mike Owen.  The problem with North Star is that, on the whole, they are selling their FIW figures as packs of around thirty figures.  You can buy one or two smaller packs so I suppose I will just have to order one (which will take weeks) to see what they are like as I have no idea of their size.  I've also heard that their figures are very large, maybe even bigger than Galloping Major.

Oh well, more research is needed I think!

Copplestone Castings White Russian Lancers in Chinese Service

Although I have, for me, a reasonable number of painted Chinese Back of Beyond figures I haven't done any for years.  When these came out just before Christmas, however, I knew that I had to get some for my Chinese warlord army.  

It's a very small unit but then they were just bodyguards for the warlord Chang T'sung-chang.  They were armed with Mauser automatic pistols, Da-Dao swords and bamboo lances.  The Copplestone figures don't come with lances but Foundry do bamboo lances so I got them from there. At present Copplestone don't make a command pack so I chopped off one of the lancer's hands and replaced it with a hand holding a Mauser pistol from one of my Bolshevik command figures. 

I actually had the relevant Osprey, Chinese Warlord Armies 1911-30, so painting reference was not a problem.  The only issue, really, is that my existing Warlord army is the one of Wu Pei-fu, the bitter enemy of Chang T'sung-chang, so now I will have to paint a force for Chang.  His provincial forces wore blue rather than the normal grey, grey-green or khaki so they might be a bit more interesting looking.  I have four unpainted foot soldiers I have just based but have run out of the model filler I use on my bases, annoyingly.  Off to Modelzone next week I think!

Not much progress on painting but more shopping...

The view in the Legatus's road last Friday afternoon

I realised that I haven't posted for three weeks and in that time everyone else whose blogs I follow seems to be turning out stuff at an amazing rate.

Two things have stopped me progressing on my painting.  Firstly, both my wife and son have gone down, at different times, with some of the nasty viruses around at present so I have been running around looking after them, getting medicine and plying them with drinks (they both got very dehydrated).  I'm not feeling too brilliant myself this evening and I had a nasty fall at the weekend on the ice underneath the snow in our drive. I've been limping around for nearly a week and literally bumped into local WAG Louise Redknapp today in the doctor's surgery car park, as my ability to change direction rapidly to avoid other people is much diminished.  Although if you have to collide with one of the neighbours...

The question tonight, therefore, is what is the best way to treat pain and a cold:  Lem Sip, Rioja or a Vodka Martini?  All three, I suspect, may not be a good idea.

We haven't been hit as bad as some parts of the country with the snow but four inches was enough to bring most of the transport to a halt here for a day at least.  The Legatus lives on a cul-de-sac so we don't get enough through traffic to clear the road of snow properly.  At least we didn't end up with a BMW in our garden like the family at the top of the drive. Rear wheel drive cars are rubbish in the snow!

The second thing that is taking up my time is work.  I am dealing with an imminent visit from Colombia which means that stuff keeps coming in until about midnight, so I am tapping away doing emails instead of painting.  I did get some painting done at the weekend and at least the snow helped provide rather brighter light than of late.

British base in Waziristan (well, actually, Yugoslavia)

Actually, I have nearly finished a small unit (8 figures) of Copplestone Back of Beyond cavalry.  I'm hoping a bit of work this weekend will see them finished.  I think the Russians I did a few months ago have got me interested in the period again so I might prepare some more during Dancing on Ice on Sunday.  Added to this are the new Empress "Jazz Age colonials" which currently only consist of three packs of Afghan tribesmen.  I picked up the widescreen (as opposed to the dreadful pan and scan) DVD of the Tom Selleck film High Road to China this week.  This rather underrated film, slated at the time for being sub-standard Indiana Jones (Selleck was Spielberg's original choice for the part), features a British camp in Waziristan, Waziri tribesmen (led by Brian Blessed!) and a final battle between warlord Chinese forces. It is very unlikely that you will ever get a more Back of Beyond film than this!  They even got the five coloured star on the Chinese officer's cap right! Painting these on 28mm figures has proved something of a challenge, I have to say.  All this has got me thinking about Waziristan so I hope Empress eventually produce some suitable British, Indian Army and Gurkha troops.  Copplestone make them but they come from the period when his figures were huge so I don't think they will match too well.

Matabele!

I've been buying a few more figures (as if I need any more) and today this whopping box of Matabele arrived from North Star (there is nothing like a big heavy box with a Nottingham post mark).  These are entirely Giles' fault and there looks to be about three years worth of work in here.  I also bought some Perry French Napoleonic light infantry on eBay as well as, at last, my second Copplestone elephant which I need for my stalled but not forgotten Zambezi campaign.  Or, as my particular friend Sophie pointed put the other day, Zambesi if I want to adopt period correct spelling.  The rest of my Crusader American Civil War regulars turned up (North Star is not the place to go if you want instant gratification - unlike Copplestone, for example) and I based those but ran out of spray undercoat.  This has now been rectified and I plan to move them along after my Back of Beyond cavalry.

I also based some of my Empress ECW cavalry figures and was surprised to find that they will work perfectly well with my existing Renegade figures.  They are delicate, however, and I broke one of the horses off its base but Empress came to the rescue with replacements so I took the opportunity to pick up a few pikemen.  I haven't looked at these compared with the Renegade figures yet but, again, they look quite large (although slimmer than the Renegades and with smaller heads).

Finally, today, I picked up the Black Powder supplement on the Peninsula War which is filled with the most delicious looking photographs.  I must not get distracted from Waterloo and Quatre Bras, however.

So, I think my cold is getting the better of me and I will retire and hope I feel up to finishing my cavalry tomorrow!

First figures of 2013!

Well, I have finished my first figures of 2013!  Only three of them but they are enough to complete my unit of Dutch 27th Jäger.  This is my first completed Napoleonic unit in 28mm and I am delighted to have achieved this given the amount of work in uniforms of this period.  The only downside is it's taken me just a week over five years to paint them!  At this rate... No, don't even think about it!  The only good thing is that I have done eleven out of the 25 figures in the last seven weeks.  More about the 27th Jäger on my Quatre Bras and Waterloo blog which I now feel is a bit more respectable as a result!

Now I feel enthused to finish my Prussians who probably only need a couple of weeks concentrated effort to complete.  Next I have a battalion of French already based and I've even painted three of them.  I can use the same French against the Prussians and Dutch with just different flags, of course.  

Alongside the Prussians on the workbench at present I have a small Back of Beyond unit for which I received the final four figures from Copplestone Castings yesterday.  It's only an eight man unit but they are cavalry.  Still, I am enjoying painting them.  Other than that all the other figures (other than a few one-offs) are for my Argonauts project.  I will try and only keep three periods of figures on the workbench at any one time this year!

Resisting Temptation Part 2

So, here is how it goes.  As expected, as I looked at the North Star sale, various armies on (really quite big) discount floated across my still somewhat addled post Christmas-consciousness,  Why not get two 1866 armies?  How about a big batch of Louis XIV French?  I could use them for North America!  But, as I had hoped, the voice of measured reason floated up from the antipodes in the Middle Earthian shape of Scott. Everything he said in commenting on my last post was spot on. Phew!  Saved again.

Then, however, sitting on my other shoulder was Big Red Bat whispering about the French.  Now just looking at his excellent blog has me searching around for ancients to paint: I've just found some Macedonian pikemen to base as a result of one of his recent posts.  So I don't really need any more temptation from him!

All was well.  I looked at my half finished Prussians and moved on. This morning, however, Giles posted about the big Matabele impi on sale.  I'd completely missed that one.  I've been wanting to buy these since they came out.  Darkest Africa figures are the first metal 28mm soldiers I bought!  I could use them in my Zambezi campaign (well, not really).  I bought Zulu and Matabele: Warrior Nations by Glenn Lyndon Dodds  and enjoyed the novel The Shangani Patrol by John Wilcox.  Oh dear!  Temptation given in to once more!  At least it was the cheapest of all the options I was looking at (by £3).

I'm sure I will get on to them after I finish the 200 Zulus I have to do.  And the Ngoni.  And the Masai.  And finishing my Azande....

Resisting temptation...

Resisting temptation is not one of the Legatus' key characteristics.  Indeed, my particular friend Sophie always maintains that my epitaph should be "Oh, alright then...".

Now, although I am very busy at present (I actually had to contribute to a brief for the Prime Minister today at ridiculously short notice) I have been trying to do a little bit of painting every day.  So collars, cuffs and turnbacks on my Dutch Jaegers today.  Not much but enough to move them along a bit.  Now, given the enormity of my lead (and plastic) pile and the geologically slow rate of my painting it would be palpably insane to be considering buying large numbers of new figures,  Today, however North Star have announced a sale.  Now there isn't very much there to tempt me except they have several deals on big collections of figures. 

A third of my painted French infantry

In particular, a force of 69 foot and 20 mounted of the Copplestone (mainly) sculpted Glory of the Sun/1672 French for £93, down from £156.  Now I should bear in mind that I have painted exactly three of these figures in the past few years, mainly because I have no idea as to how they fit in a wargaming/historical context.  The promised historical information on the Copplestone site never materialised.  But it's such a good buy!  I have always had this urge to get some figures from the 1650-1770 period but didn't want to do WSS (mainly because many people do it at Guildford already and I am contrary by nature).   I recently bought some British from this range but I can't find anything that shows the British fighting the French on land for the Dutch Wars.  In fact we were allies of them at some point.  Hmm.

The next offer I was tempted by is even more insane: two armies, Austrian and Prussian, from their 1866 range.  99 Prussians for £75 and 96 Austrians for £70.  This is for a range that is hopelessly incomplete as well but I have always had an interest in it because of the interesting uniforms and, perhaps, my Austrian heritage.   But given the pickelhauben hatted infantry at the top of this blog do I really need another bunch of pointy-helmeted troops?  If I want to do something from this period shouldn't I just do ACW?  Hmm.

The third temptation today (don't they always come in threes?) came about because I was searching for something else.  I can't even remember what it was now.  Anyway, there was someone selling Roco Minitanks.  My father used to buy me these in the early seventies and I loved their orange boxes and exciting blister packs that let you see the complete vehicle.  It wasn't some kit that would take hours to assemble; it was ready to go (on little wheels too!).  I may even still have some up in the loft.  It isn't the WW2 tanks I am interested in though, as I had a lot of these when I was younger.  I had the Minitanks catalogue and it had in it all sorts of exciting modern (at least in 1972) tanks in it.  I wanted Pattons and Chieftans and self propelled guns with really long barrels.  Maybe I could do some 1970s-set WW3 (like Team Yankee but 15 years earlier?)  I really liked the painting of the Centurion at the Imjin River on the cover of the catalogue I had.   Maybe Korean War?  Hmm!

Sometimes only a very big bottle of wine will do!

Well, the only solution is to have a glass of claret or three and wait until these feelings go away.  Just think of all the other figures that I really, really do want to paint (such as my Perry Cuirassiers) that I already own!  I have also been very impressed by everyone else's well thought out plans as to what they are going to paint this year, so I really don't need any distractions.  Hmm.

2012 Wargaming highlights and lowlights

Wargames played

My last wargame - in 2010!

Well, the first thing to note is that there was no wargaming at all.  In fact it's now two years since I had a game.  I thought my Belgians v Azande game was last November but it turns out it was November 2010.  I really don't know where the time goes!  My last game at Guildford Wargames Club was September 2010!  Must play something next year!

Figure painting 2012

A rather disappointing 107 figures in total this year, which is the lowest figure ever and about 50% down on last year.  The main reason for this is that my wife has taken on a part time job so has less time to do domestic things.  When she has spare time, therefore, she doesn't take kindly to me sitting around painting when she is doing the washing, stacking the dishwasher, helping the children with revision etc.  Fair enough really, so I have had less time and also want to avoid the evil eye form the old bat (as her sister calls her - it's not just me who finds her a nagging old boot).  In addition, there has been a huge amount of letters and university application stuff to do relating to the children and my wife cannot type, which means I often spend an hour or so an evening writing to the dyslexia psychologist and such. This all means I can really only paint when she is out, which is pretty much only Sunday.  Also the weather has been so bad this year I have struggled to paint in what passes for light.  I have two daylight bulb lamps on my desk but can't do shading under them only base colours.

The most figures of one type I painted were, surprisingly, Back of Beyond Russians, especially as they didn't figure in my 2012 plan at all, and Darkest Africa, which did.

Main categories painted:

Darkest Africa 21

Back of Beyond 21

Zulu War 18

Napoleonic 15

ACW 14

18mm Fantasy 8

Argonauts 6

I'm quite pleased with progress on the Zulu War and Napoleonics.  I totally failed to move the Indian Mutiny stuff along though and the Argonauts project has not gone as I had hoped, although I have 25 figures on the workbench at present.  I must say I live in awe of people who paint hundreds of figures a year.  They either have a lot more time than I do or they paint faster (or both!).

Figure Painting 2013

Trolls in progress

I need to finish the last three Dutch Jaegers to complete my first Napoleonic unit.  I did some on them today so hope they will be done in a week or two.  I also need to finish off my Prussian line infantry.  I want to do some figures for The Hobbit and worked on the trolls my daughter got me for Christmas today.  I need to finish some more Darkest Africa figures for my Zambezi campaign as then I will have enough for an initial game, if I can persuade Guy, who since our last game has become totally addicted to Xbox.  More on the Argonauts is called for too, especially as you can play a Tribes of Legend game with just ten figures.  I want to paint some of my French & Indian war figures from Conquest (now Warlord too) and have one test figure which is so close to being finished it might even get done by next weekend.  I want to get some more of my Copplestone 18mm fantasy figures done too.  I have some WW2 British well under way which would be good for Bolt Action.  My target for January is to finish 24 figures (my old monthly target).  It's possible if I don't have to go to Turkey.

Oh no!  I'm typing this while listening to Respighi and now I pini della Via Appia has come on and it always makes me want to paint Romans, especially as I sold all my painted ones to Big Red Bat!

Figure Acquisition 2012

I haven't owned one of these for some time!

Oh dear.  I really have no idea how many figures I bought this year. Hundreds certainly.  Perry American Civil War (3 boxes of plastics and about 50 metals), Empress ECW, Perry Napoleonics (metals and plastics), Perry Wars of the Roses, Crusader ancients, Foundry Tribes of Legend and Darkest Africa, A pack (well 60 figures) of Gripping Beast Skraelings for Saga, Warlord Plastic Zulus, Crimean War etc etc.  New ranges include quite a lot of Crooked Dice's not Captain Scarlet figures and then some die-cast vehicles off eBay to go with them.  The sad news about Gerry Anderson (who I was lucky enough to meet a few years ago) has got me wanting to paint a few of these sooner rather than later.  SIG!

Rules acquisition 2012

Musket and Tomahawk, looks interesting, and now the Conquest figures are more easily available via Warlord I might get some of these done to try a small game.  I bought Bolt Action and like the look of them so will try and get some early WW2 figures finished.  Other rules I bought include The Devil's Wind, Mutineer Miniatures Indian Mutiny rules, War and Conquest and Pike and Shotte.  I think I got some of the Hail Caesar and Black Powder supplements too.  I also bought Matakishi's Crom rules for Hyborian skirmishes which I thought would work with my Coppestone Fantasy figures.  I played  a game of Prehistoric Settlement with Matakishi once at Guildford and he is an amazingly focussed fellow as regards projects.

Scenery

I'd like to get started on this Grand Manner traders hut

One of the reasons I don't play any games is that I haven't got enough scenic items.  Well, I have them, I just haven't painted them.  I'm starting small at present with a tree holding the Golden Fleece.  I really need to finish my GW Battleboards for a start as I have only done one out of six.  So, more scenics in 2013.

Big things of 2012

My "little boy" Guy, surrounded by bleached blondes as usual, gets his Olympic hat signed by some glammy Team GB sailorette at Cowes Week.  Girls can really mess up your wargaming!  I should know!

Well, I am rather distanced from the wargames scene but it's clear that Saga and now Musket and Tomahawk are making an impact. Laterly there is a lot about Bolt Action too.  Let's hope I can persuade my little boy, Guy, to try a game of one of these as a way to get him off the Xbox and stop him mooning over Bobby Davro's daughter, who is in his class at school.

Magazines

On the magazine front I am enjoying what they are doing with Wargames Soldiers and Strategy, which is now my favourite magazine.  Well not  actually my overall favourite, I probably enjoy Decanter and Airfix Model World more and even Playboy has smartened up its covers a bit in the latter part of the year.    White Dwarf started to really annoy me when it mentioned the Lord of the Rings on the (increasingly sealed in plastic) cover and yet had no LotR content inside.  

Speaking of magazines, I  forgot to mention in my non-wargaming review that a significant part of my wargaming purchases this year have been funded by the fee from an article on the history of Playboy and Penthouse which I was commissioned to write for a new, arty men's magazine.  I've never made any money from wargaming.  On the contrary, it's like having a mistress in that all your spare money just disappears:  meals out, afternoon tea in five star hotels, Champagne (vintage, of course), expensive lingerie, tickets to the ballet, two day trips to Paris, coffee table books on fashion, etc.  No, not wargaming, of course.  A mistress.  I would imagine. 

Most annoying things...

Paper? Schmaper!

I can't finish without having a moan, especially after two thirds of a bottle of Chateau Giscours 1979, So what aspects of wargaming have annoyed me this year?

A really bad one is the increasing tendency at inane attempts at humour in some of the articles in the wargames magazines.  This is very difficult to do well and very few can manage it.  Thank goodness Steve Eardley was terminated from Miniature Wargames earlier in the year.  I actually enjoyed Dr Phil Hendry's article on basing in one of the magazines recently as he managed to inject some levity without it sounding like a Maths teacher trying to make a joke at the end of term (there is, after all, nothing funny about Maths teachers).  I have a friend who is very clever (he is an actuary) but has no sense of humour whatsoever; yet he constantly tries to tell jokes and make funny comments because he feels he ought to.  Hmm, something about Maths, perhaps?  Some people don't have a sense of humour in the same way that some are useless at Maths, languages, music or art.  If you can't do it don't force it!  I am well known for not having a sense of humour at all.  I therefore find other people's attempts at humour particularly tiresome.

Another pet peeve (and I also hate people who write cliches like "pet peeve") is the increasingly common "news" reports on The Miniatures Page advertising paper scenery, vehicles or troops.  If I see the word "cardstock" (what's wrong with just "card" anyway?) one more time I am going to scream.  I know it is a sign of the times but there is something just sad about paper wargames stuff (I can just about see it for buildings).    I wouldn't mind if any of these paper troops looked any good but they all seem to have been produced by people with the artistic sensibilities of John Prescott.  Before you produce paper figures (I positively detest the American term "minis", by the way) find someone who can actually draw and paint (or the digital equivalent).

Do not even get me on wargames companies who have Facebook or Twitter pages.  I really can't see the point of either, as most of the content on your page seems to come from other people over whom you have little control. Who wants to be "friends" with  a model soldier company anyway? Tragic. I bet Bobby Davro's daughter (she is an extremely attractive young lady, we have to say) wouldn't be impressed.

One final point is that some people are following this blog and I have not reciprocated.  I apologise for this but this is something to do with those who use Google Friend Connect for followers which I do not have as it sounds far too "social media" for me and it won't let me follow under this incarnation.

Anyway, the Legatus wishes all his readers a very happy New Year and would like to thank everyone who has read some of my inane ramblings and looked at my blotchily painted figures. I would particularly like to thank those who take the time to comment.  I continue to be inspired by everyone else's efforts so hope I can paint a bit more this coming year.  Now off to see Britt Ekland at Windsor pantomime later today!