Russian Magic... again.

Nick Bokarev of Drabant fame has kindly sent me pic of the painted Britsh - shown a few posts ago as undercoated. Now here they are finished.

I really can feel a 40mm WSS force to be in the offing. I have a very small begining- but how to do it that is the question.

Finished 'em!!

Since I'm currently on a burst painting 40mm ECW Here are a couple of pics of the finished Sash and Saber Mounted Officers. 2 figs per pack - with alternative right arms and heads included for a mere £12.00.

I've built these 2 straight from the bag as it were with no conversion or fiddling about. Future variations will be different . I can see thise figues cropping up in various guises in the future-as TYW French or Imperialists with different heads and on other horses and indeed in different poses.. Now the Dragoons are out in the USA I must order some up for the UK chaps.

More Drabant goodies

Another quickie this. Nick Bokarev of drabant sent me these pics of his up and coming Footguards Hatmen. Don't they look the business? I'll be having some of these when they come out .

Its a slow job but I am building a small collection of Drabant 40mm . Hopefully not too small in the long run.

Mixed Marriages....

By Gum!! Two posts in One day. well sort of. I've been trying to find the time to do a "proper" post for the last week or so but what with work and the rugger and one or two other things it just never happened.. Noiw some of you dear gentle readers , will be aware of my views on the" figure fascists" , those narrow worthies who have all their little men fr in one style from one maker and who opine loudly that all others are beneath contemp- usually if they haven't been sculpted by the 3 armed hydra. Now this is not about figure quality- well not really- but more in a way about the dead hand of conformity laying its cold and clammy fingers upon us however lightly. Why I ask myself in an age where there are more makers than ever are many armies less and less characterful . The same overpainted blandness trotted out over and over ? There may be more figures but there is a dammned sight less art. What I hear your cry Art?. Well yes in a very small way you understand. I'm not claiming I and my Ilk are akin to Michelangelo or Caravaggio- except(in younger days) for bar fights perhaps but good painting and modelling in our hobby is an art form albeit a very minor one. ( and you thought an Ilk was a funny animal that wanders aimlessly about the tundra.... well you may be right..) No what the dead hand of the FFs do is make it harder to do anything different

and no I'm not talking about warrior teddy bears or similar amusing silliness but about an attitude. An example , in the past Old Glory have been criticised- often quite brusquesly for using "different designers" well of course we did halfwits there was too much stuff for one bloke- unless he cloned himself and thats only been done once in this line of work-so we used different blokes for different jobs. We must have used 7 or 8 designers to date and I still use 4 - including David for Jacdaw. What that did was give us different styles for different tastes - how can that be wrong? However it was- apparently becasue it wasn't the same as the "designer minifigs" style prevelent both then and now(and no I'm not having a go at Minifigs they are fine for certain jobs). Now You also get all this sizist crap about "are yours 25mm or 28mm ". I covered this little gem in an article on the OGUK website so won't bore you with it again but its about presentation here. How you finish and present yoyr toys that is far more important than mere millimetres. So to somewaht "prove" my point- at least to myself here are a trio of pictures where mixed makers are used together. The ECW curassier unit are Old Glory figures on Jacdaw horsesand represent Colonel Balfours troop at Edgehill - one of 3 such troops in the Parliamentry army. The 18th cetury group is largely Old Glory but Soubise in the centre is a Willie figure on a Stadden Horse while the lady a la Hussard is a willie figure on an Old Glory Horse. To my mind all have more movement and style that repeated perryclones

Black Powder- damp squib.

The weekend before Derby a few TWATS got together for an AWI game at our usual pub. Now I was in the chair as I planned to use British Grenadier however I didn't have a copy- I'd sold out so I thought I'd try Black Powder. Now mu=y earlier musing upon this ruleset in another place- wherein now I do not go- were mixed to say the least. This small game did nothing to change those views except perhaps for the worst. The Britsh force had 2 "brigades" with unit sizes rangeing from large to tiny 40 figs for a guards battalion and 5 for a light company of the 17th foot while the rebels had 3 brigades - 2 of militia and 1 of continentalsand out mumberd the brits about 3 to 2 . Add to that the defemsive position and the brits were on a sticky wicket but not by any means impossible. So to the game. We managed 3 turns - the turn and turn about system doubles the length if the game, the proprtions between the various ranges and movement are just twaddle the spatial relationships are just wrong for the AWI but far far far worse than all of the above is the simple fact that you can't find anything in the damned book.. There is no index. The contents page is only of marginal help and flicking hither and yon though all the " pretty little rich boys eye candy" to find a given page became a real chore. The patronizing tone was also a pain in the **** even when you found the bits you were looking for . It became obvious that BP is simply a pretty book for sale to the sycophants or the suckers with a few nice ideas hidden between the rich boys showing off pages. I do like the way you can personalise the units but set that agaist the set unit sizes - which I'd hate in any ruleset-and I like the idea of the order system- despoite its "poseurs charter" - which could be fun once or twice but could end up being deeply annoying at least to permanent TWATS. As an AWI set well no. But I still think they might work well 100 years later as a colonial set . I will have another go at 'em but not without a bit of serious butchering

The above pic shows a general view of the battlefield - British in the Foreground.

American Militia defend the bridge.

this pic shows the 1st foot.- Old Glory Second edition figures. The rest of the armies were a misture Old Glory - both standard and Second Edition ranges rubbed shoulders with Staddenand a very few Hincliffe X ranger- the Hezzlewood figs a lot like RSM. Its just a pity that the rules just didn't function. I've lent my copy to Andrew the Tekkie basically to see if its just me who thinks they are twaddle I await his " not quite a wargamer's " verdict. It will be interesting to see how he fairs finding his way around the tome. It drove him nuts on the day.

Off to Derby...

So its that time of year again and the City of Derby beckons.. For me- no longer the show sponsor there have been a few changes. Only 1 van full of toys this year. Floating Jeff no longer drives for me so its just me and Jim the painter in 1 van and a slightly smaller trade stand. 2 van was- due to the price of fuel- becoming unsustainable anyway so changes had to be made. Nevertheless we'll still be taking a "sh*****d"(to quote Slim Pickens) of models to the show including a fair bit of new stuff. As I write this I'm waiting for the pot to reach temperature so I can cast the new aircraft- 2 variants of the Cessna 337, one for Vietnam and the Lynx variant for the Rhodesians. Assuming I get time when I get back I want to get a start on my 15mm Moderns. I have some bits and pieces but not really organised forces. The bits and pieces syndrome is the curse of being in the trade." Oh I'll just get a couple of display units painted" and you end up with lots of half armies. Off the top[ of my head I have Trojan chariots, Polish Winged Hussars Greek Chariots Cairo Janisarries,Some Marlburian Spanish - all of whom have been photographed for the website but have never really grown past that- especially the Poles and the Trojans. At least the Janisaries and Mamelukes have beeen on the table a couple of times.

The Ottoman turks don't quite come under the Bits heading but they are far from a complete army. Again I started with just a couple of display units but they gre a little until they are almost an army but trying to get more done is problematic. I need to do some artillery and some more Spahis. The army is supposed to cover , by careful unit selection, a wide time period from the mid 16th century to about 1800 but the core is 1550-1650 so maybe I'll do some more... Of course that means I'll have to increase another set of bits.. The landsknects Oh Boy.

So here we see 3 pics of my Turks including the assualt of Fort St Elmo during the Siege of Malta- The Knighs are from the Old Glory Wars of Religion range- more bits from the collection - .I do like the look and style of the Ottomans but like many other projects they'll have to get in the queue. Nothing elso now before Derby - a fine show and the Flower pot is a cracking pub! Andy

Old Glory -Wars of Marlborough.

As a period I've looked at Marburian on and off for the last 25or so years. I once had a small mixed force of 20mm Higgins and Douglas Miniatures I bought second hand- sold 'em about 15 years ago. I had a load of Minifigs Marburians and painted about 6. Thought about Foundry but never really liked 'em- too stiff and samey.
Dave Allsop was sculpting the Old Glory 25mm range when he died. As a range they are a good bit smaller than most OG stuff and closer to "true" 25mm- wahtever that means. The Infantry are covered in depth with 28 different packs . Cavalry less so since Dave died before these were completedand what we had was finished by another sculptor. Artillery represented by 1 pack of crew and a couple of different guns though other useful guns are available in the ECW and Jacobite ranges- including Mortars and Gallopers.
On the OSW Yahoo group the moderator opined that these had big heads. I don't agree- especially compared to Front Rank or Dixons BUT having said that one or twop do have small bodies. The heads were sculpted separately to be added one all the body variants were done and a couple of the bodies do look a bit small. Still not bad for a range that is getting on for 20 years old.
Ilove the 40mm Drabant Marburian range and am very very slowly painting up several of those without any clear idea of what I'll do with them but I've fallen for the little Bluemoon 18mm range and now have 4 units done and another on the way- I don't paint these little fellas .
This means that on the whole I'm not sure what I'll do with the Saxon artillery in the picture- There are about 80 infantry too- needing basing same painting style no longer to my taste I'd need to "Bring 'em up" before I used them. They date from a few years back when I part owned Reiver castings and we did a GNW range. The Saxons were to be opposition for the Swedes I painted which I think are in the current owners collection but as so often happens other stuff got in the way. They have been in their box since then until this morning... when I was remined of their existance.