Figure Mods - a WiP Update

The last post which outlined some ambitious figure conversions to make a round-hatted unit of 20mil Napoleonic Spanish Fusiliers seemed to spark some interest.  So, while progress is slow, I thought I'd post an update, mainly to try and keep my conversion mojo ticking along.

First, the test figure, which has now been blocked in with the intended paint scheme.

Getting some paint on him has shown I need to be a little less generous with the 5SecondFix for the trousers and do a better job smoothing them off.  Also, I think a quick bit of greenstuff around the neck to make a more prominent collar will help.  That said, I'm pleased with the colours, the first blue (Humbrol 89) was too light so I gave it a wash of thinned down mid-blue (Humbrol 25) and got exactly the colour I was looking for to match based on an illustration in an Osprey[1].  I will probably highlight with the original light blue colour but I need to attend to the black lining first.

The rest of the figures, head donors and recipients, have all now been through the bleach-bath and had their paint cleaned off and the British revolutionary grenadiers (BRGs for short) have been cleaned up and had their 'wings' removed.  

Today has focussed on the command figures; officer, ensign and drummer.  These are all being worked up from HH (recasts?) BRG command figures.  

First the drummer.  I have no BRG drummer, so have used a sergeant figure and removed his head and arms, the latter in order to fit the arms and drum from a Napoleonic British fusilier drummer - see below.

You will notice his loins have been hollowed out to fit the drum which will be glued in once the greenstuff repairs to the drum and shoulder strap added to the figure (no photo) have cured.  The arms will them be soldered in place at the shoulders for a strong joint, he will also a round-hatted head like the rank and file.

The officers are BRG officer figures, one waving his sword being converted to a standard bearer and the other will be marching as is with his sword at the shoulder, as shown below.

The ensign has had a blob of solder added that will be filed down to create the 'bucket' that the flagstaff is placed in; the shoulder belt from which it is suspended will be added with greenstuff.

As officers I don't want these figures in round hats, so I took one of the spare BRG heads and cut the bearskin down before adding a cocked hat from solder - shown between the two figures in the photo above.  This took several attempts before I could get the solder blob to vaguely resemble the over-sized cocked hats favoured by the Spanish.  This was then followed by lots, and lots, of careful filing, a real chore but the end result is worth it (IMO).  I intend using this head for the commanding officer but haven't yet decided what to do for the ensign ...

... watch this space.

Notes:

[1.]  Man at Arms 332, Spanish Army of the Napoleonic Wars Part 2 1808-1812, Plate G1.  I would put in a picture but again I'm not about the copyright position for doing this. 

Old-School Ancients Top-Up Complete

I managed a bit of a push last week and today I finished off the last of the figures needed to bring some very old, old-school, units up to strength i.e., enough to occupy a 6" grid square.  In this case it was a couple of units of Successor pike.  I only had 16 in each unit plus 11 spare painted figures (5 of one unit and 6 of the other) so I needed another 21 to bring the two units up to 32 figures each.

And here they are, with the newly painted-to-match figures based up with the painted spares.

I am rather pleased with how difficult it is to tell the new from the old.  The best way to tell is to look at the hands grasping the pikes, if both hands completely enclose the pike, then it's a newly painted figure (I like to make the figures' weapons really secure).

Posed together with the old based-up figures, they make much better-looking units - bigger is always better with pike blocks. 

If anyone is interested the older bases are on the outer flank of each block.  I had trouble sorting them when taking the photos but finally realised I just needed to look underneath; the older bases have white steel paper underneath whereas those just based have black ferro-sheet.

Old-School Ancients - limping along

Still not at my best but managed to make myself base up the figures I had painted before.  This time it's more mounted figures:

An extra base of Hincliffe Companions with shield (plus a head-swap from the Macedonian Pikeman in the same range).  The new base is on the right in the photos.

An extra base of Persian (Cappadocians?) extra-heavy cavalry; the new base is again on the right and easily identified by the 'leader' figure (a Hinchliffe Belisarius figure with a head-swap from another Persian cavalryman).

And finally, the camels.  I had a bit of a senior moment here as looking at the DBM rules for troop types I saw there was no light camelry type so I intended to make them all ordinary Camelry.  Then, after painting enough figures (3) to bring the numbers up to be enough for four 3-figure bases, I found light, scouting, camels are actually listed under Light Horse...     D'oh!

What's more, I forgot when basing them to put them at angles that allowed the heads, which project beyond the base, of a second rank to go between the camels of a front rank.  I guess that's what comes of doing it when under the weather but I doubt they'll be in more than one rank very often and certainly it won't matter if fighting on a grid which was the main reason for this whole topping up exercise (see the earlier post). 

As I thought I was going to have to re-base all my camels I had removed them from their bases, so in the photos, the newer figures are mixed in with some of the old so I've marked them with arrows.

As with the Persian cavalry I added a leader figure - a Palmyran Heavy Camelman with some additional, green-stuff, hair.

PS: My shielded Companions already had a leader figure which is why they didn't get one added in this batch.

Old-School 25mm Ancients - WiP

The next batch of 25mm Ancients in my topping off process is complete, and are presented here for the record.

These hoplites were all based, repaired and touched up, including a flesh-wash.  These give me enough, when deployed in two ranks, to occupy three 6" squares, and thus give me three more units.  The lefthand 'green unit' were, like the bowmen in the previous post, inherited from a friend but were one figure short of four bases worth.  I only had to paint one extra to match in, the newbie is in the rear rank of the photo below.

Of the other 32 Hoplites, the rank and file, were recently bought ready-painted from eBay during this 'topping-off' process as I thought their painting style was a good match for the 'green unit.  I must stop calling them the 'green unit' as they were clearly intended to be Thebans with their shield emblazoned with the club of Herakles.

What the dolphin on the shields of the hoplites bought on eBay implies is unknown (to me anyway).  This eBay lot had enough hoplites for two units when I added some my friend's command figures - they were in his phalanx units but I don't like the array of pikes broken up by command figures so had been sitting around unused for some time.  The painting styles were a good match and, apart from re-touching, I only added black lining and dolphins to the command figures for them to blend in rather well.

So next, are one base worth's of figures each for Persian armoured cavalry, Companion cavalry (with shields) and Arab camelry ... but I have been distracted down a rabbit-hole so these might not be done as soon as I'd like - see the next post to find out more on this.

Topping Up Old Ancients - WiP

Been a bit unwell lately, nothing serious, so progress has been slow.  Nonetheless, there has been some progress on rounding off my old (1970s), 25mm ancient army - the oldest wargame figures I have retained from my earlier years.  This is an overwhelmingly Hinchliffe collection that started off as Alexandrian but very quickly got bent to a Seleucid force.  After all, who can resist war elephants, scythed chariots and camels!  

The first in the batch were some Syrian / Babylonian bowmen.

These were already painted and based as inherited from an old friend.  Back in the day they were useful for rounding out WRG armies as they were Irregular D and only cost a point each.  All I had to do with these, was add ferro sheet under the bases so they would be secure in my magnetised transit boxes and then texture and paint the bases to match the rest of my collection.  I've kept the figures gloss in memory of my friend whose army was a nice shiny one, but I did just do a quick brown wash on their faces.

While the bowmen above were done to complete the refurbishment of my friend's figures the rest of the batch was all about rounding out existing units to better match the rules I use.  My figures have been used with WRG (5th Ed. IIRC) through to DBM while also stepping outside the 'WRG' world with sets ranging from Ian Beck's 'Shock of Impact' to Simon Miller's 'To the Strongest'.  While I like the simplicity of the DBx rules I have always found the movement frustratingly pernickety.  In contrast I like the grid movement in 'TtS' but find the combat fairly bland.  Clearly, it's possible to have the best of both worlds - DBx on a grid and now I have some nice battle mats with 6" crosshairs on which to do my gridded games.

Using a 6" gird means having even numbers of bases in a unit it requires two DBx bases (6cm wide) to fill the square.  Needless to say, I have odd numbers of many troop types in my armies!  Hence the desire to knock up an extra base for some of these BUT ... being a bit OCD, the issue is making sure the additional elements match my painting from many decades ago.  

First, some Thracian cavalry, both new and old (three of each) - hopefully it's not too easy to spot the differences.

The leading base of figures are easily identified as new as I couldn't resist a quick head-swap and added shield to create a 'leader' for the group.  The reason there are not one, but three, new bases of Thracian cavalry is simply because I had eight of these already cleaned and primed in my spares box.  They were also already attached to their horses, so I painted them while mounted, not something I usually do and will try to avoid in future.

Next, a base of Numidian cavalry, with an old one for comparison - again a pretty good match (IMO).

Others in this current batch are an element each of some Cappadocian extra-heavy cavalry, Companion cavalry with shields, Arab camelry and the retouching and rebasing of 48 Successor phalangites and 36 Hoplites.  I shall be busy for a little while yet - the scale of the challenge can be seen by all the bases awaiting their figures in this photo.