Napoleonic, WSS & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Tuesday, 7 April 2020

WSS - Just Can't Get the Staff

As a change from the mass batches, I've been working on some command figures for the Bavarians. Quite pleased with the results, though my new "shiny" period keeps surprising me with just how shiny it is!

Bavarian Army Command
 This is an Army Commander base, which in my house system is a 60mm x 60 base of three figures. The standard is that of the Elector - that may be him (or one of his chaps) with his hat off, accompanied by a senior officer and a standard bearer. The figures are by Irregular - nice little sculpts.

Most of my Staff figures will probably be conversions of Les Higgins castings - there aren't too many needed, but it's important to get a decent amount of variety - few things are as stupid as synchronised line-dancing generals.

Before anyone mocks the state of the lawn, it was mown on Saturday, so some respect would be appropriate. Which reminds me - I was looking at photos of HG Wells wargaming in the garden - how on earth did he get the soldiers to stand up on his lawn? I have difficulty understanding how he got them to stand up on the attic floor, which is less of a challenge.
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15 comments:

  1. Ray Rousell7 April 2020 at 19:20

    Its a jungle out there!!!

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    1. MSFoy7 April 2020 at 19:24

      It certainly is - maybe he is accompanied by his standard so that his army can find him?

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  2. nundanket7 April 2020 at 19:44

    I must say their faces are particularly good.

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    1. MSFoy7 April 2020 at 20:11

      Thank you, young sir. The army I bought in and am working on had unshaded faces, to a man, but for painting from scratch I do like to do some primitive two-tone (I use two pots called "Trump" and "Elizabeth I"). In this case it seems to draw attention to the fact that these chaps are related - nepotism in the army?

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    2. nundanket7 April 2020 at 22:34

      Why not? The WSS was as a family business after all.

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  3. Duc de Gobin7 April 2020 at 20:32

    Superb - I was playing with the Elector literally yesterday...
    These look superb

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  4. Michal DwarfCrypt8 April 2020 at 04:45

    Great work sir!

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  5. old john8 April 2020 at 08:42

    indeed, Irregular riders do look better on Les Higgins horses, lovely paint job, my compliments
    cheers Old John

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  6. MSFoy8 April 2020 at 10:20

    Thank you all gentlemen. In moments of derangement, I sometimes think it would be a really great idea to commission some celebrity figures to add some class to my WSS proceedings. Problem, of course, is scale, which is why there is a shortage of staff figures in the first place. The Higgins Malburian figures are small 20mm - they are even small by Higgins own standards - they are about 20mm to the eye, which is about 1/76 or 1/80. Such figures would have no general market whatsoever, so my recent occasional practice of commissioning sculpts and allowing someone (potentially) to sell the figures to recoup some of the cost is not viable. I can fiddle away with conversions, of course, which is not bad, but limited - when Strelets get round to the "Generals" set for their new Marlborough range there might be something interesting, but of course this is plastic. Irregular's Marlburian and Grand Alliance (less so) ranges have some figures I can use, though they are just a tad small, and their horses are titchy. Lancer, I was disappointed to find, make clinically obese cartoon figures, so they are bombed out. I have toyed with the idea of persuading someone with 3D-printed masters in a more popular scale to run off something in approx 1/76 scale. If Newline did any suitable figures they might be the right sort of size, but they don't.

    I'm still thinking about this. Digression: a couple of years ago I saw a beautiful 10mm exhibition game of Flodden (Glasgow Wargamers?) at a show at the Gothenburg in Prestonpans, and Pendraken had made them some special personality figures. That is a very exciting idea (though I regret that my eyesight and lack of familiarity with the history did not allow me to enjoy the 10mm celebrities to the full) - it's an idea I keep coming back to...

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  7. The Jolly Broom Man8 April 2020 at 14:39

    My God are you thinking of going 10mm sir? I suspect the answer is that you would like to use the likes of Pendraken to make figures in your chosen scale but the the thought of 10mm coupled with your prodigious output is an exciting one for sad buggers like me!

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    1. MSFoy8 April 2020 at 15:07

      Nay, sire - the idea of a commercial company making special figures is what is exciting - I've commissioned 1/72 figures from Hagen, which is fine, but Hagen know they can sell 1/72 castings in the real world. 10mm is nice if someone wants to do that, but I have too many soldiers and too little future to contemplate a strategic change of direction. Last night, for about three minutes, I even thought about getting some Milliput and trying my hand at carving. This is not a promising development - when they still had glass milk bottles, I was well known for being unable to draw a symmetrical image of a milk bottle. That's why they withdrew them, by the way.

      Ideal would be if I got hold of a 3D scanner, ripped off someone else's 28mm figures, and printed them at 1/76. It would be illegal, though, I guess. I'd prefer metal figures too - in the past I bought a couple of resin figures, and I broke them both. It's the Elephant's Feet syndrome.

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  8. Gonsalvo8 April 2020 at 20:26

    A very handsome C-in-C base, and very "shiny"!
    Lack of variety in command figures is not an uncommon issue even in more popular scales and eras!

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    1. MSFoy11 April 2020 at 13:53

      Hi Peter - I guess it's a general problem! Shiny is good, but it does take a bit of getting used to. One big advantage of gloss varnish when refurbing is that the stuff is as tough as old boots, so the chance of the flaky old paint dropping off just about disappears.

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  9. Aly Morrison11 April 2020 at 13:32

    Lovely toys Tony...
    Although desirable in an army I think that command figures are just not profitable enough for most companies to go to town on... I seem to remember back in the day they were more expensive than the common rank and file... I’m not sure you could really get away with that these day...
    Your lawn is pristine compared to the moss and week jungle at the back of my house...

    All the best. Aly

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    1. MSFoy11 April 2020 at 14:02

      Hi Aly - I may convert some Hinton Hunt ECW chaps as well - they are round about the same scale - near enough for staff figures, anyway. It surprises me that (e.g.) Newline don't do much in the way of commanders - it does seem like an important element in the army, but I understand the economics.

      For no obvious reason, this reminds me that when I first ordered up some experimental HH figures (ACW officers, as I recall) I was thrilled to bits by the jewel-like figures which arrived. So much so that I managed to divert some funding into a big order, and requested masses of zouaves advancing and all that - stuff that Airfix didn't do. Of course I waited months for a delivery (wrapped in newspaper), and when it came the castings - because the rank-and-file moulds were completely hammered - were just blobs - I really had a lot of problems working out what some of the figures were. I don't know how Marcus organised his moulds, but the command figure moulds obviously got a lot less use than the privates (so to speak).

      What were we talking about, again?

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