Steve Cooney, who has supplied me with figures in the past and occasionally sends me some splendid pictures of his collection, has very kindly mailed me some photos of his ECW troops, which are Hinton Hunt and Les Higgins 20mm castings, many of them cleverly converted.
A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of some correspondence with a Canadian gamer and history enthusiast, Peter Brekelmans, when he was working on rules for a hex-based miniatures game for the Thirty Years War.
Peter and I have kept in touch from time to time subsequently, and in a recent email he has expressed interest in disposing of some of his collections of figures. I thought it would be helpful to set some of this out here. I can't answer any questions on his behalf, but I reproduce part of Peter's description here. It looks as though these items are potentially very attractive, though the shipping costs and insurance would represent the main part of the cost of acquisition.
If you wish to see Peter's Excel attachments (mentioned below), you should find them here. If you have questions, Peter gives his email address in the text. If you cannot access my link to the spreadsheets, please shout at me, not Peter!
Peter's note states:
… was looking at the things I am never likely to use again because no one in my area is particularly interested in the rule systems or the period, and was wondering if you knew of anyone who might find the following of use. A couple of cautions here … while the games and miniatures would be free, the new owners would be stuck paying shipping and insurance (both of which are likely to be hefty even if the items are sent by sea), and I would like the games and/or figures to go to people who would actually use them rather than just sell them on.
Because I am an obsessive amasser of things, available are:
* Around 4400 10mm ECW/TYW miniatures (see spreadsheet attached). These are painted, and the artillery and cavalry are probably good enough to be used as-is (though I don’t black armour); the foot, however, are another matter - the painting is shoddier, and they are badly based - not just in absolute terms, but also being based for my own home-grown rules, so any new owners are probably stuck with repainting, rebasing and re-sticking on the pikes (something I had enormous difficulty with and largely abandoned in this scale).
* A small (800 or so) 6mm Baccus WSS/7YW British army. Half painted and based before I discovered that no one here was interested in continuing on with Sam Mustafa’s Maurice rules (I liked both the rules and the period and, as always, rushed in where angels fear to tread). As with the ECW/TYW figures, the painted ones come with their own storage box(es) - the unpainted ones are primed and on popsicle sticks.
* An (almost) full set of the Command and Colors games (again, spreadsheet attached). I am probably going to keep both the Battle Lore v1 set - not only because I love them, but because the figures are all intermingled rather than organized by expansion - and my jury-rigged ECW/TYW set which I put together for your rule set from the spare blocks in the other C&C sets and blanks I purchased from Columbia Games (though if someone were interested in either or both, I suppose …). As mentioned though, anyone interested in the other sets should be aware that, though the rest of the games are in good condition, the basic game board for the Napoleonic ones has fallen into two parts, and all of the Napoleonic ones lack the spare blocks supplied by GMT because I cannibalized them for the ECW/TYW set.
If you know of anyone interested in any or all of these, my email address is brekelmansp@bell.net
As an aside, I have close to 3000 15mm ECW/TYW figures that are painted and based as well, but I am loathe to part with these at this time. If someone wants to wait and be remembered in my will …
Been busy last couple of weeks - keeping my head down to avoid seeing the news. Five new battalions ready for duty. I'm pleased with them. As ever, figures are mostly Les Higgins (small) 20mm from long ago - flags are by David at the excellent Not By Appointment blog, laser-printed to scale by Malcolm at Lothian Printers.
At the front are two battalions of Régiment de Poitou (thank you very much, Lee), in the 2nd row are two battalions of Régiment du Dauphin, and at the rear the single battalion of Régiment de Saintonge.
Something I found when I was clearing my mother's house. I had no idea what it was, but it looked sort of interesting, so I hung on to it. I still have no idea what it is, so would welcome some suggestions.
The size is given by the librarian's glove (which is just present to stop the thing rolling about). It is obviously a glass measuring device of some sort - the narrowness of the internal tube suggests that the units may be smaller than millilitres, but it could be ml, I guess. There is a small glass funnel at the top, with a pouring lip, and the tip is tapered; looks to me as though it is intended to add small amounts of something to a mixture - that sort of thing.
(1) it was never very valuable
(2) it was purchased after decimalisation (1971)...
(3) ...but soon enough after decimalisation for the UK still to be working in accurate conversions from Old Money.
There was no obvious context given by where it was stored - it wasn't in the bathroom cabinet, it was in a cupboard in the boxroom, with odd drawing tools and spare lightbulbs. As far as I know, my father wasn't into drugs or tricky medication, and he wasn't a chemist. He was a photographer, however (of a sort), and for some years he was an enthusiastic (though disastrous) amateur wine-maker (Sprout Port, anyone?). The clues run out at this point, though of course I'm happy to answer any questions you may have!
Another unit of 20mm French infantry ready for duty. This time very nicely (and generously) painted by Count Goya - thank you, sir - the army salutes you!
As usual, figures are Les Higgins/PMD apart from the mounted officers, who are by Irregular on Higgins horses. The laser-printed flags are used by permission of David at Not by Appointment, for which thanks. I'm still working on a successful way of colouring the paper edges - my traditional use of felt-tips and whiteboard markers has been abandoned, because with modern pens and laser-print paper the ink will wick from the cut edges into the images and mess them up (as I have learned). The labs are on it as I write.
Next up for my WSS project is another refurb job - probably the Régiment du Dauphin; however, I think I'll put the painting desk to rights for a week or two and catch up on that Real Life stuff, though at present it doesn't look too attractive.
