Nerds' Corner: Some Mystery Figures...

These aren't mine - any idea what they are? The figures in question are the British Waterloo-period Life Guards at the back of this photo. They are, as you see, of very slim build, and lanky (for comparison purposes, the figures at the front are Alberkens, which are the same size as Hinton Hunts).

Suggestions thus far are Greenwood & Ball, or possibly Stadden from his Tradition period. They have soldered-on sheet metal bases, with corners clipped. I rather like the Old School appearance, but I think they may be too toy-like for Stadden.

Any thoughts?

Mystery Figure - any ideas?

Not a competition, no prizes, but I'd welcome opinions on this chap, if anyone has seen one such before.

In a parcel of figures I was very kindly sent recently, there were a few of these - 20mm, he may be a Napoleonic Spanish cavalryman - double breasted jacket, lapels, he has a carbine hanging at his side, a braided pigtail, and the equipment on his back appears to be a canvas haversack. There is a simple sabretache. I suppose he could be French heavy cavalry from the Revolutionary period.

Sorry my montage photo is not better. The boots have a touch of Hinton Hunt about them, but the face is somehow familiar - I had thoughts of early Warrior, but as far as I know Warrior cavalry always had saddlery attached to the rider. So - just out of interest - I would be grateful for any clues.

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Subsequent Edit (1st July): thanks very much for comments - Old John is correct - the figure is Hinton Hunt BN206 - the British Heavy Dragoon 1801-11 - with his plume removed. I'm not sure if the buttons I can see on the upper right lapel have been added as well

BN206's - picture borrowed from eBay

The Mad Surfer

Cuirassier command group

I’m sure that other 20mm Napoleonic enthusiasts will have noticed some figures on eBay, listed by a French seller who goes by the ID surfeur-fou. These are plastic 1/72 figures, and they are sometimes offered painted.

They look very attractive, and there is a good range of subjects. Having read the seller’s notes about his products, and having failed to find any identifiable matches on Plastic Soldier Review, I sent him a message via eBay to express my admiration for the figures, and to ask him if he is responsible for sculpting the masters. His reply (excuse my bumbling translation), was:

Tout à fait, sauf que le véritable terme est modelage et non sculpture. Les moules et les tirages sont également de moi, tout est fait par moi à 100%. (Absolutely, though the correct term is modelling rather than sculpture. I also do the moulds and production – everything is 100% done by me.)

Quite apart from the mainstream manufacturers, there are some wonderful talents producing 1/72 masterpieces at present – Franznap, Massimo (whose work is displayed on History in 1/72 from time to time) and quite a few others. The Surfer, whoever he is, might well be another – has anyone bought any of his figures, or does anyone know more about him and his work?

French limber team

Vivandiere

Lithuanian Tartars

These illustrations are all shamelessly pinched from eBay, without permission, and - as ever - I wish to make it clear that I have no connection with the seller. Just interested.

A Peek through Someone Else's Window

My thanks to Rod, who brightened my morning by drawing my attention to these fellows, who are featured on Uwe's splendid History in 1/72 blog - here. Peninsular War riflemen in 1/72, but such as I have never seen in metal in this scale. Even those of us who already have too many riflemen will be hoping that Hagen Miniatures can get these on the market soon. My compliments and best wishes to Massimo, the sculptor.

There's more pictures on the original blog - if you aren't a regular visitor, get along there and join up - there's links to Hagen's shop and all sorts of goodies.

ECW - The Rabble

I believe I may have mentioned this matter here before. I have already had some valuable advice from Clive, John C and others – for which many thanks – and I have a short term plan which I shall say more about in a moment, but I thought it might be a good move to air the topic more widely, to see if anyone has some good ideas.

While reading about the ECW in Lancashire and other, similarly provincial parts of Up North, I have come to understand that a proportion of the infantry - especially Parliamentarian town guard and militia units, were often just citizens armed with anything they could get their hands on. Of course, there are no suitable figures available in 20mm (which serves me right, I guess), so I've been having a good think what I could use for such characters. The idea is that they should be compatible with my Les Higgins/Hinton Hunt armies – a size range that also includes SHQ and (some) Tumbling Dice things.

Irregular are too small, as are Niblet. Mainstream old-style 25mm such as Minifigs S-Range (and there are two very nice armed peasants in the range) are too big, as are Art Miniaturen and the forthcoming Falcata 30YW figures, and so are all 1/72 plastics, sadly – I was impressed by Dux Homunculorum’s clubmen converted from the Imex “Pilgrims” set. I am happy to consider figures from a different (though similar) period.

My present plan is to convert some Les Higgins ECW artillerymen, and maybe some Hinton Hunt artillerymen if I can find spares – give them the odd new hat, remove their artillery tools to give them open hands, animate them a bit and fit them with pole arms (bits of florists’ wire, plus any suitable axes and bits and pieces I can get). I probably need 2 or 3 units – I would go for normal ECW figures for the command, on the assumption that the leaders would be better dressed, so I would need about 60 suitable clubmen, preferably in a suitably disorganised mixture of poses (i.e. at least 3, for preference).

If I can make up some decent converted prototypes I can arrange to get some copies made, but this is all a bit of an unexpected challenge. I knew I was going to have to obtain some Scots at some point, but there are suitable figures by both Hinton Hunt and SHQ. If you are aware of any (21mm tall) 20mm ECW figures which I haven’t mentioned, or you have any good ideas on good donor figures for cunning conversions, I’d be very pleased to hear from you.  

Holy Moses! - Franznap

In an email received from Rod this morning, there was casual mention of Franznap, a new figure manufacturer of whom I have never heard. It is possible, of course, that I am the only person in the world who doesn't know of them, but I checked them out.

The range is in its infancy, and the online shop is not running yet, but the website is certainly worth a serious look. 1/72 Napoleonics in metal or resin - the sculptor/proprietor is Francesco Messori, an Italian living in Amsterdam - an architect by profession.

Have a look and a drool. Come on chaps - we want this guy to be successful! - we want lots of these...

ECW - Yet more figure comparisons

Still my investigations continue into which figures will work with my principal choice of Les Higgins as maker of my 20mm ECW armies. Progress has been a bit ponderous, because of my own lack of organisation. At last I have samples from Tumbling Dice, who were very helpful and quick once I had got around to emailing them.

So here is yet another strange green picture with unpainted figures. My conclusions to date are:

* Les Higgins are still the standard for my armies, by reason of affection and long-held ambition.
* Hinton Hunt are compatible, near enough.
* SHQ/Kennington - foot figures are nice, but a bit chunky to mix in - self-contained units probably OK. This was a bit disappointing, because I had hoped to be able to use SHQ foot command figures in Higgins units, but I'm not so comfortable about that now. SHQ cavalry are a good match with Higgins - no problems there - in fact Higgins riders on SHQ horses look good as well.
* Tumbling Dice - foot figures are similar in stature to SHQ - not quite so beefy - I am optimistic about being able to mix TD infantry figures in with Higgins units. This was a surprise, since I had expected them to be bigger. Cavalry are an excellent match, though the horses are bigger than both SHQ and Higgins. TD riders on SHQ horses also work OK.
* Art Miniaturen - they are lovely, but too big in this context.
* S-Range Minifigs - they have a charm of their own, but next to the Higgins figures they are big-headed and their physique looks wrong and, of course, they are armed with telegraph poles.
* Plastics - a lot of nice stuff out there, but in general they are too big to match - I'm keeping an open mind.

I hope to get as far as actually painting a trial unit in a week or three, and there is talk of some visiting armies coming for a VwQ game.

In my reading, I'm still looking for a regional context for my own ECW - I'm currently interested in Lancashire in 1644. I may have changed my mind in a couple of days. I'm looking for an area which strikes some personal chimes, and which is obscure enough to allow liberties to be taken with actual history.

No end of possibilities - I could do with having more time.

ECW 20mm - Another Figure Comparison

I've now received figure samples from SHQ (Kennington) for their 20mm ECW range, and I like them. They are somewhat chunkier in stature than Les Higgins or Hinton Hunt, but the height is pretty close, and (very importantly!) the horses and the hats match the other two ranges.

The logic may seem a bit oblique, but the more compatible ranges I can find, the happier I am with my choice of Higgins as the main basis of my proposed armies. I have spent too many of my Napoleonic years backed into corners, stuck with little or no choice, and dependant on a small number of extinct manufacturers! Choices are good for covering gaps in ranges, and for maintaining welcome variety and interest in the armies.

Thus far, I reckon that SHQ, LH and HH cavalry can mix without problem. LH and HH infantry can mix pretty well, and SHQ infantry would be OK on the same table, though maybe better in separate units - in truth, it appears to vary between individual figures, so a bit of judgement will be needed (uh-oh, that might be a problem...)

So? Pleased with what I've found so far - all I need now is to firm up my ideas on unit organisation and basing, to work out quantities and shopping lists, and I'm in business. Well, sort of.

The Funky Chicken - Yet Another Mystery Figure

I'm spending an unhealthy amount of time dredging through the dark recesses of the spares bags at present, trying to find figures suitable for a career change, leading draught horses and carts etc around.

This fellow (there's only one of him - it's a montage) is clearly RHA, and his jacket without tails suggests he is a gunner rather than a driver (a distinction which S-Range Minifigs never got the hang of). What is he? What, moreover, is he doing? From likely date of manufacture, it might be the Funky Chicken, or possibly the Frug.

I thought he looked like a horse-holder, and maybe Alberken or early 20mm Minifigs, but I cannot find such a figure listed anywhere. Maybe he's a conversion, but I don't think so. Anyway, he's likely to find himself leading a limber around in the near future. He's 20mm - skinny little chap, as you see, but wiry.

More Mystery Figures - any ideas?

Just received these today. I have no idea what they are - spindly 20mm - French infantry (hats are a bit strange). I thought from the little picture on eBay that they were going to be Hinton Hunt Spaniards painted as Frenchmen, but that is clearly not correct. Bases are small, rounded squares - like HH or Der Kriegsspieler, but they don't look like these makers' figures.

It has been suggested that they might be home-cast copies of DK, but I'm not convinced. Anyone seen anything like this before? I have 12 of them, with varying proportions of bayonet.

Beauties & Beasts

I've been putting together some mixed bataillons de marche, and I was rummaging through the spares boxes - reaching layers that usually don't see the light, and I was also thinking of the very pleasant email I received from Jean-Marc recently, in which he noted his disappointment at my lack of enthusiasm for ROS 25mm figures - he being a big user of their 6mm chaps.

So this is simply a small collection of pictures of odd figures which caught my eye - not particularly significant or collectible, but some of them are examples of things which I like very much (sometimes for reasons I would be pressed to explain) and some are things which are somehow classical in their - well, simplicity, shall we say. I criticise nothing here - these are just a tiny sprinkling of the rich variety of wargames figures which have been available to us over the years.

Scruby OPC infantry colonel

Scruby infantry drummer - you can be a sculptor too

Qualiticast Rifles Officer - you can't do this, though

NapoleoN Light Dragoon officer

Minifigs 20mm Brunswicker - why is this such a satisfying figure?

ROS 25mm - the French were the ugliest

And, lastly, simply because they were well received when glimpsed in a recent wargame pic, here's a proper view of the Phoenix Model Developments Royal Horse Artillery. Guns are Hinchliffe 20mm, and the mounted officer is the notorious Minifigs BNC20, which sold in surprising numbers because a bunch of optimists like me hoped (vainly) that they might convert into Light Dragoons. Painting is by the great Jez Farminer, slumming it a bit to conform to my house style!

The Noble Art of Conversion

Some recent acquisitions. Two of the brigade commanders in my Allied army are mounted Rifles officers - a rarity in 20mm. After many years of failing to find suitable figures, and a couple of rather so-so attempts to produce suitable conversions, I have finally commissioned some professional work. I am pleased with them – worthy additions, I think - the donor figures are Hinton Hunt, which will offend some as butchery, though it is an old and distinguished tradition. If Marcus had produced such a figure in the first place, this would not be necessary – and one of the reasons he didn’t is probably because he assumed this sort of DIY effort would fiill the gap!

It is interesting to try to spot the original figures - my initial guess is Stapleton Cotton and (possibly) Junot, with new heads and new horses, but you may have alternative ideas. Anyway, it wasn't me, so I don't know for sure. I also received a nicely finished DN31 (Dutch-Belgian general), who will be surprised to find himself leading a Portuguese cavalry brigade in the near future.

Corpulence in Wargames

A neglected theme, which is maybe a surprise given the average physical condition of the attendees of the last wargames convention I visited. Maybe we need rules to cover the fact that the second battalion are too out of breath to get up that hill in one move, or that the cuirassiers' horses are struggling to cope with the load?

This officer came to me via eBay, in a rather nice battalion of Minifigs S-Range "Valencia Light Infantry", which were in good enough condition to form the Ligero del Reino de Valencia in my volunteer/militia brigade with very little extra work. The officer illustrated is clearly the correct one for the unit, but is from MF's current range. I rejected him - he does not get a gig in my army, sorry. This is not because I am prejudiced against the circumferentially challenged - not in the slightest - but because he simply doesn't look right among my other troops. If you have a wargame army consisting entirely of Minifigs' current products then I'm sure they look splendid, but out of that context this guy is awful. He isn't going to do a lot of brisk skirmishing, or even retreating at the double quick, is he? You can't tell me this chap has been existing on campaign rations.

Foy's Sixth Law Revisited - NapoleoN Miniatures (yet again)

Just because it follows on from the last post, and the comments thereon, and because it is another appropriate reminder of Foy's mighty Sixth Law, here are some pictures from the old NapoleoN website of 20mm British Peninsular cavalry.

I did obtain a unit of the hussars, but would welcome any suggestions (on a used 5 pound note to Chateau Foy, please) as to why I never got around to buying the heavy dragoons, when I knew they were available and needed quite a few.

More Newbies - these are Scrubies...

This new unit represents two firsts for me.

(1) Though I have a couple of Jack Scruby command figures and the odd cannon in my armies, and though I have bags of the little blighters, unpainted, in my spares department, this is the first full unit I've ever had painted up for service. I have to say that they painted up much better than I expected, though I really didn't expect a great deal. All in all, they're not bad at all - though they look a bit undernourished, they are indisputably Old School.

(2) This is the first unit of my mooted Vorpommern Brigade to come into service. Students of the period who are surprised to learn that there was a member state of the Confederation of the Rhine of which they have never heard will be interested to know that this is the company of foot artillery Stadt Stralsund in the service of the Duchy of Stralsund-Ruegen. The unit is commanded by Major P Nyudrev, formerly of the Swedish service (which is only fair, since it's partly his fault for encouraging me to invent a Napoleonic nation - as if things weren't confused enough already). The French-made Gribeauval cannon are finished in the official Pommeranian shade of garden shed green, and are NapoleoN castings.

Qualiticast - Some Illumination!

Following the previous post on Qualiticast, Andy Taylor was kind enough to contact me via email, and send some more information and some smashing pictures. Very many thanks, Andy.

I read your recent blog entry and comments about Qualiticast with interest and was particularly surprised to learn that the company are such a mystery to many people. It’s true that there are very few images of these elegant figures on the web, so I thought you might be interested to see this selection of units from my own collection.

I’m pretty sure I bought these towards the end of the eighties. One of the early Qualiticast mission statements that appeared in all their advertising was to design a range of metal figures that would compliment the plastic ones then available and specifically to fill the gaps in the plastic market.

Amongst my first ‘buys’ were the Brunswickers, Prussians and 95th Rifles. No one was making those in plastic back then as this was long before HaT had arrived. They were also an acceptable match for Hinton Hunt figures which were next to impossible to find in the days before Tim Berners-Lee did his stuff.

I think the company was a husband and wife team who were a regular feature at SELWG on the rare occasions that I attended. I don’t recall their names but they were a delight to deal with in much the same way that I’ve read people compliment the guys at Newline and Tumbling Dice. On one occasion they sent me some British colour bearers but later declared that they hadn’t been altogether happy with the design of the figures and subsequently sent me a double load of their new mould. If there was a difference between the two excellent designs, I certainly couldn't see it.

My main interest in them had started with the Zulu War figures they produced, which I still rate as the finest in any scale of plastic or metal.

It’s a huge loss that they’ve gone. The figures were never less than perfect and I never encountered flash at any time. The last time I looked at a catalogue, their range had expanded to include Waterloo , The Peninsula, US Civil War & Plains War, Vietnam , The Crusades and Imperial Rome. I think they also dabbled in 28mm too which, given today’s developments, makes them truly visionary.

It's only right and proper to note that most of the artwork on these figures was done by GJM Figurines.

Qualiticast - just a glimpse of the unknown

I'm not sure why, but Qualiticast, the British manufacturer of 20mm wargame figures, has been a mystery to me. There is a brief summary on VINTAGE20MIL, which suggests they were sort of compatible, size-wise, with (presumably) Hinton Hunt, but there's no listing and no pictures. There is some discussion of Qualiticast on TMP, mostly about the Romans, and mostly repetition of urban myths - i.e. the figures are a little bigger than Newline, the Napoleonics are "unimpressive" and so on. Somebody produced a useful side-by-side photo of Qualiticast Napoleonics and 1/72 plastics, to give a size comparison, but that's about all the evidence I've been able to find. It seems very odd that all these years of involvement in Napoleonic wargaming have left me unaware of one of the makers I might have been very interested in, but no matter. The mystery has remained.

Well, today I received my very first Qualiticast Napoleonic figures. I am now a fan. I suggest that they are far from unimpressive. Just so there is no doubt, let me state that they are well proportioned, very nicely sculpted, and average about 23-24mm from soles to scalp. The figures I received today were part of a mixed eBay lot of Spanish guerrillas - a mixture of Qualiticast and Kennington. The Kenningtons are a very close match - the figures are about 1mm shorter (maybe less) and very slightly coarser in quality than the Qualiticast, but it's close, and it required some time poring over catalogue listings to work out which was which. They would be good with Hinton Hunts, though the castings are a little slimmer and more elegant than HH, and they would mix well with the HaT plastic guerrillas, for example. My eyes are opened - I shall watch with interest for more. They are currently out of production, and I am unaware of anyone who has stocks, but I did come up with a catalogue list, though I don't think it's complete.

Mixed guerrillas - the 3 on the left are Qualiticast (L to R NIS5, NIS1, NIS4), the rest Kennington (L to R SGA2, SGA5, SGA3) - you get the idea. The guy in the top hat is a little masterpiece, if his sword is a little long for true beauty.