New Blog on 25mm Ros figures!

Iain very kindly drew attention to a blog which I had not seen before, which is dedicated to the (legendary) 25mm Ros wargame figures, which were a brilliant idea in principle but disappeared quickly.

The picture at the top is borrowed from the blog, which you will find here. I am very impressed - this is what blogs should be - celebration of the rare and the obsolete and the vanished - works of true affection. Humbling. My own short post on Ros was some 4-and-a-bit years ago, and is here, and I hope that it captured my appreciation of Ros's efforts - obviously their 6mm figures are very successful and rightly celebrated, but most wargamers and collectors are unaware that the 25mm range ever existed. Well they did, and it was a splendid idea - deliberately cheap and cheerful - you got 10 infantry or 4 cavalry to a bag, and the idea was to enable rapid build-up of inexpensive armies.

Not sure why they stopped making them - the "true 25mm" approach meant that they were a bit big for the 20mm collectors and were also rendered obsolete by the sudden growth of mainstream 25mm into something rather larger. Maybe they arrived on the scene a couple of years late - they would have made comfortable table-mates with S-Range and Lamming. I had a few units - the only one I have left now are my ferocious Chasseurs Britanniques, who have, admittedly, some non-Ros command figures - these chaps have been the heroes of many of my battles over the years; there is something especially satisfying about the occasions when they see off much more prestigious units, manned by more revered makes of figures.

Here they are.

Anyway - best of luck to the Ros blog - I would follow it officially if it did not require me to be recalibrated to Google+ (which a friend recently described as "the Betamax Facebook" - I would not have a view on this). I shall watch the blog with friendly interest.

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!

Ros

I really don't know a lot about these. I believe they are the same Ros that did the 6mm Heroics series. They were very cheap - they came in multiple packs, I think you got a dozen infantry or so in a plastic bag. There were Austrians and Prussians available in addition to Brits and French, and there was certainly a French command pack. They disappeared pretty quickly - last time I looked, there was no mention in VINTAGE20MIL.

They were a bit crude, and a bit hefty, but they did make British soldiers in stovepipe shakos, which was very unusual. The range extended to flank companies, and there were riflemen. I think the French infantry must be the ugliest wargame figures anyone ever made - I'll try to find a picture for a future posting.

Anyway - all I have left are my bold Chasseurs Britanniques, shown here. The officer on foot and the drummer are both re-headed Minifigs, the mounted colonel is a Kennington figure on a NapoleoN horse, and the standard bearers are by NapoleoN. A motley crew indeed.

It pleases me to still have these - for all their lowly provenance, they are still with me after all these years, and it is somehow appropriate that the Mongrels of the 7th Division should be Ros - probably the least prestigious figures I have.

Quick nerdy note about the Chasseurs Britanniques: you will read in various places that they were a light infantry unit. Not so. The colonel, Eustace, apparently had pretensions of turning them into glamorous light infantry, and in late 1812 he sent the colours and (some of?) the drums into storage in Portugal, and some companies received new uniforms, but the process was never completed. Since they were not allowed to perform outpost duties (because of desertion rates) for much of the war, they would have made dodgy light infantry anyway. My guys are depicted (correctly, I maintain!) as line infantry, circa 1811, the regimental colour being an exercise in creative licence based on a rough sketch someone sent me showing an early flag incorporating the arms of Conde. As ever, if you have a better flag, please get in touch!