28mm Dismounted Boers - a short review

28mm Boer War Figures - a quick review...

Thinking about my Old Glory dismounted Boers got me considering the different Boer War lines I've seen/painted over the years, and I considered writing a really quick review. Note, this is just the Boers (Transvaal trekkers).

Ral Partha - True 25s (so quite small by today's standards), but these were truly fantastic figures. The only drawback was that at the time, very few different poses were in a single product line. I still have some, but they don't mix well with my other figures.

Foundry - Excellent as always. Good poses, good choice of equipment, and both mounted and foot. The problem? Only one code for each mounted and foot. So that means six poses of foot, and 3(4) poses for mounted. They do have an excellent supply wagon that works for the Boers

Old Glory - A great range. They have two packs of (30 figures each) dismounted Boers - firing and skirmishing. These are a mix of hats/equipment, so would work for the 1880s or 1899. These paint up really well.They have a pack of mounted (10 figure plus horses) that is also excellent. They have a pack of Staatsartillerie that include both gun crewmen and uniformed officers (Orange Free Staters?). The guns are sold separately but they have whatever you might like. Other than my old Ral Partha holdouts, the vast preponderance of my Boer War collection is Old Glory.

Warlord - They have a nice pack of dismounted Boers that includes four body styles, with two heads each. Very nice, and excellent quality. But out of production right now. They have a new mounted set of Boers that also look great.

Black Tree - Great figures . . . except the Boers all have HUGE hands. They are Gargantuan. Not sure who the sculptor is.

Age of Glory has, in his Zulu Wars line, a nice selection of really attractive Boers. Always high quality, but I have not painted these.

North Star has a nice line of 28mm Boers.

Essex, of course makes a nice range of 15mm Boers (I've painted, and used to own them, before converting to 28mm for TSATF), but I don't think they make a 28mm Boer War line.

One last thing - there are some nice guns associated with these ranges. Old Glory has a nice, affordable selection of the main pieces you could want (Krupp, Pompom, etc). On Shapeways, there is a really nice 3d printed model of a Long Tom gun. It is from MojoBob design, under his 1:56 range.

Paper Miniatures Extravaganza!

Gaming with Chuck has posted links to free, available on the web, paper miniatures in the past, but it has been some time.

I recently came across the fantastic website Seven Wonders in the UK.

Go take a look at the wonderfulness here - http://www.seven-wonders.co.uk/index.html

There are hundreds and hundreds (nee thousands) of pages of paper characters available.  These are all in the style of the classic Steve Jackson Games cardboard heroes.

There are all sorts of genres, with lots and lots of super heroes, all sorts of gaming genres (including 160 pages of pulp characters), heavy on the fantasy and science fiction (lots - classic, post apocalypse, etc), horror and so forth.

A sample sheet of Steampunk characters, as an example.

The art is from (according to the FAQ) scanned physical sources.  The site owner is completely non-profit, and offers to remove any art that is challenged by a copyright owner.

Is there a down side?  The only one I can imagine is that you have to download the images through a download site called RapidShare, but in the FAQ, the site owner (and creator of the figures) says that a redesign is in the works.

The site operates by donations - if you use any of these - donate something.  It is worth it!

Wargames Factory Numidians - part I

Okay, lets see if I can write a more lucid report than last time.

I spent a little bit of time putting together two units out of a package of WF Numidians this weekend, and wanted to report on it.

First of all, organization. I am doing two units of skirmishers for Warhammer Ancient Battles with these figures, but in order to maximize usefulness I will base them on WRG basing (two figures to a 60mmX30mm base). Each unit will have 14 figures in it.

I chose to model a standard bearer, leader (with sword) and musician as part of each unit. That left 11 skirmishers in addition. For the first unit I chose slings as their main weapon, and for the second unit I chose the bow that comes in the package.

My leaders and musicians were identical. I chose the ornate helmeted head, as well as a sword for the leader. I chose an unhelmeted head for all other figures in the unit, and the musician is given the curved metallic horn. For the standard bearer, there are two ornated poles in the set (presumably unit standards). I used these, unmodified. The more ornate one (for no particular reason) with the disc and the crescent, I gave to the archer unit. The other one (with the "horsetail") I gave to the slinger unit.

I chose a variety of arms and arm poses for the warriors of each unit, and also the heads are all at different angles. It took me only a few hours to clean and glue together all 28 figures - not much more than it would have taken to sort and clean a similar number of lead/tin figures.

The next step (painting) gave me a bit of a quandary. I could have taken a couple of routes, but I'll describe the one I did.

In order to paint figures this scale, I usually will mount them on popsicle sticks with a dot of white glue, and then remove the finished figures to glue to bases. This might have worked, but with the plastic figures, I was unsure. So I have glued them directly to the bases (which is quite spacious, since they are on WRG light infantry style basing). I will proceed to spray and paint them on those bases, and then decorate the bases once the figures are completed.

My next steps are to spray the figures black, dry brush them white (my usual technique) and then paint in all the detail layers over that. I'll report back when I am finishes (and will test my photo skills to see if they have improved).

ps- note, the term Nubian was not used once in this article.

Tags: numidians

Paper Figures from Dario Corallo

I love the style and the images. These are excellent. I plan on using them in an upcoming game.

Runequest Figures
Legends of the Ancient World Figures
Fantasy Trip Figures
Free Runequest Adventure, with paper characters