Forward!
To the 42mm future, toy soldier style.
The spirited officer above comes from Irregular Miniatures' Balkan Wars range, and he is now cleaned up, based and undercoated (in white), along with the 12 men of his regiment, in a rather fine 'march attack' pose.
Although the figures are the first of two small armies I intend to create from the Balkan Wars range, I think I'm going to be pretty catholic when it comes to uniforms. And, of course, given that decision, I dug out a marvellous book that I think have mentioned before:
Vanished Armies, by A E Haswell Miller, edited by John Mollo (all hail!), published by Shire, Oxford, 2009. The plates in Haswell's book are water colours drawn from life from just before 'the deluge' of 1914. A must.
Interesting post indeed! The Haswell Miller is one of my favourite books and also really enjoyed by my eldest daughter who is doing costume design @ college.
ReplyDeleteI will be interested to see the 42mm figures as they progress towards and through painting.I have been swithering of late about the Shiny Tin Soldier range of 42mm too.The sixe is a good compromise betwixt 54mm and 28mm. AS I am unable to bend properly or crawl around the floor my Funny Litle Warr activites are non existent. I am tempted to do FLW in 42mm on a table top in future. I hope to get my 42mm Vikings out this week for a game for the first time so that will give me a sense of scale on dining room table.
best wishes
Alan
p.s We had torrential rain and thunder and lightning for ages yesterday evening but am up *.00 am to glorious sunne
My dear chap, you have my sympathy - it is just so typical that something nasty happens healthwise during the hols! Although, I see you were out and about to Crail - top spot.
DeleteI like the look of the Shiny Tin range too, but I'm never so keen on figures that need heads stuck on by me. They generally fall off after a bit.
That's bizarre! I was JUST looking at 'Vanished Armies' - I had read that one of the colour plates is duplicated in error? But having seen the quality of the illustrations now I'm tempted again.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I have also just been trawling the Irregular Miniatures site - what a resource!
It did cross my mind that - as mentioned above - that 42mm might make FLW more accessible to those with limited indoor space.
It happens like that - I sometimes wonder if there is some sort of occult, or sci-fi like mind swarm that connects wargamers (cue creepy music). I've peered at the plates over and over again, but I've never noticed a duplication. Now I'll have to check again! It's a wonderful book - recommended.
DeleteAs for 42mm, see Ross Mac's comment here, and also, the bases I'm using are about the same size as I have used for 28mm.
I never tire of reminding people that while Wells used 'standard' sized soldiers for his original game (and significantly smaller in bulk at least than the likes of AIP) He recommended the use of the smaller 1 1/2" figures for wargaming.
ReplyDeleteThe STS ranges are very compatible with Irregular. I have my eye on their non-firing 4.7" gun.
Yes, I thought that was the case, and I think the same point has been made in a comment on this blog. They are a very 'nice' size and really combine the toy soldier look with a wargamer edge. Irregular's 'really useful' gun series is excellent and very wide ranging.
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