Posted on June 23, 2013
Bigfig gladiators continue to hold my magpie attention. Here are a couple more of the 54mm Pegasus gladiators which I painted up yesterday. I should have paid a bit more attention to what was in the background when photographing! Myrmillo Thraex (unu...
Posted on June 4, 2013
Not a great deal to say about these. I felt inspired by the '100 Ancients' post over at the Lead Adventure forum and figured I'd break out the brushes. This figure is (these figures are?) included in the Pegasus 3202 set. These are soft plastic, 1/3...
Posted on May 6, 2012
Some projects never end. I have a collection of 25mm gladiators which are pretty much finished. But for some reason when I started gaming with 54mm figures I really wanted some big-fig gladiators. Of course, that was years ago. But with the recent mo...
Posted on February 4, 2012
One thing about having your toys packed away... you catch up on stuff. I did a little bit of verbal tweaking and formatting for my simple Spanish American War rules "Splendid Little Warriors." My goal for these rules was for a simple, fast play game ...
Posted on May 4, 2011
I looked high and low to find a Krupp gun for my Spanish-American games. I knew Emhar made a 1/35 scale model but I could not find a retailer who had one in stock. So, the week after the big Span-Am game I attended the Indianapolis Toy Soldier show a...
Posted on April 8, 2011
'Splendid Little Warriors' had its first actual game. Overall, I'm fairly happy with the system. The scenario was kind of, sort of, based on the encounter at las Guasimas. In short, the Americans were advancing through the Cuban jungle on two paralle...
Posted on March 29, 2011
The Splendid Little Warriors (hmmm... I think I'll use that as the name of my rules!) are also completed. There are a few more options in 54mm Americans for this period than there are for the Spanish. My Americans are composed of BMC and Armies in Pl...
Posted on March 29, 2011
If wargaming projects ever really get finished, then this is probably it. Of course, I still have four American flags to attach. Of course, I still need horses for the caissons. Of course, casualty figures and terrain stuff would add to the overall e...
Posted on August 29, 2010
I've got plenty of American command figures for the SpanAm game. Six Teddy Roosevelts, three Pershings, seven standard bearers. Geesh... it even looks like about half the Buffalo Solders wear chevrons. I don't really have any figures that will work a...
Posted on June 26, 2010
OK, I had my 25mm fix with the Gauls and Romans. Working on a Master's degree has me a bit burned out on AWI stuff. So what's a guy to do? Well, I do have some BMC and AIP Spanish American War figures... and I did commit myself to running a SpanAm g...
Posted on June 26, 2010
The SpanAm game I'm running next February could have as many as 12 or 15 players. I normally run skirmish games for that many players since it's too time consuming and expensive to create complete armies for both sides. Even with inexpensive 54mm fig...
Posted on June 26, 2010
I'd forgotten how enjoyable it is to paint 54mm figures rather than 28mm. There have been a couple of Armies in Plastic German figures in my bits box for a few years now. I picked them out of $.25 bin at a local show. I've not felt a great deal of lo...
Posted on March 8, 2010
We played our second game of 'Victory Without Quarter' on Saturday. Lots of fun! We had to tweak things a little bit to account for a larger scale and different mounting systems. My 54mm figures are mounted two figures to a stand so each regiment was...
Posted on June 22, 2009
Being satisfied with the first test figure, I finished the other three figures over the weekend. Why four figures total? Well, I ran out of BMC figures to cut heads off of to make the conversions. Next time I get to a toy soldier show I'll rummage ab...
Posted on June 15, 2009
Little by little I'm recovering from 54mm burnout caused by the ECW stuff. I've been accumulating Rev War figures over the past few years and decided it's time to get some of them painted. I can't explain it but I feel the need for jägers. I don't ha...
Posted on December 19, 2008
It's been an unbelievably busy Autumn. Real Life™ has demanded almost all my time. Things seem to be getting back to normal now. I've recently re-established my hobby space (in the new house ). (Various, 54mm) × Of course, now that I have dedica...
Posted on August 23, 2008
It's been a long time since posting. But I've not been entirely idle. But this project does seem to be winding down. I've got two more 24 figure units to complete and then I still need a handful of officers and commanders. But after that it will prob...
Posted on July 19, 2008
One of the challenges of collecting 54mm English Civil War figures is that it is a pretty specific area of interest and few figure manufacturers pay a lot of attention to it. Consequently, except for indulging in some more expensive metal figures for...
Posted on June 19, 2008
The fourth 24 figure unit has been completed. Notwithstanding that all my other units are generic, for some reason I think I'll label this unit as Talbot's regiment. The yellow coats would be appropriate but I'm not sure about the color of the pants....
Posted on June 19, 2008
I've attended a number of wargaming conventions over the years. But the Columbus Toy Soldier Show on October 3rd, 2007 was my first 'Toy Soldier' show. It was a pretty smallish one-day affair with thirty or forty dealers in attendance. Following my m...
Posted on June 19, 2008
Ha! Auto-Focus-Nemesis strikes again! Nevertheless, an eight figure squadron of 54mm cavalry makes for an impressive sight. I really do like these figures. Once again, a forthcoming game proves to be a wonderful inspiration for getting things done. W...
Posted on June 19, 2008
Bravo! I've been told that Michigan Toy Soldier Company provides excellent service. My first experience with them supports that. I recently ordered some more ECW figures from them and when I received the stuff it wasn't quite what I wanted. I had mi...
Posted on June 19, 2008
Fairly often when searching the web for information on the 'A Call to Arms' English Civil War figures you'll come across a statement along the lines of 'Yes, the figures are nice, but there are no cavalry available.' Not true! The company makes two s...
Posted on June 19, 2008
I've whined before about the limited number of poses available for plastic 54mm English Civil War figures. This is especially true for command figures where I'd prefer to have more individuals. It pays to have friends. I got an email not so long ago ...
Posted on June 19, 2008
Big-Fig Battle Day finally arrives. I must confess... I've had a decadent wargame weekend. On Saturday I participated in a Zulu vs. British game. On Sunday we play-tested Quindia Studio's 'Victory Without Quarter' ECW rules. Both days were exquistly ...
Posted on June 19, 2008
Happy Holidays to you all! I do not believe my wife reads this blog. Nevertheless, I'm sure that somewhere between the basement (where I photograph my figures) and the upstairs study (where I post to the blog) I must have mentioned, in passing, once ...
Posted on June 19, 2008
It's been a while but things are finally coming back together. Since getting the new camera I've been itching to test it out. However, I started a new job just two weeks before the holidays, and for the last week and a half I've been fairly, though n...
Posted on June 19, 2008
In a previous post I mentioned picking up some artillery pieces at the Columbus Toy Soldier show. Cool stuff. It was a pleasure painting them, no eyes, no belts, no draped fabric to shade. Just hardware. Wood, bronze and iron. I had previously slappe...
Posted on June 19, 2008
My collection is a bit shy on command figures. Eventually I'll have to jump into conversions simply to have enough flag bearers. But I've been stalling on that. This gregarious sergeant is a stock figure. He'd probably make a good addition to the lin...
Posted on June 18, 2008
Somewhere, on some computer, at some time, I saw a web site with a simple listing of coat/cuff/breeches colors for the various ECW regiments. Of course, I can't find it now. Haythornthwaite shows this blue/brown color combination as in use by the tra...
Posted on June 17, 2008
One of the goals of this project is to create scalable standards that can be used for any size figure. I've been using SVG (scalable vector graphics) for a few projects at work and figured it would be a good format to use for flags. Size 'em to whate...
Posted on June 16, 2008
The first officers to answer the call. The figures in the Call to Arms command set are large. In fact, their size and styling makes me strongly suspect they were sculpted by someone other than the rest of the range. They are not my favorite figures t...
Posted on June 15, 2008
The bargain artillerists. While the Call to Arms figures are very decently priced, at over $10 for a single gun (with no crew) their artillery is not. Now, I lucked out by finding a box of artillerists at half price at my local hobby shop. But I have...
Posted on June 14, 2008
Seen here is the first of the painted cavalry. I'm not real happy with the buff coat. Too yellow, methinks. Finding cavalry figures may be the biggest challenge of this entire project. Call to Arms makes two types, an 'Ironside' and a Haslerigge 'lob...
Posted on June 14, 2008
The second regiment has been completed. While this is, ostensbily, a green regiment, it might be difficult to tell from their uniforms. The color that most catches the eye is the yellow of the buff coats on both the pikemen and the at-attention muske...
Posted on June 13, 2008
My original intention was to use 36 figures for a unit; 16 pikemen in block flanked by 8 musketeers on either side. But the more I read the more I disliked the pike component being deeper than the gunners. So I'll probably go with 8 pike in 2 rows fl...
Posted on May 31, 2008
Individually, the BMC figures are nothing special. However, make a unit of them and they don't look too bad. In fact, I think they look better in the eyes of the painter simply because a unit--even a small one--gives one a greater sense of completion...
Posted on May 31, 2008
I'm always a glutton for project distraction. My projects never grow too large for my space, there are just too many projects that appeal to me. Though for the most part I've not been too tempted by 54mm figures. I've stuck (mostly) to my original pl...
Posted on May 22, 2008
Interesting enough, there are no poses of musketeers firing included in the musketeer sets from Call to Arms. However, they do include four of them in the command set. Seems a little odd. Nonetheless, I'm glad to incorporate them into the musket comp...
Posted on May 10, 2008
So I took the plunge and ordered three more boxes of pikemen, four boxes of musketeers, two boxes of cavalry and a box of command figures from my local hobby shop. I also found that they had a box of artillerist on the shelf for $5. Scarfed that up, ...
Posted on May 8, 2008
So I tried a number of different techniques gleaned from the internet on how to keep acrylic paint on plastic figures. Special soaps and glues, chemical brews, plastic etching shenanigans. None passed my rather gentle scrape test, I might add. So aft...
Posted on April 10, 2008
A fellow gamer and I were commiserated over how the scale of figures that appeal to us seems to have a direct proportional relationship to our accumulating years. Furthermore, I've always shied away from plastics simply because of the problem of keep...
Posted on February 10, 2008
Oddly enough, working on the BMC AWI figures made me feel somewhat nostalgic. Many years ago I painted up some 54mm metal figures for a local collector but had few of my own. At about the same time another friend was tinkering around with home castin...
Posted on February 9, 2008
Not too long ago when I first started working with 54mm plastics I purchased a set of BMC figures for the American War for Independence. Price and availability are their greatest virtues. Realism is not. Nevertheless, I wanted to see how a few of the...
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