Category: 54MM Toy Soldiers

54MM

REPLICA: My second Guards Unit is well on the way… (II)

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That’s it!

I have finished painting my Brigade of Guards! (A childhood project).

To be sincere I will work a bit more on the mounted Officer Horse… they are never really “finished” (horses I mean).

And they still lack the gloss varnish.

My last Project (to be painted by me) will be King Charles III … there on the tray at the back of the pic.

All casts by REPLICA.

Cheers.

The whole Unit (A Brigade of Guards for AGW)
Coldstream Guards finished except gloss varnish
The mounted Officer is a Scots Guards Brigadier (it lacks a bit of work on the horse I admit)
Grenadiers on the Right (ADC 4th Hussars W.S.Churchill)
Coldstream on the left of the line

My second Guards Unit is well on the way. Casts from REPLICA 54mm

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My Brigade of Guards for AGW set of rules will be completed wit those Coldstreamers (Nulli Secundus).

Curiously having a unit of Grenadiers and another of Coldstreamers I have decided to make the mounted Brigadier a serious Scot Guards!

Probably my last effort at painting myself the 54MM casts!… pots of paint will be used to do maintenance exclusively.

I will buy painted soldiers from Andrew Stevenson (REPLICA) and Antony Spencer (DORSET and IMPERIAL and AQM)… because they do it better than me… and I am a bit tired (only very elusive things as the SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON SET can make me move…)

Enjoy!

Very few things to add… mainly Black and Gold!
The other side view!

A new painting job! British Guards in Bearskin (SIMKIN times I)

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After a bit of relax (that included searching for the right paint from Vallejo for the rifles!) I am now painting two units for AGW (12 man units); the first one is only 4 charging figures to complete an existing REPLICA set. Will concentrate on those 4 for starts… but also working on the mounted officers and young Churchill (4th Hussars).

It is easier to paint Infantry soldiers if you are not in a hurry. But you need to have a hold on them somehow… so just a job of adding colours patiently. In the case of the guards the bearskin helps a lot!

Since I was a child and had only marching and at the present figures I have wanted to have them in fighting positions… so in the end… DIY is the best way (not the only one of course!).

I have ordered from Dorset Soldiers and Replica some boxes for 2024… if all goes well I will retire from the painting job myself and keep the pots of paint to do maintenance exclusively.

Now, if Andrew Stevenson send to me the 5 casts of the 2nd US Cavalry to do the mounted colour party for the SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON set… that will be all!

Enjoy.

Primed and rifles painted…

ZINDERNEUF (as in P.C. Wren’s)

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Not all of the restrictions of the pandemic are a boring thing, in fact it has given me time to do things I have done on my mind for several years and never materialized because of lack of time and sheer laziness. The normal live I live keep postponing those things ad infinitum.

To begin at the beginning, I have always had a set of building bricks called EXIN CASTILLOS, it was a wonderful Spanish toy of the sixties, I played with them and build castles, so did my children when young because I purchased sets for them (nowadays have done so with my grandchildren too), one day of “cleaning up” at home I rescued the discarded sets of mine&my children from the list of things to throw away, put them in a box and stored them in my (then) office waiting for better days.

Fort Zinderneuf, a lonely outpost in the Saharian South manned by the FFL, if you have read P.C.Wren or seen the films not much explanations required. 54mm Dorset Figures.
Detail of ramparts and interior.

In the meantime my collection of Dorset Soldiers (thanks again to Giles Brown) was slowly growing up and the French Foreign Legion in action poses (mainly) occupied three shelves of one of the cabinets in Pal. So, one day I took the box from my office, cleaned the plastic pieces with soap&water and produced a mini ZINDERNEUF in 54mm to play with my Dorset Soldiers set. On another trip I had brought to Pal my camera/tripod etc.

Here you have the full set of pieces, I did not use the circular one’s neither the too Dark Ages bits for ZINDERNEUF, but I always sort them out before “building”

This is the result: a solo game I play against “time”, will the arabs kill all the defenders of the fort before help from Tokotu arrives? Will “Beau” and “John” survive as long as in the novel?.

Quickly built… nearly exhausting the supply of rectangular pieces.

By the way, if you considere the BEAU GESTE trilogy (in fact five books and some extra short stories!) too old fashioned for you, you simply pass…

View from the back.
Lateral view.

Now, that was fun!, it has been years since I did a model with those blocks!, it’s like riding a bycicle… you never forget those tricks with the bricks.

I have done it in 6mm (still in my Baccus collection), 28mm (To The Redoubt… sold), 54mm (Dorset Soldiers) and in 75mm with Playmobils (now in the collections of my grandchildren).

Leven Fort, Baccus proxies all done by REVEILLE.
When I did it in 28mm.TO THE REDOUBT minis…
Major de Beaujolais column arrives from Tokotu…
John and Digby desert after jumping the wall… End Game.

Steve Snark’s Own Old Way. 54MM Classic wargame.

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It is a Boer war game. I put a stop on my own wargaming just before that. But it is impressive in a way.

Britain’s (it has been said before) never developed a proper ACW lot of figures, the majority were Boer Wars minis painted differently. Probably an exaggeration but with some truth in it…

I am sure Paul Watson appreciates!

Enjoy!

Simple but effective.
Look at the mounted General!
Boers
Line troops
Machine Gun!
Full Perspective
Artillery