For once (or as usual) I have no idea if they are in the market or not, where to buy them, if they are lead or resin, if sculpted or printed… whatever… I am sorry… surf Facebook as I do… maybe you will have a better info as a result.
But OMG! what a magnificent painting job!
I have said before in this Blog that 6mm is the FUTURE for Big Battles and Wargaming… I can be wrong of course (mainly if you only skirmish)… but have had this gut feeling since castings and printers improved sooooo much!
Here they are… to stay…
Enjoy!
I guess they are 3D printed but not sure…Spanish TroopsFrench I guess by the Flags (not my period I am afraid)Magnificent 6mm!Pikes always oversized I fear…Artillery is a must see!
I must admit that one of the things that push me to wargaming (in my early days in the hobby) was the fact of the “grandeur” of a Cavalry Charge!, of course I had seen on the movies scenes like the Errol Flynn (CUSTER) charges in the third day of Gettysburg… you know what I mean… ” First of Michigan Charge! ” etc etc etc
Addicted to colourful uniforms for esthetic reasons… nothing could compare to Napoleonic Cavalry Uniforms… Hussars in fact nearly never “charged” but were used in “la petite guerre” of outposts, patrols, scouting and denying the vue of the main Army to the enemy (but you read about those things later on… LOL)
Be that as it may the only thing that surpasses a Cavalry Charge is a Cavalry encounter with both sides charging to a bitter (and magnificent) melee… so that is the subject today!
Enjoy!
Post Scriptum: painfully enough you will discover with time that attrition is hard on the horses, very rarely Horse Regiments have a full complement due to lack of horses, and then cavalry is a small percentage of any Army (keep it on a bandbox)… so you will have to paint Line Infantrymen (again), in a higher proportion… the more Cavalry you get (same as Guard or Elite Units) the more Infantry you need (even militia!) to have a minimal sense of proportion in the Army of your choice… isn’t life hard!
And I guess all those pics are from the Wargames Holiday Centre… and work of M. Freeth.
Quite an “antiques” approach today… you have to like authenticity, rarity, exclusiveness, original paintjob, many years long actual state, in a word: VINTAGE Toy Soldiers…
If you look closely at the pics you will see the figures that are pictured in the rightly famous among collectors book by James Opie “Collecting Toy Soldiers” (Paperback edition in English).
It is not my speciality at all and I do not have the financial means to go chasing for rare sets in public auctions… (but if I had would not do at all… would go for paintings or rare first editions of books if you understand me), and what is more I have a penchant for the bright shiny new toy soldiers be that new future vintage or not… I do not give a fig if they will become vintage because I won’t be threre…
I guess that really Vintage means not bright and shiny anymore and the charm is “another thing”, the fact that the paint has gone away in parts (faded or fallen out) provokes in me an unnatural desire of scrap the remaining paint and do a new paintjob and use gloss varnish on top! (maybe I am insensible to the concept vintage at all… but I keep my first toys in that way for nostalgia reasons… even if they are cautxuc and less than ten items… and nearly as Old as me…) so I am in it for nostalgia reasons after all.
I guess Collectors of VINTAGE Toy Soldiers deserved a Post… well… here it is by courtesy of John Mullenger! (as seen in Facebook).
Enjoy!
Vintage Toy SoldiersA couple of shelves full of treasures… see on top right corner the figures used on the cover of the James Opie book.They would get high prices on an auction… because of their rarity.Another view…
Yesterday was John Clarke… Today is Paul Watson (a true friend of mine), how can he manage to “cut”, “solder”, “repare”, “modify”, and dig gold from the scrap pile of old discarded toy soldiers by less able people truly amazes me , in this case the two members of the Naval Landing Party has been converted into stretcher bearers… and the “casualty” is a multipart “remake” (you know what I mean… one torso, other legs, other arms, and an overall good painting job!
After all those 54mm pics of the French Foreign Legion I thought it would be refreshing… perish the thought!… it is really difficult to take pics of 6mm!… the human eye is much better than the camera (at least mine).
Here you have a sorry try to picture what is in fact a very interesting wargame (role playing a bit) for SOLO wargamers as me. If you look closely all the characters are there (some inside the wagon I fear). So, SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON it is after all…
The poor quality of the pics is only my fault… but Baccus 6mm are the best to date to my knowledge to do it in this scale. Have always been a big fan of John Ford’s Cavalry films… (Not exclusively those called “The Trilogy” by smart asses…)
Enjoy! (if you can see them)
Head of Column…Depature from Fort Stark…Badly out of focus I fear…Another viewAnd yet another…That’s all folks
I had a collection of 54mm Dorset Soldiers (lead) but the numbers of it were indifferent (modulated on 8’s + officers)… now after an additions bit (sharks frenzy feeding) I have 9 Companies of 12 men adapted to A GENTLEMAN’S WAR set of rules (I use modified if you please).
So yesterday I paraded the force to organize properly. Two of the Co’s are mule mounted (see pics), there are two machine guns, a Battery of Artillery, an Heliograph attached to HQ/Command and some Mounted Officers and ADC’s.
It was fun.
Enjoy!
The whole force (minus Cavalry)Somehow aerial view…Back View.Right Flank Infantry (the one top right has been “reorganized” and has dssmissed from the rolls… I was tring to hard to make “10” Co’s… better at “9” and have ADC’s and keep the Geste brothers out of it… LOLArtilleryCommandMule Mounted CompaniesHotchkissAnother one…Company 1Company 2Company 3Company 4Company 5Company 6Company 7
There is an old fashion way to wargame… quite charming if you ask me… 54mm or 42mm Britain’s mainly… but a lot of other manufacturers too!… or even home-cast models…
I was early up this morning… and perusing Facebook found this pic (and added others about the same subject)… guess that there are themes that will never die in the minds of collectors… and one of them is the 24th Foot (Zulu War of course!)… it happens with a lot of other units… the light Brigade 1854… the 7th Cavalry 1876… La Garde Imperiale de Napoleon (specially the Old Guard Grenadiers) and so on…
Why they are all disasters to quite a high point seem to emphasize the legend the lore and the nostalgia… do not ask me why!
Enjoy!
We all keep painting/modelling them… not mine today!Another…REPLICANo words needed…
It was a poor attempt to “model with miliput” because it is never been “my thing”… but I was tempted to try to do a “Toy Soldier piece unique” (as I can not match the “true” Bill Horan’s in our miniature world).
It all started simply enough, I had a redundant arm with pistol… a couple of horses (Empty Horses David Niven would say in his memoirs) with no rider… and I asked Antony Spencer from DORSET SOLDIERS to send me a British Colonial Rider without right arm. Still planning to do a French ADC (mounted) for the other horse…
Once I got it… I decided to try my hand at what Antony Stevens does effortlessly, meaning adding binocular case and a haversack to a rather “plain figure”… I also worked a bit on the horse (which was already painted since many years ago) adding valise and equipment… I showed all that to you in a Post not so long ago (about end of December 2022).
Well here it is the result of my job in some pics… and YES he is standing on the stirrups!… not at a 100% satisfied but not bad for a first try since God knows when… Never thought “minimalist” Toy Soldiers would be so difficult to do!
Enjoy! (not so easy today!)
Do you remember?End result!Lateral view!The other side…
