Sunday 1 November 2009

What I have mostly been doing (Off Topic #12)

Those of you who drop by on a regular basis will probably notice that my Hinton Hunt painting output has been pretty weedy for the last few months. The main reason is that I became sidetracked into rebasing my 15mm Napoleonic collection. This picture shows the results of my endeavours so far.

My 15mm project has been an on and off one since 1984 so most of the figures are Minifigs old style (before the range was redesigned). I have a few of the newer Minifigs mixed in and also some more recent AB Figures bought before the range went down under. I was surprised at how nice the current Minifigs are and I will be using their figures to complete the project. It’s good to see Minifigs under new ownership as I feel the brand has been crying out for some TLC for a long time.


I’ve said before that I definitely have some sort of compulsive disorder when it comes to basing figures and most of these troops are now on their third bases. This time I have opted for the system given in Age of Eagles as I will probably use an adapted version of these rules for my games. According to Rafa this is also the same basing system used for Napoleon’s Battles so that’s a double result.

So why have I got distracted in this way? Well I blame it squarely on Noel the Garage-gamer who invited me into his wargaming heaven a few months ago (actually come to think of it I invited myself). Noel has converted his double garage into a fantastic wargame room with two huge tables, lovely hand made terrain units and literally thousands of beautifully painted 28mm Napoleonic figures (click here for Noel’s blog).


Anyway, this inspired me to look again at my old 15mm armies with a view to doing something similar but in a much smaller way – perhaps the box-room gamer? The point is that at the rate I am currently painting my Hinton Hunts I will never have enough ready to play a decent sized wargame with them so 15mm is more practical from a gaming point of view. The idea is to add to the 15mm collection via eBay with occasional units painted by myself and base everything in the same style for uniformity. Meanwhile I will keep plugging away painting the HH forces myself.

On the subject of 15mm Napoleonics take a look at Napoleonics in Miniature (click here) for some nicely painted 15’s including some of the very same early Minifigs I have in my own collection.

10 comments:

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Ah, yes. This reminds me of my own 15mm Napoleonic project that has languished these last several years. You know, MiniFigs 15s are rather nice. I've never understood why some people criticize them. I really like your Prince of Orange and Staff figures by the way.

Best Regards,

Stokes

Stryker said...

Thanks for that Stokes - and many congrats on your recent arrival!

Ian

lewisgunner said...

And very nice they look too. They look like 2nd generation Minifigs 15mm and quite frankly they were as good as 15mm needed to get. That scale has now become so detailed that its really slowed down the time from lead arriving to paqinted figures taking the table!!
Roy

Rafael Pardo said...

Ian
I expect you find oponents to play wargames!. Age of Eagles is a good set, but Ialthough I use Napoleon's Battles.
Do you have a cleraly defined project? for example the replay of a campaign...
Regards
Rafa

Stryker said...

Cleary defined wargame projects are not something I have proved to be very good at. However I have been wanting to refight Waterloo as a game since I was about 12 years old and this is the aim of the 15mm project!

Ian

Lazylimey said...

Nice Figs and painting!

A question - where do the Minifig 15mm Napoleonic Strips lie in the 15mm range history?

It's just that I have quite a lot that have been languishing for ages and I was thinking of putting them on Ebay.

I have no idea of the demand.

Regards,

Ron

Stryker said...

Hi Ron

I have just a few of those strips which I bought in the early 70s. I think they were the first 15mm figures but were produced a bit ahead of there time and are small compared to modern 15mm. I don't know if there is any interest in them now but I would think that Clive over at Vintage Wargaming might have more info.

Ian

lewisgunner said...

Peter Laing were the first 15mm figures. His concept was of rather crude figures, cheap and quick to paint en masse. Minifigs then came along with strips in true 15mm scale (as were Laing) they were als designed to be quick to prioduce and paint for mass. Then I think Mikes Models arrived. They were fat and caricature but covered periods that Minifigs did not.
Minifigs then moved on to the figs that Ian displays here. Laing dropped out. Mikes Models produced more detailed but still trubby figures and then sold to Essex. Around then the number of 15mm manufs exploded and the figures grew inexorably to 18mm.
#
Roy

Paulalba said...

Nice to see you working through your 15mm Minifigs Stryker. The Scots Greys have always been one of my favourites.
Cheers
Paul

john de terre neuve said...

Good name for a new blog "boxroom gamer"

I like it.

Regards,

John