Tuesday, November 05, 2013

Some Decisions to be Made

Beside my Warlord plastics and Perry lead for my English Civil War project, I acquired a fairly substantial number of lead figures from a fellow down island.  The price was great, however the figures had not been treated kindly.

One specific problem was with the cavalry.  There were lots of sword-waving troopers most of whom had broken off swords.  Now Murdock has kindly offered to come down with his dremel tool and help me replace them with pins . . . (this is something I've never done although I've read of folks who have done so).

Now one of my problems is how well this will look with the unbroken swords of my Warlord and Perry troops.  Will I have to replace them as well?  I will have to wait and see.

Another issue has to do with the muskets of the Warlord plastics and the Perry lead.  I had planned on mixing them up within each unit . . . but while the sculpting of the two lines matches very well, the musket lengths are noticeably different (with the plastic being much longer).  Now I have to decide whether to simply use them in separate units or to snip the ends of the barrels off from the plastics.  I'm currently leaning toward the former but might well change my mind.

On a positive note, I did manage to make a hundred 80mm pikes from the mild steel welding rod I picked up last week . . . and I have finally assembled the arms and hats for way too many plastic foot and glued all of my plastic horses together.  However I still have swords to glue on the foot and pistol holsters on the horses.

I am getting very tired of all of the fiddly little bitwork needed to assemble all of the Warlord plastics.  They look good and the price is great but I have to pay for it in time in putting them together.

Nothing is painted yet (nor will it be soon) but I do continue to get things prepped.


-- Jeff

4 comments:

Archduke Piccolo said...

I tend to make alterations only if something is broken. So if it were me, I would be disinclined to replace the unbroken swords to 'fit in' with the repairs. Ditto muskets. The main reason you have identified yourself: too much bally work!

I might be inclined to ask why I want to mix figures from different manufacturers in the same unit. I can see some very good aesthetic reasons for this (e.g. slight variations in appearance, giving the units a realistic and animated look - though I am mindful of school cadet days in which the columns and lines were ordered by height: the tallest on the right).

There can be 'administrative 'reasons as well. I have 90 figures of Manufacture A, and 110 of B - 10 by 20-figure battalions. One approach might be to build 4 Bns of 'A' and 5 of 'B' and mix the 10th Battalion (I'd probably call it the 5th, actually, but that's neither here nor there). To solve the compatability problem you then have just 10 muskets to think about. I'd ignore the disparate lengths between units.

Speaking of which, depending upon how they are sculpted, I would probably look to shortening them 'from the centre'. This means cutting them off (carefully) as close to the hand as possible, cutting a piece off that end, and then regluing. That way you preserve the bayonets etc.

Another point about different musket sizes. If you don't have too many of the shorter muskets (fewer than half, say), why not call them fusils, and units with them fusiliers?

I have to agree with you about the plastic put-together guys. They do take time... I've had my 7 packets of WSS infantry 2-and-a-half years now, and still only 4 units are built (unpainted). Mind you, the artillery (2 packs) I got this year have all been assembled...

Cheers,
Ion

Robert Herrick said...

You can probably get away with the different musket lengths and different swords in ECW units, especially ones from 1642/1643. Nothing was standard, weapons came from wherever you could find them, and all that jazz.

With some judicious positioning of the figures in the sleeves, few people will notice. That's how I plan to mix my Perry and Warlord.

freecloud said...

If ye will play Pyke and Shotte, then thy wilt have Pykes that are veritably a Pain in ye Arse ;-)

Theye also do comme loose as ye fingers doth bump themm, or worstens, thy hande doth alight upon their sherp pointy bit.

Archduke Piccolo said...

'Twixt reading thy postinge and making my comment I contrived to forgette it were ECW thou wast talkinge about, and not WSS. On the question of firearme length for the shotte, I reckon I should still goe down the 'separate units' path, rather than mixing themme.
Cheeres,
Ion