Wednesday 2 January 2019

What about the Figures.


This is always the tricky bit of the hobby. You get an idea in your head of a particular
period of history you are interested in. Next you start looking for figures ( or Minis) for that period. This is the first hurdle.

Many, are the cupboards, lofts, sheds and garages the length and breadth of the nation containing boxes of metal and plastic figures symbolizing the dreams and aspirations of wargamers never to be realized. Their ultimate destiny being a bring and buy stall ,church bazaar or car boot sale!

Why is this?. It usually starts with a book, a film, or an article in a war game magazine. In our minds eye we can picture the thundering charges of armoured cavalry, the closed ranks of legionary shields holding back hordes of barbarians or mighty tanks smashing enemy defences.

Next, having seen the coloured photos of lavish war game tables groaning under the weight of exellently painted figures or having been taken to a war game show, the spell becomes harder to resist. The colour! The spectacle! I must buy!!

Before you know it a small fortune has been spent on acquiring bags or boxes of figures (all rhyme and reason out the window) along with paints and brushes. These are stored in a place ready for those aspirations to be magically realised.

That's when the cold light of reason hits home. Four incidents usually happen.

1 : You finally realize that you haven't got the patience and none of the skill required to turn this pile of lead/ plastic into something resembling the pictures/games you have seen.

2 : Your domestic situation has changed whereby that spare room has been taken up by a returning sibling maybe with grand siblings in tow. Your regular home/ work routine has been knocked sideways by unforeseen circumstances.

3:  Having sat and thought about it for a few weeks you realise you have selected the wrong scale of figues combined with the amount of space not being available for the formations you envisaged.(note the bigger the figures the bigger the scenery. Have you the room for that as well as the figures!!).

4: There are no Wargame groups in your area that cater for large scale games or
     the group of mates you wargamed with have moved on to a different era, don't want to do that era of history, or have split up to go their separate ways.
 
This last one also contains the poison chalice whereby you have all the figures of one side only. If you wish to continue then you have to collect enough stuff to form the opposition. A double whammy!!!.
   

All these situations have happened to this blogger in the last 50 years and no doubt to many other gamers. On top of all this , if you have a partner ,will they tolerate your interest in " toy soldiers".

If you can spare a moment to give all the above some thought a lot of effort and money will be saved.

The photo above this post is my interpretation of a Sassanid Army. It took me about 8 weeks to paint taking roughly an hour a day. All the figures are Hat Industries. The metal spears are either dressmaker pins, or javelins cut down from North Star Miniatures. The War Elephants are the Carthaginian types again from Hat Industries.

All the plastic figures were supplied from www.modelhobbies.co.UK.
The figures below are 15 mm metal.


Mostly Miniature Figurines with some Peter Pig and Essex Miniatures.