Do Perry plastic Mahdists boxes come with a minimum amount of riflemen?

[VonAkers]

Olicana
Having said that .. maybe one box to do Conversions like Jack Jones ones .. very nice Bravo JJ..
Cheers

[Jack Jones]

Olicana
Having said that .. maybe one box to do Conversions like Jack Jones ones .. very nice Bravo JJ..
Cheers

Thank you!

Honestly … I have found the plastic Ansar / Mahdists to be really rather good. I haven’t found the poses to be too repetitive (I have around 250 figures, of which 86 are metal), and there are possibilities for simple conversions.

I would say buy a box and see how you get on with them. The price alone is compelling!

Cheers
JJ

[olicana]

Thanks JJ.

The post about the Perry plastics not being very good had me worried.

I'm desperately trying to bring the Perry Sudan collection 'bulk buy order' in at under £1700.00. It's harder than it sounds. Already thinking of 32 man British units (four 60x45 stands of 8 men each - probably 30 men, 5 packs of 6, plus mounted colonel to save buying extra packs for some units) and Mahdist spears at 52 men (same size stands but, 8 stands of 6-7 men each per unit), just to trim the fat.

I wish I could get over single rank infantry units looking so weedy- then I could go 8 stands of 3 men each (on 45 x 45) for the brits and have eight company 24 man units. I'd still do the Mahdists in 48s but the size difference would mean I need less units for them.

It's such a mess! 

[Jack Jones]

Blimey!

I would advise that you try not to make a rod for your own back – the size of the lead pile will will sap your enthusiasm for the project! I have spent around £1,500 over the past four years, which is for everything from miniatures, paint, basing materials, scenic items, to books. I learned only to buy new miniatures when I those on my painting desk were almost finished. This allowed my units to develop within the bounds of a loose plan.

What size of actions do you want to play? And which scenarios … Desert Column, River Column, or Suakin campaigns? And which rules?

My Empire units are mostly 24 figures (based in twos and fours on 60mm x 60mm and 30mm x 60mm bases), and I think of these as ‘contingents’ rather than battalions, or even companies. This allows me to relax about their presence on the table.

My Hadendowa warriors are organised into bands of 16, including one leader (based in twos and threes on 60mm x 60mm and 30mm x 60mm bases), with three bands to a ‘rub’ with commander, drummer and two flag bearers.

Cheers
JJ

[olicana]

Hi JJ,

I do it this way every time. I like to work to a plan and don't like ordering stuff in dribs and drabs.

Punic Wars 2,100 figs in one purchase. SYW 2,700 figures in two purchases. Crusades was 1,300 figures I picked up from Dave Thomas at a show and brought home by bus in a suitcase.

All done, one after the other, more or less.

Just finishing my Peninsular War stuff - three units (68 figures) left to paint. Peninsular British and French was just over 2,000 figs in one order (pretty much - I cocked up slightly and needed £300 worth of fillers), followed by a single order for the 700 Spanish figures I started painting in July 2022. The first order was so big it crashed Front Rank's online payment system and we had to do the order manually over the phone! The first parcel weighed over 28 Kg.

The only period I didn't do this way was the Italian Wars (1800 figs) but, that one is from a lot of different manufacturers and quite a bit bought second hand (unpainted) on ebay, back in its hey day.

The Perry Sudan order is done but not sent: £2021.50 worth but, it includes £300 worth of Crusades reinforcements.

I'll also be sending an order to Front Rank for another £400 worth of Peninsular extras at the same time.

Plus, at the same time, from Foundry (figs) and Warbases (buildings), I'm probably going to spend £400 on some Wild West skirmish stuff - because I need a land based beer and pretzel game. My other quick games are Xyston 1:600 Ancient Galleys (about 100 vessels), X Wing (about 100 ships), and Red Eagle 1:144 WWI aircraft for one on one dogfights (about 50 aircraft).

That will be most of my hobby budget done for the next 5 or so years - and I won't buy anything else until its all done. You have to remember that I'm doing this in my spare time - professionally I'm a full time figure painter.

[Jack Jones]

@ olicana

Blimey! That’s some five year  plan!

Cheers
JJ

[Deedles]

That’s some plan .I look forward to seeing it develop.

It took me 3 years of so to do the bulk of my Sudan - 2000 (1000 from the plastic box sets which took as long to build as they did to paint) figures to get it to do the game I wanted  , then added another another 1000 over the next 2 years to bulk it out. Always more oddments to add

Good luck with it

[VonAkers]

Olicana
Mate the Perry Plastics .. DONT DO IT ..
The numbers you are talking about are AWESOME .. LOVE IT ..!!
However the ASSEMBLY TIME ALONE on a project of that size .. Oh My God  ..
It Took me aprox 7 hours to Assemble 52 Perry Plastic Zulu War Inf ... in your Plan that would be what X 30  = 210 Hours probably 230 ..and that could sap anyones , passion ..
In addition if you didnt then need therapy after that Waste of Time  .. you will certainly need medication when you realise that after all that,...  the Plastics Look Noticeably Inferior in every way to the Metals ..its not even close ....
I know of what I speak.
So Metal up Old Boy ...!!!!!
Cheers
Ps Check out The Castaway Miniatures Figures as well , they do have a couple of Duds in the Range( ( 6 out of 40) but some are simply Superb.. Perry Esque .. and you can order them in singles ..Happy Days ..

[MaleGriffin]

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Either you pay with time or cash. I'm retired so I prefer time. Although I have a lot of metal figures collected over some 50 years of collecting, now that I'm retired I have shifted to mostly plastic figures. Assemble, paint, base, and repeat. By varying what I'm doing, I don't succumb to the tedium of what feels like the infinite overwhelming monotony of trying to assemble all the figure and then paint them all and then base them all. YMMV

[Jack Jones]

Fwiw I really enjoyed the assembly task … which didn’t take much longer than cleaning up the metal castings. (I do wish Perry Miniatures took more care with their casting and/or reviewed the quality of the moulds more often … which amounts to the same thing, I guess.)

Assembly and conversion took me all the way back to my mid-teens … and I am looking forward to the same sort of experience when I embark on my next project, which will take back even further to the late Middle Ages.

My projects are quite a bit smaller, so I do appreciate the scale of the assembly task in the OP’s case.

Cheers
JJ

[ARKOUDAKI]

Like others that have posted, I have a bunch of Perry plastic and metal Sudanese, and find the plastics to be a lot better. I also find the Zulus plastics to be a good source of additional models with some conversions.

As the rifles, I tend to use a variety of the plastics to make up some armed Sudanese.

Some photos that might be of interest below.

[VonAkers]

Arkoudaki
Mate those figures do look great !!!well done 
However I noticed they are all  Conversions ,you simply  cant do that for 500 Plus figures .
Metals are the go  IMHO
Cheers

[olicana]

Very cool.

[olicana]

So, my Perry Miniatures order for the Sudan is almost completed.

After much deliberation (and many headaches) I've decided to go for 6 figures / 1 stand is equal to 80-100 men (a company, more or less). I've also decided to base my OOB on the historical ones. Mostly, it's down to reading Go Strong Into The Desert: It made me think about the small scale of the battles much more than I had previously.

For the Mahdists, I've gone 800 foot figures and 36 mounted (includes 10 boxes of plastic) plus commands. This equates to a Beja force of roughly 6500 infantry and 200 camel riders, plus a force of 6,500 Kordofan / Nile types with 400 cavalry. Each force will include 96 figures (roughly 1600 men) with rifles. I'm giving them two Krupps and a Gatling (converted crew required for MG) with roughly one model equalling 2-3 pieces. This seems to cover most of the bases for 1884-85.

For the Brits, I'm doing six coys of 6 figures each for Royal Irish, Berkshires, Marines, KRRC and the York and Lancaster; I'm doing eight coys each for the Gordons and  Black Watch;  I'm doing eight coys each for the 15th, 17th, 28th Bengal/Bombay NI; three squadrons of six figs each for the 10th Hussars, and four squadrons for the 19th hussars, plus a squadron of nine figs for the 9th Bengal Lancers; two stands of sailors; two Gatlings, a Gardner; three 7pdrs and a Krupp.

That looks like enough to do 2nd El Teb, Tamai and Tofrek.

On top of that I'm also doing the Mounted Infantry Regiment (4 stands, 24 infantry, 12 camels) from Camel Corps, which will be useful for the small numbers of mounted infantry in the above battles. Note, I'm going to allow 12 camels to transport 24 infantry: it's a fudge but, I'm not buying 24 transport camels.

My last decision is, should I go for the rest of the Camel Corps, or the Guards Brigade, or the bits and pieces I'd need for Ginnis, or make a start on the stuff needed for 1st El Teb? The budget is at breaking point (about £2000), so I can only choose to do one.

[ARKOUDAKI]

@VonAkers....these are just some of the figs to make more variety out of the poses that come in the Perry plastic Ansar box. I find the Zulu plastics offers some good possibilities for conversions with the kneeling firing fig, wounded, shot/dead, etc. I have done 100s of the normal Perry Ansar poses....I take each main body pose and do a couple of sword variants, then the rest spears.