The 54mm madness of King George

[Mike Blake]

AFAIK the only other artillery are the CTA British and the Supreme/Tiger Russians.

IMHO CTA are like so many of their sets a bit on the little side but detail is nicely done. The Russians are excellent, being plastic versions of the King & Country painted metal figures! They are 60mm though, in case that bothers you.

FWIW We have both, and the AIP (which I think are great) all on the table at the same time and they look fine.

[nathan]

AFAIK the only other artillery are the CTA British and the Supreme/Tiger Russians.

IMHO CTA are like so many of their sets a bit on the little side but detail is nicely done. The Russians are excellent, being plastic versions of the King & Country painted metal figures! They are 60mm though, in case that bothers you.

FWIW We have both, and the AIP (which I think are great) all on the table at the same time and they look fine.

I don't think the scale issue will bother me that much.  I'll probably get a AIP cannon or two and if I don't like how the crew look, I'll find replacement crew.  Though I'll probably be fine with it.

EDIT:  Okay, I'll definitely be fine with it.  I'm beginning to think that the larger the miniatures are, the less small differences matter.  Check out this picture of some small infantry (painted by Ragnar) standing in front of some huge cavalry.



Those are Front Rank 40mm infantry standing in front of 54mm cavalry.  I think variations between 54-60mm figures will be fine on the table top.  I try not to order more miniatures until the ones I have are done, but I got excited and ordered some AIP artillery.

[Fighting15s]

I have some boxes of ACTA and Italeri plastic artillery, plus the Stockade figures that All the King's Men did. I originally thought that I might not need that much artillery... :-) I actually don't need much for my initial project, but I buy extra boxes anyway in the event that they go out of production.

I've just started looking at the Prince August options for infantry, and am bearing in mind the cannon. If the French crew have the same separate heads as the infantry, then swapping bicornes and shakos will be easier.

[Ensign Madcap]

This is an interesting thread.....I too am starting to collect 54mm figures as I am finding them easier to paint now my eyes are slightly wonky  , although am concentrating on ECW and WSS . Anybody know if there are any dedicated 54mm gaming forums out there?

[Mike Blake]

Little Wars Yahoo Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/littlewars/

[Ensign Madcap]

Thanks Mike, I am trying to join now, but Yahoo is telling me I am too young (46)

I'll try again later once I have matured a bit.

[Mike Blake]

How strange!

You will be made welcome when you get through-long standing group with less activity than there once was but a lot of good info in the archives of old posts and plenty of members happy to help newcomers to the Darkside by answering questions.

[Fighting15s]

I couldn't join either. Couldn't get past Captcha, either visually or aurally

[Mike Blake]

Oh dear - I can only suggest you keep trying. Yahoo can be very stupid about the Captcha thing and it can take repeated attempts to get the bloody thing to accept you are not a robot!

Please do persevere as new blood is always welcome and provides a stimulous for us old fogies both in answering questions and in making us look at things differently.

[nathan]

Turns out I joined quite some time ago when I was first trying to decide between 54mm and 40mm.  I don't think I posted, but I'm pretty sure I searched through some of the archives.  I'll probably make an introductory post soon.

And look what arrived, my dragoons!


I added a second lamp, but the only bulb I had was soft white rather than daylight.  It definitely made things worse.  It's actually quite annoying considering what my cheap cell phone camera can do in good natural light:

[Mike Blake]

Whilst not wishing in any way to lessen your enjoyment, IMHO those have to be some of the worst figures ever made! 

The Supreme/Tiger French or British Light cavalry with new heads would be so much better.

[Ensign Madcap]

Any idea where one can get Supreme figures in the UK? I did ask one UK dealer who got quite offensive about me asking if he stocked such 'terrible figures'..... I rather like their knights and Vikings, although I haven't seen any other periods.

[Trooper]

A lot of Supreme Napoleonics turn up regularly on E Bay, search under "other toy soldiers" that is generally where they hide out, if that is any help to you. As for forums I wonder if it would be worth petitioning the good Professor for a dedicated sub section here. 54mm and 40mm Toy Soldiering is quite healthy and it is always good to nurture it a bit.

[Mike Blake]

Tiger Hobbies is the UK stockist. The have both a regular website and an eBay presence. diecastmilitarymodels.co.uk or search eBay (this may work http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Tiger-Hobbies-Limited/Plastic-Toy-Soldiers-1-32).

Was it Steve Weston? He said much the same to me even though I tried to get him to see that beneath the ghastly paint job the figures were OK or even better. The Napoleonic  Russians are recasts of King & Country painted metal, so how can the be 'terrible figures'? Repainted they look just like the very expensive metal originals.

The French cavalry are 'original' though based on Italeri (the head is a bicorne from the Earl French infantry) and the British Light Cavalry are straight copies of the British Light Dragoons (IMHO one of Italeri's best figures), as are the horses for both. Both provide super conversion material at a ridiculously cheap price.

[nathan]

Was it Steve Weston? He said much the same to me even though I tried to get him to see that beneath the ghastly paint job the figures were OK or even better. The Napoleonic  Russians are recasts of King & Country painted metal, so how can the be 'terrible figures'? Repainted they look just like the very expensive metal originals.

Not really interested in prepainted figures unless the paint is super thin and easily painted over or can be easily removed.  All the pictures I'm finding seem to have very thick paint.  Do you have any pictures of repainted Supreme/Tiger figures, because all the pictures I'm seeing in my searches make them far less appealing than my ACTA cavalry (and that's saying something)?  

Other sellers might be making the right move as far as a commercial product is concerned as convincing people they really are good despite how they look seems like an unnecessary barrier to sales.  Especially in such a visual hobby.  My location also seems to be getting in the way of me getting these.  All the ebay sellers that have them charge huge amounts for shipping and Tiger's shopping cart systems tells me there's no shipping option to my location.

As for the A Call to Arms cavalry, my plan is to block paint them in a traditional toy soldier line, give them a watercolour wash (over gloss varnish and cleaned off most the surfaces with a damp cotton swab) and then blackline them and then matte varnish them to finish.  Seeing them in person, it looks like they will work fine for my purposes.  I find a couple of the posts to be very 2 dimensional though.  They are not as nice as their Zulu Wars range though.