The 54mm madness of King George

[Ensign Madcap]

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.

Thanks for the link...being new to the 54mm world it's surprising just how much the suppliers/sources vary from the 6mm-28mm scene. Yes it was Steve Weston, who successfully lost my future custom in his tirade (at least until I am desperate for a Replicants figure).

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.

That would be a great idea, but perhaps a separate board for 'big is beautiful' encompassing all periods? Anyone with more time willing to petition the Gods of LAF ?

[von Lucky]

I prefer period specific boards (e.g. I'm more likely to get ideas from a 54mm FIW game and use it in a 15mm game). And then you'd also need 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 20mm, 25mm, 28mm, 32mm, 40mm and 54mm boards.

Where would my 8mm Eskimo gunpowder-era zombie project go?

[Ensign Madcap]

I prefer period specific boards (e.g. I'm more likely to get ideas from a 54mm FIW game and use it in a 15mm game). And then you'd also need 6mm, 10mm, 15mm, 20mm, 25mm, 28mm, 32mm, 40mm and 54mm boards.

Where would my 8mm Eskimo gunpowder-era zombie project go?

Well, it's true LAF works on period specifics, I just thought that a large scale specific board might get  large scale gamers together. If I posted my 54mm toy soldier style ECW project on the appropriate existing LAF board, chances are it would be of limited interest to 95% of the board uses....... 54mm (and indeed 40mm to an extent) seem to be quite separated from other scales being rarely mentioned in the magazines or represented at shows (with exception of the Skirmish Wargames Group).

[nathan]

I like period specific as well.  I would never have learned about 54mm as a real possibility without seeing people talk about it in a period specific forum.  If it was segmented away in a scale based forum, I'd have never known to go in there.

[Mike Blake]

Nathan

Having seen the photo of your painted figures, if that is how you paint the ACTA cavalry will look the best they possibly could and much better than any figures of mine! But I would still prefer the Supreme/Tiger figures because they do not have their arms flung about in all kinds of strange directions!

The paint layer on the Supreme figures is the usual thickness, a few microns! It can be painted over without any problem ie it will not lose detail I can assure you. I think some of my figures are on my PhotoBucket site - I'll check it and post the link. I made Russian and Austrian cavalry from them.


Oops I  have put in the photo itself. Oh well, the Supreme/Tiger Light Dragoonsas Austrian Dragoons . (The shot comes from a Napoleonic game we had at Warfare in 2011) .

As to the scale basis for the DG here I'd stick with periods, because I like the cross-fertilisation from seeing what others are doing in the period but in their own preferred scales. I frequently take a figure in another scale as a direct inspiration for one in 54mm! And is there a danger of it becoming a scale ghetto - only people who are already into 54mm looking because the others think if doesn't interest them?

[Ensign Madcap]

Well it saves setting up a new board. For me a large scale specific board would concentrate a lot of 40mm and 54mm goodness to save me spending time trawling over the forum/net in which I could be painting, but I can see the other side of the argument too

[von Lucky]

I would suggest that you big is beautiful lovers* ensure you add "40mm", "54mm", etc to the thread title. As is the case for this thread. Makes finding and clicking very easy (it's why I clicked on this thread initially).

*I have some 40mm Sash & Saber AWI I'm going to paint this year after basing them last month, so I'm part of the club.

[nathan]

Having seen the photo of your painted figures, if that is how you paint the ACTA cavalry will look the best they possibly could

Having them right in front of me, I definitely agree.  They are not in the same league as the hard to find Italeri stuff, for example.

and much better than any figures of mine! But I would still prefer the Supreme/Tiger figures because they do not have their arms flung about in all kinds of strange directions!

I'm still trying to figure out how to rank up the A Call to Arms dragoons so their swords don't bump into other models.  I'm going for smaller space per miniature than some do for 54mm (I'm going with about a 30mm base width per figure) and the ACTA dragoons are presenting some challenges in that area.  After being pretty impressed with their Zulu Wars british, I was thinking maybe i'd do Ancients in 54mm and then saw the poses for their Romans:



Even if people are just buying them to paint and display or for dioramas, do people really want three out of four of their romans not having their shields forward?  So if Supreme ends up being good despite being prepainted and Tiger will ship to me, this might become an option:



Those poses are just *so* much better.

The paint layer on the Supreme figures is the usual thickness, a few microns! It can be painted over without any problem ie it will not lose detail I can assure you. I think some of my figures are on my PhotoBucket site - I'll check it and post the link. I made Russian and Austrian cavalry from them.

Awesome.  That is good to hear.  Supreme and Tiger haven't done the greatest job with photographs of these figures and my own image searches didn't leave me that positive of an impression.

I'm going to contact Tiger Hobbies and see if they actually will ship to Canada even though their shopping cart system doesn't seem to support it.  EDIT:  I contacted them and will now wait and see if they'll ship to Canada so I can check these out in person.

[Mike Blake]

If he wont, and knowing Gary as I do I suspect he might, I'd be happy to buy them and then ship them to you at cost if that would help.

I can also mark the package as a Gift to try to avoid import taxes!  

I have all the Romans (again they are almost straight copies of King & Country painted metal collector's figures; they just have some in-fills from the moulding process which are easily removed) and they paint very nicely.

BTW Painting over paint I always seal with a coat of button polish. That and the primer (a single colour white. black or grey) and the real paint still comes to only a few microns and doesn't obscure detail.

FWIW clicking on the photo will take you to the Photobucket album with lots more photos of the game, and also to my other albums. Lots of conversions but oddly none of the Supreme/Tiger conversions as far as I can see - perhaps I should upload some.

[nathan]

If he wont, and knowing Gary as I do I suspect he might, I'd be happy to buy them and then ship them to you at cost if that would help.

I can also mark the package as a Gift to try to avoid import taxes!  

I may have to take you up on that.  

This shows how small the CTA cavalry are - though supposedly big men on big horses, they are barely taller than the standing Prussian gunners! Such a shame.

I looked some things up (The Oxford Companion to Military History <-- don't know if it's a good source or not) and it looks like French Cuirassiers were given horses 15.3 hands and taller.  Sadly if you measure the ACTA horses and multiply by 32, they only end up at 14.6 or so hands.  They are too small for the cavalry figures on them.  And if the Cuirassiers are anything like my dragoons, they're slight and small riders as well.  My ACTA Zulu Wars guys are big compared to the riders.  When my Armies in Plastic stuff arrives, I'm sure they'll dwarf the riders.

I think I'll be fine with the size difference as I'm not really that sensitive to it, but if someone was I could totally see the ACTA cavalry being a let down.  And if we set aside personal aesthetics, they are just factually too small to be 1:32 heavy cavalry.  I'm going to build up their bases a bit to increase their height, but there's nothing I can do about the spindly riders-- oh, other than using the hot salt method to fix their arms a bit so they can rank up.  Basically you heat up salt in a shallow pan on the stove, test it on a sprue/waste plastic, heat the figure up, repose it and then plunge it in cold water.  The salt can get much hotter than the 100C of boiling water so it can reset the memory of the figure so it won't slowly bend back.  Be careful though as if you go too hot, the individual grains of salt will melt into the figure-- hence the test.


What it looks like if you go too hot (image by sennacherub via dakka)

BTW Painting over paint I always seal with a coat of button polish. That and the primer (a single colour white. black or grey) and the real paint still comes to only a few microns and doesn't obscure detail.

I like acrylic gesso for priming as it stays flexible and use polyeruthane based varnishes for the same reason.  The 1/32 figures seem stronger and less bendy than the 1/72 figures, but I'm still using the same techniques as I know staying flexible in primer, paint and varnish works well when things bend.  What do you find the button polish accomplishes?  Is it a shellac?  Does it go rigid once cured?

[Mike Blake]

The salt thing is a new one on me! Will have to give it a go. I just use boiling hot water-cold water, both to alter and re-straighten arms, legs, muskets etc. I generally replace all soft plastic swords with metal or hard plastic (eg those made by Helmet Soldiers, helmetsoldiers.co.uk, who also do heads, bodies and legs plus firearms and swords etc). My latest trick is to use plastic toothpicks, which are cheap, tough and start off almost the right shape!

Button polish is indeed shellac and is an idea I picked up from  film and TV set design - it is used in vast quantities to seal mixed surfaces where something has been made eg from plaster, wood and metal, but needs to end up looking like something else when painted eg brick. It shrinks to form a tight flexible skin in much the same way as PVA.

I too like gessos as primers! Only discovered them a couple of years ago but now use them pretty much exclusively.

[nathan]

If the hot water works and you find things don't bend back on their own over time, then I'd stick with it.  The hot salt thing is a product of vinyl figure modelling where things bend back over the next 24-48 hours if you just use hot water.  I didn't use a thermometer so it's entirely possible that my salt was really close to the 100C of boiling water and it was needless work.  It is fun though.

Thank you for letting me know about Helmet Soldiers!  It's amazing what you have around you in the UK as far as miniature wargaming and toy soldiers is concerned.

The button polish sounds perfect for flexible plastic soldiers.  I'll look into it.

[black hat miniatures]

I have just completed my first unit of HAT Bavarians:



I'm very pleased with the way they came out and the Toy Soldier style which suits them.

The next unit of Wurttemberger Jaeger's is already on the painting table:



(assistance by Gizmo the cat...)

[nathan]

Bavarians!  Is that made up of HaT's command set and the marching set?  I really like the way they split those boxes.

I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do as far as battles, nations, etc., goes.  Part of me wants to pick a historical battle and get the forces for it and part of me wants to build sort of a general French vs Allies type thing where I just do whatever I feel like.  

Here's a relatively simple question:  French line infantry in 54mm.  What's out there?  What do you like?

[Trooper]

Nathan,

Airfix did a nice box of French Line, but these are getting harder to obtain. Armies in Plastic and Call to Arms still do French Line. HaT have French Light infantry also split into various sets like the Bavarians. Check out the Plastic Soldier Review, and sites like Steve Weston's Toy soldiers. Also a search on E Bay under the heading "Other Toy Soldiers" is worthwhile. Hope this is of some help.