Perry Miniatures conversions - Part 2 Dismounted Cavalry

As in part 1 of this series I am using the basic infantryman taking a cartridge from his pouch as well as the loading and firing poses to make dismounted cavalry.  I know you can buy these and I have but these were 'left over' figures.

The first step in converting the 'firing and loading' figures is to convert their muskets into carbines. Take the arms which have muskets which are used for the standing firing figures lay a carbine alongside to get the right size for a carbine and simply cut it down to size.  A paint job does the rest.
  

To make the impression of boots, simply cut a line around the trouser at the height you want the boots to be and then just shave away a little of the trouser plastic to give the impression that they are tucked into the boots. 

You will need to cut of the belts and cartridge boxes from the infantry man.  However given the type of plastic used and a little practice you will find it easy to cut these away.  Slice away the cartridge box in thin slices.  If you try to cut it in one go you will just break the scalpel blades.

This figures was used for the following conversions

Although these figures are shown as Union, the same conversion wotks for the Confederates.  You can leave out the swords which makes for an even easier conversion.

You can see that in some of the figures I haven't bothered to 'cut the boot line'.  I noticed that in the actual Perry cavalry figure, some have trousers and shoes.  Pistols are simply the cavarly pistol arm stuck on in place ot the original arm.

Converted figures mixed with Perry's metal dismounted cavalry 

Union Cavalry Division

In the next part I will look at how to give a Perry figure some hair!

A blast from the past

Looking though the bookcase and I came across a copy of Battle for Wargamers Magazine from August 1978. 

Those were the days when the magazines were happy to publish privately taken pictures.  These were taken during an English Civil War game.

The pictures were taken by my very good friend Chensie Chen for a series of articles written by another friend Stuart Asquith for his series on the English Civil War which was published in Battle in 1978.

My large Royalist and Parliamentarian armies eventually went to another wargaming legend the late Terry Wise.  I wonder whatever happened to them?

Pictures from Battle Magazine September 1978

It is hard to credit that it was over 35 years ago.

Invasion

Invasion of the ginger beast!

No wargames today!

The Jacklex fleet

For those of you who know the name 'Jacklex' from the range of 20mm colonial and ACW figures, you might like to know that Jack Alexander, the creator of the Jacklex range is still going strong.  He is into building 54mm scale ships at the moment, having finished a represenation of the HMS Warrior complete with 54mm crew and an impressive Chinese Junk he is now building HMS Cressy a 4 funnel cruiser sunk in WW1.

Before he did all this Bob and I persuaded him to make some 20mm models.  These represent the Dapper Class gunboats launched at the time of the Crimean War and still in use towards the end of the 19th century.  He also made a number of Chinese Junks.  We are preparing for a game where the Gunboats are to make an attack up river to take out a Chinese fort protected by a number of armed Junks.  More on that in a later battle report.

3 Dapper Class gunboats ready for action

2 mortars ready for bombardment

 Jacklex 20mm sailors

Jacklex sailors ready for action

Minifigs S Range - Crimean War range

I have often come across mention on The Miniatures Page (TMP) referring to the Minifig S Range but not too often do you see any pictures.  The Lone S Ranger is an excellent blog to get details of the range and some pictures of units but not too many games using the figures.  So I thought I would take some pictures of my Crimean War units - a combination of original and recast figures - and follow it with a battle using all the figures.

Russians

British/French and Turks

Turks and Poles

One of the periods we  regularly game in is the 17^th century and our Turks frequently challenge a classic Polish army. These pictures show a small Turkish raiding force attempting to overwhelm the small Polish garrison of a frontier town.

In the background is the green roofed Russian Church which Jack Alexander scratch built from a single picture given to him. The church shouldn’t be on the table as the Poles are Catholic and the Church represents orthodoxy. However it does give a Central/Eastern European feel to the table.

 One artillery piece guards the open approach whilst a unit of Militia stands at the gate in front of the bridge. Polish flags flutter from the balcony and the Militia are encourages by a lovely young Polish lady. To encourage the Turks there are market stalls and traders to loot.

 All figures are 25mm/28mm from a range of makers, the civilians come from a variety of ranges including medieval and fantasy. The table itself is 6 x 2x2ft German made plastic terrain boards. The market stalls are paper models and are available from Wargames Vault as is the Eastern Gate defended by the militia.

Mystery Figures

My wife bought these figures in our local market a couple of years ago.

I have looked aroudn to try to find out who made them by with no success.  I wonder if anyone knows who made them.  This is the original paint job.  The figures are 40mm.

Any help would be appreciated, although I am not sure what to do with them.

A First Post

This is the first foray of the ABC Wargamers into the world of blogging.  The ABC Wargamers are Jack Alexander, Bob Black and Alan Cook. 

Jack Alexander is one of the early miniature figure makers and produced the 20mm Jacklex Range and later 54mm figures.  Bob Black is a former editor of Toy Soldier magazine and a much published writer specialising in medieval and renaissance Eastern Europe.  Me, I’m the one who thought this might be a good idea and have decided to publish our ideas, games and models on line.

Some of what we will be publishing you may have seen before and hopefully some will be new to you.  We wargame for fun and between us we have had and wargamed with every range from 2mm to 54mm.  As age had dimmed our eyesight, we have discarded the smaller scales leaving us with 15mm, 20mm, 25mm and 54mm armies ranging from ancients to medieval to the Colonial period.  As this blog progresses, we will be posting photos of figures and wargames using both modern makers and figures from ranges of long ago.

But where to start?  In the absence of articles from A and B, I, C have decided to take the plunge.