Recast Minifig S range Cantiniere

John sent me some of these fine ladies.  She is supposed to be an ACW Cantiniere but as John says, she would work equally well for the Crimean or Franco Prussian Wars.

This paint job is based on a painting for the Franco Prussian War.  The Cantiniere's seem to have mirrored the uniform of the units and there are pictures of them wearing Shako's and Hussar busby's.  It would be fun to have some variants in both style and uniform.

The head is very small so a head swap from most of the French Infantry wouldn't work but I tried the head from the ACW marine who is wearing a shako, which is quite small.  Again the 'head twist' method demonstrated in an earlier blog was used to remove the heads.

Here he/she is.  Sort of works but need more hair otherwise he/she might look like an early Corporal Klinger!

54mm Reds and Whites battle it out

Following on from my post about White Coated Russians and the Turks, I left out the 1904 white coated Russians and got out my 'other Russians' see my post of 11th February.

Bob and I set about fighting a small battle to control a village somewhere in Russia.

The Whites had 50 infantry, 16 cavalry, a gun, a Rolls Royce armoured car and a heavy machine gun.  The Reds had 80 infantry, 2 Renault machine gun armoured tanks a gun and 8 cavalry.

Reds line up to take my village

My troops take up position

Ivan and his armoured car and a squad of infantry wait in a nearby forest.

My gun covers the road supported by 3 squadrons of cavalry

Bob's Russian infantry move forward

2 squads of red infantry sprint down the road

All these figures are ARTS and I particularly like these riflemen

The 'Reds' cavalry  actually they are Metropolitan police which I converted and painted many years ago.

The Red Guard advance on the left flank.

Red Cavalry move forward.

My men wait in ambush for the advancing Red Infantry

 Ivan's armoured car grinds to a halt as the tyres are shot out!  Ivan fights on as bullets whistle around.

 My gunners find their target!.......and miss!!!!!

 My brave lads face the advance of the Reds tank.

 Still Ivan dodges enemy bullets.. well Bob's dice are poor but it amounts to the same thing!

 The Red Guards pour forward.

A brave Red Guard Officer peeks around his troops.

The Reds gunners take aim.

 One unit of Red infantry break and run.

 My hidden heavy machine gun opens up and destroys the advancing Red cavalry.

 Ivan eventually falls!

With my armoured car silenced the Red Guard advance more boldly.

 My troops eventually retire having caused some damage.

A welcome return by Kitten Force.  Kingston who is half of Kitten Force and as laid back as the island capital he is named after walked across the table, inspected the 'Butcher's Bill' and was singularly unimpressed by the tactics and the rules!  

To be honest it wasn't the best game. I shouldn't have given the Reds two tanks, they were in the box and I wanted to just get them out having discovered them again.  The figures promised so much and looked good but we tried a set of free rules which I had adapted before discovering the Warhammer Great War rules rules on my shelf which might have been a better option, but you only earn by experience. So these 54mm figures have gone back in their boxes for another time. 

Head Swops for S range Prussians

I have in a couple of blogs said that I swap the heads on my Recast Minifigs S range figures to give more variety.  It is fairly simple with the right tools and reasonably quick.  So I thought I would try to show it in pictures.

Stage 1 - hold the head in a pair of pliers and twist them whilst holding the figure

Stage 2 - the head then comes off with a clean break.

Stage 3 - use a pin to help locate the point for your drill.

Stage 4 - drill a hole in the body.

Stage 5 - superglue a piece of brass wire (or paper clip) in position.
I tend to use a much longer piece of wire and cut it down as it easier to locate and glue. 

Prussian Officer ready for a new head and Saxon Officer - head donor - ready for his conversion.

Stage 6 - using the pin locate the drill point on the new head and then drill a hole.  Cut down the wire and test whether there is a good fit between the new head and body.  If not, drill some more or cut some more wire away and superglue the head on the pin.

Original Prussian Officer, new Prussian Officer and original Saxon Officer,

Only to be based to be the finished product.