Thursday, October 13, 2011

Wargames Factory Imagi-nation Battalion - 28mm Plastic

Finished the first battalion of the Wargames Factory multi-part plastic infantry.  As they're rather generic WSS troops, I thought they'd make a good foundation for an Imagi-nations project where you can build some nice troops to your liking and keep the button counters at bay.  Some have criticized the figures for the fiddly assembly.  Honestly, never found that to be much of a problem when for 2/3 of your soldiers: glue on the head, glue on the sword - all done.  Now as for building the cavalry, yes there will be solid grounds for complaint from those who detest putting small part together. But that's another topic.

Aesthetically, I'm pretty happy with the sculpting.  I did what I could to mitigate the "long neck" look which has been complained about.  I converted the legs and feet to gaiters, cut off the offending portion of the goofy upside down sword hilts.  The figures still look at tad bulky (although not consistently so), which I think can mostly be put down to the thick legs and the pose of the right arm. The latter could have easily been mitigated by moving the cartridge box back around towards the rear of the figure had the sculptor chosen to do so.

Anyway, without further preamble, here is the first completed unit of le royaume de Bourgogne (aka the kingdom of Burgundy), infantry regiment Chasselas




14 comments:

  1. Excellent on all points, from the flags to the name of the regiment!

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  2. Thank you Jean-Louis and Jeff.

    Regards,
    Steve

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  3. Hi Steve,

    Lovely work as ever - is this going to be a big project?

    If so I can't wait to see the rest!

    All the best,

    DC

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  4. I specially appreciate the subtle reference to Lorraine -a neighbor of 'Real World' Bourgogne (both the 'Free County' and the 'Duchy'), also a descendant of Lotharingia, and in 'our' "Real World" independent from France until the death of Stanisław I Leszczynski in 1766.

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  5. @ David,

    Thanks ! But knowing my lack of focus, it could be a big project but one that takes a long time.

    @ Jean-Louis,

    Thank you, but I must admit any subtle references are strictly coincidental. My infantry regiments will be named for lesser known wine variatels, vin rouge for the troops in red coats or cuffs, vin blanc for the blue. Chardonnay was just a bit obvious.

    Best regards,
    Steve

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  6. Excellent job as always Steve! I'm still gathering source material for my own as I finish up my contract job. So far it looks like I'm going to use Catinat's army from Marsaglia as the pattern for my French and Irish.

    Bill

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  7. Thanks Bill, and good to hear from you. I look forward to seeing what you do with Catinat's Marsaglia army. The floppy hat troops will look good, what do you have in mind for the pikemen ?

    Regards,
    Steve

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  8. That's one of the things I'm still "chasing down" Steve. All of the sources that I've found so far indicate that the Irish at least had no pikes. In fact, they are credited with the first "official" bayonet charge to save the day. In Catinat's journal they are mentioned as having charged with bayonet, clubbed musket and sword with such ferocity that they cleared the field before them.

    I have seen other references to the Army of Italy not having pikes, but nothing firm on any regiment except the Irish. I'm going to be using "Beneath the Lily Banners", so it's easy to add some pikemen to the center stand if I wish. Just haven't decided yet.

    Bill

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  9. Steve, Nicely done - just came across this via your TMP post on the Cavalry Figures - well done. I've linked to you from a post on my blog musing over my pending start on assembling the WF figs...

    Are your Imagi-Nation chaps set more LoA era rather than true WSS?

    Cheers,
    John
    Wargaming.info

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  10. Thanks, John. I appreciate the positive feedback and blog mention.

    LoA = League of Augsburg ? No, not really. No pikes, no floppy hats. They'd work for anything from 1700 - War of the Polish Succession though.

    Regards,
    Steve

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  11. Cheers Steve - are you working on any more WF chaps at present - I'm about to start on (assembling the first of) mine next few days...?

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  12. John,

    No, and thank goodness I didn't go off the deep end buying dozens of boxes. It's kind of like my wife congratulating herself about getting in on a killer Sale: if you don't really need it, it's no bargain. ;-)

    Once I'd completed the infantry battalion and tested the cavalry assembly, I had to ask myself: Did I have sufficient motivation and rationale to carry on with the project ? And, I already have a backlog of unpainted WSS era flats and PA 40mm casting molds.

    While the concept of Imagi-nations has become increasingly alluring to me, after giving it a lot of thought, I'd rather take it in a fresh direction than board the already crowded bandwagon to the 18th Century.

    Anyway, I certainly wish you the best and look forward to seeing what you do with yours, both at TMP and on your blog.

    Best regards,
    Steve

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  13. No, and thank goodness I didn't go off the deep end buying dozens of boxes. It's kind of like my wife congratulating herself about getting in on a killer Sale: if you don't really need it, it's no bargain. ;-)

    :) Hehehe... Indeed. I must confess I got in on the $9.95 sale earlier in the year (May) to get 12 boxes of Infantry - so even with (exorbitant US$75) postage to NZ I got 432 Foot for US$193.80 - i.e. US$0.45 per fig.

    With the release of the Cavalry I'm afraid I couldn't resist getting 3 more boxes of Infantry along with 7 Cavalry (to get the 10% & 15% discounts) so I now have 540 Foot (23 units of 24) and 84 Cavalry (11 units of 8)! I know you will be bob-smacked but in my defence I am planning no other 18th Century periods and I want to build a representative fairly historical army for each side of the WSS with some variety of units (e.g. Brits with a couple of Dutch, couple of German/Austrian/Savoy, and perhaps a Danish unit, and French with 2-3 Bavarian units). And its gonna be my main project for the next 2 years as my 1815 Nappies are reaching conclusion... :o

    While the concept of Imagi-nations has become increasingly alluring to me, after giving it a lot of thought, I'd rather take it in a fresh direction than board the already crowded bandwagon to the 18th Century.

    Yes I must confess the "Imagi-Nation" thing has never really excited me - units need to be vaguely historical in some form to excite me! However I do enjoy a bit of what-if campaigns and quasi-Imagi-Nation stuff with historical armies and nations... :)

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