Pass In Review: #5 Day of Battle 3d Printed 40mm Sir William Wallace conversion.

The final review in this series of reviews of 3d printed figures is: 

Medieval Sir William Wallace 28/40mm
see Day of Battle Medieval Scottish Range On Line Catalogue (click)

Since I tend to do a lot of conversions, I decided that I would see how easy or hard it is to work with resin figures. The figure comes dressed and equipped as a 13th/14thC knight. Being a Character and Hero, he is helmetless which was good for my purpose, which was to turn him into a Captain of Light Horse for my 16thC Scots.   

Sir Wee Wullie Lennox charging into battle.

The 16thC was a time of transition and it seems that a mix of old and modern weapons and equipment was not unusual, something that made this conversion practical and easy. The surcoat is definitely dated for the 16thC but wearing kneelength  coats was in fashion, sometimes opening down the front. If the figure was less dramatically posed I would have tried to capture that look but decided to just sand, scrape and cut the chainmail from his leggings and hauberk. I had intended to use putty to shape the boots but found myself able to do it by carving and sanding.  

The figure comes with a separate "heater" shield which luckily I could set aside with no work at all. I was going to let him go shieldless, but there was a strap for the shield, nicely sculpted on and unable to be removed without messing with the chainmail it touched. Since many 16thV Scots and English light horse still carried round bucklers, I just dug one out from the spares. I think this one might have once been a 25mm Dark Age shield, but its a 16thC buckler now.  Wallace's resin shield took its place in the spare shields box because... well, you never know when you might want one.

Before conversion.
(btw The Scots lancers in the background are amongst the 1st figures I cast from a mould that I made, roughly 20 years ago. The master was a heavily converted Meisterzinn napoleonic figure but the head was one of the first original heads that I sculpted.)

In the process of preparing the figure, I managed to drop the poor guy and his faithful horse. Naturally, the horse's tail hit the floor first. OUCH! (I've always been a bit of a clutz but its seems that the faster my eyes fade, the shakier and less firm my grip is on brush or knife. )  It took me minute or so to find the tail then several seconds to drill a hole in the tail and in the part of the horse that it connects to. A piece of wire and some superglue, and all was as right as rain in a minute. 

Resin is definitely easier to drill and shave than most metals and adheres to glue well, doubtless the light weight helping. In fact it was alot like working with the hard plastic Elastolins and the few newer hardplastic figures that I've worked with, but easier and less fragile. 

Look at that horse! Like a bronze statue. The rearing metal horses I have seem to have a tendency to droop over the decades as opposed to the Elastolin plastic ones who have been rearing proudly since I was knee high to.......

Overall, I was impressed by this figure, the details (before I tampered) all looked correct to me and the sculpting of the dramatic pose was excellent. He looked good before painting but even better afterwards, (despite the wobbles) So, there he is!   5 stars! *****

So now my Scottish cavalry has a second commander and can form two troops of 3 stands, each with a leader. I sense there's another English incursion coming but there should be time to add some more pikemen before the armies clash on my the table sometime this month!

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Pass In Review: #4 Day of Battle 3d Prlnted 40mm "Wild Men".

This one is an interesting figure. I can't help but think he started life as a fantasy figure but he is listed in the Medieval Scottish list and I could certainly see him coming out to fight for Wallace. 

 MEDIEVAL – Woodsmen 28/40mm
Day of Battle Medieval Scottish Range On Line Catalogue (click)
(This is the 40mm version.)

Uhhh, he's comin' this way, I think I'll be going now....

Overall, I like this figure, he has lots of energy and the movement looks real to me, like he was about to really lay one on. I'm not sure about the details of clothing but they'll pass in my polyglot collection. The sculpting was largely just right for my tastes and made the figure very easy to paint quickly.  

He looks a bit blurry going past, must be moving fast.....

Sizewise, he is a little on the tall, hefty, size. The active pose makes it hard to judge his height but similar to other Day of BAttle 3d figures and Sash & Sabre but with the bulk of Trigard with a head size like some Meisterzinn homecast figures. That leads to my only criticism, if you look at the next picture, his bare head is noticeably larger that the spearman's helmeted head. Now I've met people who have towered a foot above me and people whose hats would slide right over my eyes but I've never seen one whose head is anywhere near that big! Still, once painted up and on the table, I suspect it wouldn't be noticed once the game begins.

A Wildman behind a Scots spearman. Compare the size of the wildman's
 head to the spearman's helmet.  

As it happens, his clothing is not going to fit well with my 16thC Scots anyway, so I have earmarked hin as a special character for my Prince Valiant Elastolin collection. There, the figures are so much smaller and thinner that he will look like a near giant, a Hagrad sort of character if you like.  Just the sort of character to add something new to next Prince Micheal story/game. 

One last look.

****+1/2* (4.5) is my rating due to the exessively large head. 

There are supposed to be a few welcome rainy days coming, so there may well be a battle to report on before the next sample figure gets painted.

Pass In Review #3: Day of Battle 3d Printed Indian Warrior

 At last, a day off!  Seemed like a good morning to paint up another sample 40mm 3d printed resin figure from Chris Parker's Day of Battle web store. 

The figure came with seperate arms and a choice of 2 heads. Again its a close match in size and  bulk with Sash & Sabre 40's and thus compatible with a number of 40mm companies' figures. 

The arms had a sort of ball joint so it was possible to insert them into the socket in the shoulder and rotate them into various positions. A rather innovative design I thought. 

The figure comes without a base, as usual, so I glued him onto my standard single figure washer base.

Its been about a decade, (maybe more) since I painted any F&IW Indian warriors so I did a little bit of digging in my books and on the net and proceeded from there. My S&S F&IW Indian warriors moved on a number of years ago, but he fits well enough with my Prince August Skraelings to join them when and if required on the table.

It was "one of those" days, all thumbs and "oops" etc  and I just couldn't seem to be able to mix my usual Indian skin colour today but it'll have to do. I could have added more colour to the figure, perhaps a red loin cloth rather than leather, more warpaint, etc but I figured subdued is appropiate for sculking in cover.

Given the quality, I'd recommend them based on that, but when you consider the price as well I would definitely buy more, (and some canoes!) if I were to return to Last of the Mohicans inspired wargaming.
Note:   It seems I relied on memories of how expensive 40mm miniatures seemed 15 years ago when I was buying tem, I failed to check current prices and the difference bewteen metal and 3d printed seems to be minimal.

***** 5 Stars on this range.

Coming soon(ish): some sample medieval Scots being  quietly mugged and forced to serve in the 16thC (because I'm not replacing my antique 25mm Scots), and a big, burley, wild looking, guy with a huge axe. (!?)

Coming before that: A wargame!  What sort? Well, we'll see!

Pass In Review: #2 Day of Battle 3d Printed French & Indian War (**updated)

At last, the three sample F&IW figures are done. 

A Sergeant and private of the 47th Foot confront a  private of the Compagnies franches de la marine.
I suspect that grey or brown gaitors would have been more accurate but I like the look of the black and some regiments did wear them.)  
. 

I had a hard time deciding on a rating for these ones but balancing what I liked with what I didn't, I ended up rating them 4/5.

First the Pro's: The figures are a good match in size and style to various popular 40mm ranges. The bodies and heads look too thick to me but so do 90% of other ranges and many gamers prefer it so I'll accept it. The resin takes paint well, is easy to trim or modify and seems to hold well with super glues. Having some separate parts, heads, some arms and weapons etc., helps those who like to customize figures.  

Perhaps near Fort Beausejour, or Louisburg, or Quebec...

Now the negative, while the French soldier in summer, woods fighting kit looks fairly accurate to someone like me isn't a reenactor aware of every detail, the British have some questionable detail which will bother some of us. In particular, the lace on these figures,  which is over scale is problematic. (If the figure was blown up to real size, the lace would be an inch thick or more! I didn't mark them down for that since it is a trend across manufacturers and is welcomed by many people as a painting aid though I see it as a hindrance!) .  The big issue for me is that the cuffs and lace patterns on the British were wrong. They resembled 1770's uniforms rather than the 1750's.  The larger cuffs should have a big vee with lace running up the yard. I see that the pictures of the boat crews in the catalogue show something a lot closer to the proper lace and cuffs, although some of the lace is even thicker. At least the resin makes it easy to scrape or sand it into something more realistic. (Mind you, it should be done before painting, he said ruefully...)  The sergeant's halbard was also problematic but it was easy to trim it to make it look like some sort of halbard. I couldn't find any historical reference to the gloves on the sergeant but didn't think it worth worrying about.  

** Note: When I was writing the post near midnight last night, it slipped my mind that I had looked at the pompoms on the hat and the cufflace and sergeant's gloves etc and then looked at the Day of Battle website to see if they had a SYW Prussian range. They do and these two figures in red were there, however, they were easy to convert so it was all worth the effort. 

Its been such a busy week and a tired one, tht they didn't get my best effort and techniques but they still came out as 'acceptable' to me.

So, will I buy any of these for myself? Yes, especially the boat crews and some indians and.........

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Pass In Review: #1 Day of Battle 3d Early Medieval Miniatures.

 Its been a few years since I've been asked to publicly review a book or a range of miniatures so it was an unexpected pleasure when Chris Parker from Day of Battle Games asked if I would review some of their new 3d printed figures. It was even more of a pleasure because while I rarely buy figures these days, I had been very impressed by pictures of the minis on Facebook and had wondered if they were as good in person and just what size of 40mm they were. 

Here is the first of two reviews. 

1066 Range
(ie Saxon, Normans & Vikings)

(Available in 25mm and 40mm)

Day of Battle 1066 Range On Line Catalogue (click)

40mm 1066 Saxon, Norman and Viking 3d printed in resin, quickly painted by me.
(Look at the detail on the armour!!)

I had three main questions in mind as I awaited delivery of the samples: Will they look as good as the pictures?  What size of 40mm are they? Will my cheap craft acrylics work on them? The first answer was "Yes!". The second is below, and the 3rd was that my cheap paints worked even better on the resin than they are on metal or the soft and hard plastics used on most plastic miniatures.  

LtoR: 40mm figures: S&S, DoB, Irregular ECW, PA homecast, DoB, Triguard Scots spearman, DofB, PA homecast archer, Elastolin vikings.

In terms of height and bulk, The Sash & Sabre are the best fit (I don't have a sample of their Dark Age range but they tend to be fairly consistent.) though a few of the larger Elastolins are a pretty good fit. The Triguard is not impossable but he would be close to a 7 ft in real life so I'd prefer not to mix them on the table.  The rest of the figures are close enough to go together on my table, which is lucky because that's what I have available without further expeditures and what I wanted to mix some of these resin figures with in the first place!  

As for the figures themselves, I was blown away by the detail, the anatomy and proprtions and the natural poses. All three of these facets were better than many of the 40mm metal figures that I've painted and equal to the best that I have painted. They do not come with bases but since all my Elastolin plastics are glued to metal washers, I just super glued these figures to washers before painting and they held just fine.   

These particular figures were one piece except for the shields. The figures come with a shield but you can order packs of kite, large round or small round shields. They don't come with bases but that doesn't bother me, I was going to mount them onto metal washers anyway so as to match my Elastolins. I gave them a scrub with dishsoap, well rinsed, superglued them to washers, then just primed with some burnt sienna craft acrylic, and carried on from there. I'm probably varnish them so they fit in with my Elastolins and homecast PA Vikings but I haven'tdone it yet.

If only my eyes were as sharp and my hands were as steady as they were 20 years ago! 

In my books: *****  (5 stars) Fully recommended. 

I didn't find any disappointments or issues with these, they were easy to paint with very crisp detail, and I like the look of them. Here's a link to the website if you want to see what figures are available.:For a look at whats available, here's a link: https://www.chrisparkergames.com/product-category/miniatures/medieval/1066/

Next up: 40mm F&IW