An Introduction, A Farewell and a New Range of Jacklex

AN INTRODUCTION, A FAREWELL AND A NEW RANGE OF JACKLEX

I hope you will forgive me for introducing myself along with a bit of a plug for Jacklex Miniatures. My name is Mark Lodge and I am the owner of Jacklex which I took on from Peter Johnstone of Spencer Smith Miniatures in October last year. I have been wargaming, painting, modelling, battlefield touring and military history 'buffing' since the Middle Ages. Very fortunately I have a group of long-time friends, including the talented Andy Callan and Ash Toms who have helped to make the experience hugely fun. 

Taking on a business has been a bit of an eye opener for a retired infanteer, but I am delighted to say that I have come newly into contact with a large group of fantastically supportive and loyal customers which has made the experience of my first year with Jacklex a real pleasure.

What has also been a pleasure and privilege is to have met Jack Alexander at his home, surrounded by all his ships, buildings, figures and moulds. Jack, Bob Black and the late Alan Cook, of 'ABC Wargamers' have been tremendously kind to me in getting many of the old figures back into production. In particular I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words about Alan Cook.

I did not know Alan for very long but he made a huge impact on me in a short time and acted as a mentor to me in setting up the business. I found him to be a generous, positive, selfless gentleman with a very strong sense of humour and a great passion for all things Jacklex. I will miss him greatly and I wish Rosemary, his family and friends well at this very difficult time. I would like to share the photo below of my first ever meeting with Alan at Jack Alexander's house where Alan, Bob and Jack inducted me into the amazing world of Jacklex.    

The 'ABC Wargamers', Alan Cook, Jack Alexander and Bob Black

I now get to the point of this post. Alan had run the 'All Things Jacklex' blog since 2015. Back in May this year he asked me to take it on and I promised him that I would. So, this is my first ever post and I hope to add to it over the coming weeks. I trust my efforts will live up to Alan's meticulous eye and very high standards, I am sure he would approve.   

FRENCH INTERVENTION IN MEXICO 1861-1867: A NEW JACKLEX RANGE

Jacklex Miniatures is about to launch a new set of 20mm metal figures based on the French Intervention in Mexico, or as more often called the 'Mexican Adventure' The new range will be available from www.jacklexminiatures.com from 16 September.

The range is the first new range to go on sale since Jack Alexander's US Punitive Expedition to Mexico figures were made some years ago. The new figures were skilfully sculpted by Aidan Campbell and painted rather badly by me as you will see from the images. 

There are approximately 35 new foot and mounted figures as well as a gun crew, field gun, limber and team. I will let the figures speak for themselves. I hope you like the look of them. Whilst they are not exact reproductions of the existing Jacklex figures I have tried to keep the essence of Jack's lovely old school style.   

   The French and Allied Army range

FA 11 Cavalry trooper mounted

FA3 Infantry advancing with separate backpack

FA7 Zouave advancing

The Mexican Republican and Imperial Armies range

FM1 Regular officer firing

FM9 Militia advancing

FM6 Light Infantry running with separate rifle

FM13 Cavalry trooper mounted

FM2 Regular Infantry standing firing

Artillery and equipment, gun team and crew

The latter two illustrations are from the brush of Michel Provost, Belgian historian, author, painter and illustrator. His French-language novel ‘Tacámbaro’ chronicles the adventures of grenadier drummer Remi Tambour as part of the Belgian Legion in Mexico. Mr Provost has kindly given permission for the use of some of his illustrations here. 

His very characterful illustrations provided some of the inspiration for the new range of Jacklex figures. Visit Michel’s interesting and informative blog at http://provostmichel.blogspot.com.

Finally, before I started planning for the French Intervention range I knew very little of the military campaigning in Mexico in the 1860s. I now know a little more than I did and what has interested me most is that the war was going on concurrently with the American Civil War. Indeed, at the end of the this war the US was instrumental in the outcome. One of the small engagements that caught my eye was the Battle of Tacámbaro, partly because Michel Provost writes in so much detail about the Belgian Legion in his blog. On 3 April 1865, 250-300 men of the Legion occupied Tacámbaro. On 11 April, General Regules attacked the Belgians with between 3,000 and 3,500 Republican soldiers. Surrounded from all sides, the Belgians held out in a desperate fight for five hours, hoping for reinforcements which arrived four days too late. They were finally forced to surrender. This is one of a number of small scale battles that could be used as the basis for a wargame or campaign. To assist the wargamer, I have placed free to download painting guides and organisation sheet on the www.Jacklexminiatures.com  site. I hope to add a new set of rules by Andy Callan soon.     

Belgian Legion soldier and cantiniere 

Men of the Belgian Legion by Michel Provost

Please do contact me at info@jacklexminiatures.com if you have any comments or questions, I would be delighted to hear from you. 

Mark  

A trip down memory lane - The Harrow Model Model Shop

In the day in London there was Under Two Flags in St Christopher's Place; the Miniatures Wargame Shop in Gillingham Street, Tradition in Piccadilly; Hinton Hunt in Camden Passage and the Harrow Model Shop in Harrow, North  London.  Unlike the others, it never specialised in just figures but it was the only shop to sell Jacklex figures.

In my last blog I am appealed for any pictures of the the dioramas which used to in be shop windows and the displays cabinets in inside the shop.  Some canny customers bought the displays when the shop finally and some have survived.  

I want to take those who have got in touch and will hopefully provoke a memory, particularly John Cunningham and Roy Boss.

Most if not all the dioramas  were painted are Stuart Asquith who worked in the shop at the weekends!

If you have any more pictures you can send than via Mark Lodge at jacklexminiatures.com

I have to apologise my cancer has come back with avengeance and had an my ICU with bleeds on the brain so spelling and some English isn't what it should it.  I have some great pictures of the work wargamers have been doing with Jack's figures and I will posted them soon.  Managed to get over to see Jack before falling prey to the brain seizures and he was very pleased and humbled to see the all the work people had done.  Thank you from two old wargamers!

Jacklex Indian Gunners 'rediscovered'

As you know I have converted some Indian gunners for Jack's Madhists forces.  These were essentially the Jacklex Indian Mountain Gun crew.  When I did the conversions for the Sudanese Standard bearer I went back to some pictures I had taken of Jack's Colonial army that Bob had laid out on his table to have a look at the Sudanese figures.  By chance Bob had set up an Indian Gun crew next to them and these were standing around a field gun.  

The more I looked at the pictures I had taken and others I had taken a couple of years ago I couldn't find the Indian Mountain Gun crew in Jack's collection.  I then went to the jacklexminiatures.com website and discovered that Mark Lodge didn't have the set of 'standing'  Indian Gunners that Jack had in his army.  Really odd! 

I contacted Mark and sent him the set of figures which after cleaning turned out to be a set of 4 conversions that Jack had made.  The heads don't match any of the other figures in the Indian army range so they are not simple head swaps. These conversions must have been made over 40 years ago and have never been part of the Jacklex range till now.

I pleased to say that Mark has now recast them and they are available from jacklexminiatures.com

I like the addition of the 'tassle?' from the centre of the turban.  It gives them a certain flair.

It makes you wonder are there any other missing Jacklex figures out there?  Do you have anything, if so please get in touch.  We are also looking for the list of Jacklex figures which was produced by the Harrow Model Shop in the 1980s.  Finally, any pictures of the dioramas which were in the model shop and that were sold when the shop closed.

Japanese Command group

Having made a mounted officer for the Egyptian infantry by simply putting the Cavalry Officer on a stationary horse and filing away his pistol, I thought that some of Jack's other armies could benefit from similar command figures.  

I had already made a little command group for the 1904 Russians - but with 'moving horses', I decided that the Japanese ought to have a command base as well.  Since Jack made a cavalry standard bearer for the Japanese, I thought it would be nice to combine an officer and standard bearer. I asked Mark Lodge of jacklexminiatures.com for the two cavalry figures on standing horses, rather than the galloping horse the figures are normally provided with and I am pleased with the results.

 These are on a temporary base, I think they will look better on a round base with a bit more space between the figures. Which is exactly what Bob did with them what an improvement.

Jacklex Egyptian gunners conversions

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I have had a go at making a white coated artillery unit for Jack's colonial army Egyptian force.  I am also making and infantry unit in white these to follow, along with standard bearers.  

In theory, this is relatively simple since it is just a matter of a head swap.   I used the Sudanese/Egyptian advancing figure for the head on the Indian gunner body because I had a set (i think they would look better on the British gun crew designed for the field gun, but I used what I had).  I decided to cut away the havelock which the figure is wearing whilst it was on the original figure, this was fairly simple.

Once I did this life became that much more difficult once I removed the head, as I drill into the head and body and attach them with wire and superglue.  The area of 'neck/head' I had to drill into and hold was very small.  Managed to drill my figure as the drill bit slid then it seem to take forever.  Eventually, I got there but not without doubting my own sanity for trying this in the first place. Probably the secret is a soldering iron or even some green stuff to join the head and body!!

Anyway, they work or pass the distance test.  I have to make an officer.  I am going to use the Naval Officer from the Gatling gun team as he isn't looking though binoculars.  Found it almost impossible to get a head of one of the standard Gunnery officer.  Ruined two figures trying it as the arms broke away.

The Naval Officer is less animated than the infantry officer with pistol.  This time I left the havelock on this gave me much bigger (but still small) area to hold and drill into once I removed the head.  THIS WAS MUCH SIMPLER - why did I cut the havelocks off first I ask myself.  Once in place and the glue had dried, cutting the havelock away was just as easy.  Sometimes stupid doesn't cover it!

The Naval Officer conversion.

I thought the uniform a little too white so I did a little bit of lining using brown ink. 

New Jacklex Miniatures Russian 1904 machine gun and crew

In a recent post on the new Jacklex Miniatures range due to be launched in the next few days, I mentioned that Mark Lodge had added a 1904 Russian Machine gun to the Jacklex range as part of a plan over time to fill in some of the gaps in the original range.  Although he kindly sent me a model, problems with the cataract in my left eye prevented me from painting it.

On his way back to Yorkshire, Mark called in on me yesterday and saw Bob and I and a very enjoyable time was had but, more importantly, he brought me a surprise painted Russian machine gun crew and crucially some Japanese reinforcements.

This set has been superbly painted and is a great addition to the range.  Jack himself was really impressed when I showed it to him.

  

  
The price of the set if to be confirmed.

20mm Jacklex Russian, Pathans, Indians and British the game that never was

It has been a long time since my last post.  I have been busy on our other site www.abcwargamers.blogspot.co.uk.  I set up a game for Jack Bob and myself using Jack's 20mm Russian, British and Indians and my Pathans.  All the figures  with the exception of a couple of my Pathans are Jacklex 20mm.

Interestingly, although Jack made the Pathan range he never painted any, choosing instead to use them in his Madhist army.

Having put all the figures out for a game fighting across the table, I decided at the last minute to change this and fight along the length of the table.  The report of that game is on our sister site, www.abcwargamers.blogspot.co.uk.  However, I took a lot of pictures of the table and the figures before changing it, so I thought I would post them here is anyone is interested.  Some pictures will seem similar to the game as I kept the basic scenario the same.

One interesting development is I think Bob and I persuaded Jack to make standard bearers for the Russians.  We shall wait and see.