Miniature Figurines S Range FN 42s French Sapeur

Over the last couple of months two or three of the grognard vintage Napoleonics painting bloggers have been posting about unidentified French Napoleonic Sapper figures.

Very recently I acquired four of these veterans - true to form on had sloped off somewhere and gone temporarily AWOL.

Anyway, for identification or elimination purposes, I thought I would post this photo. I've also posted it on my Lone S Ranger blog for the specialist, but thought it was also worth posting here on Vintage Wargaming for those of more general interests.

UPDATE: I am glad to report their comrade has returned to the colours.

Minifigs S Range AWI 3s and 4s Massacheusetts Light Company

What collecting I hve been doing recently has focused on Minifigs S Range. Good honest figures i like nore and more each tinme I see them - and a tragedy that they should have been dropped for the misshapen chunky dwarves we now know as Minifigs and to which I attribute the blame for all the exaggeratedly big headed and handed miniatures of today....

Most of this collecting has been centred on the AWI, SYW and Hundred Years War ranges.

This has enabled me to fill in many of the gaps in pictures on the figures of these ranges on my Lone S Ranger blog. The latest are these rather distinctive AWI Massacheusetts Light Company figures.

If this piques your interest, have a look over at the Lone S Ranger blog. If anyone has examples or photos of any of the figures for which I do not have pictures, I would be particularly glad to hear from you.

I have also been busy painting around 200 medieval figures from the variios Hundred Years War (HYW, Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt) ranges. At some point I may put up some unit pictuires.

S Range Crimean war Armies

As always, click on photos to enlarge.

I have been working on completing (hah!) my S Range Crimean war armies. I don't offer these as example of painting (mine is very basic and based on as neat block painting as I can achieve) or particularly wonderful figures (though I think they are charming). I do think they look good en masse and I'm quite pleased with the overall effect.The Crimean Range was among the later figures produced under the S Range banner and also is of interest for coming out at the time Minifigs were moving from one piece cavalry to separate riders and horses; certainly some of the Crimean Types came out in both formats, so marking this transition.

I still need to add flags - I have some rather nice Adolfo Ramos ones but they are ever so slightly too large for the S Range standard bearers, so I need to extend some flag poles; also they do not cover all the units I need to cover. My Turks are waiting for a couple of suitable artillery pieces (the British have four Hinchliffe guns I had to had; there are plenty of Russian artillerymen but so far they only have French Napoleonic cannon. The French contingent is future project. Franco Prussian War and Jacobite Rebellion will be my next S Range projects.I do have other Crimean figures, mainly from Douglas and Hinton Hunt, but I would be reluctant to use them together.

When I started out I decided to mount figures individually on MDF bases, 20 mm x 20 mm for foot and 20mm x 40 mm for mounted figures. I have now added a stock of suitably sized close order trays from War Bases to accommodate my units. I am rather pleased with the results.

I'm intending to post these and maybe a few more pictures with fuller captions over on the Lone S Ranger blog.

15mm Ancients Strip Figures Yahoo Group

While I haven't been posting much at all here recently, you may have noticed that 15mm and Ancients are two things which do not feature here much. I'm therefore pleased to pass on details of a new Yahoo group started by Karl called Strip_Minifigs_Ancients.

It describes itself:

This is a group dedicated to collecting, painting, playing with and preserving the memory of the earliest 15mm Ancient Wargame Figures.

The focus is on figures originally produced before 1980, most commonly represented by the "Strip" Minifigs, but including Mike's Models, Peter Laing, Heritage, Blood Axe, Ral Partha and other manufacturers to be identified through this group.

If this interests you I would encourage you to check it out and sign up to it - only just started so not much activity yet.

Painting faces the Dick Higgs way

Dick Higgs, Miniature Figurine's principal designer, provided this guide as part 3 of his series Painting for Beginners in Minimag Magazine, appearing in 1971.

The beginning of a slippery slope, as far as I am concerned... I won't even mention deacls for eyes and kilts on 28mm figures....

Looking for Minimags...

Thanks to Paul I now have a copy of the 1972/3 Minifigs catalogue - I previously had scans courtesy of Alan M, but it is nice to have the catalogue.

The title page refers to a Miniature Figurines Ltd House Magazine called Minimag. On the last page of the catalogue it says numbers 2,3 and 4 were currently available at 15p each - "for further number please wait until you see them advertised in either Military Modelling or Wargamers Newsletter."

This had completely passed me by before now. Does anyone remember this? And, by any chance, does anyone have one they could either send me or scan for inclusion here or on the Lone S Ranger blog?

Miniature Figurines WW1 Warships range listings

Following a thread on TMP I thought it would be helpful to post this list here.

There are pictures of some of the models in two posts on Bob Cordery's Wargaming Miscellany blog

here

and

here

Minifigs S Range Seven Years War

Over on the Lone S Ranger blog I have posted some information on these figures. There are a number of figures which I have not been able definitely to identify, and there are also a fair number for which I have no pictures. If you know this range quite well, or maybe even have figures from it, I would be grateful if you e a look at the blog and pass on any further identification help you may be able to give.

These posts can be found here.

Minor Minifigs S Range Mystery - One Piece Crimean War Cavalry Figures

John has sent me these pictures of some one piece casting cavalry figures he has acquired recently. A small mystery, as the S Range cavalry I have seen for this range (including the heavy dragoon) have riders cast separately from horses. I have had an example of the Scots Grey myself for some time, though my figure is missing his sword arm. I haven't found any reference to these one piece castings in any catalogue or listing - can anyone shed any light on this?

Minifigs 25mm buildings take 2

Advertisement from Almark Modelworld August 1973

Minifigs 15mm strips and 25mm buildings

Advertisement from Almark Modelworld Sepyember 1973