Fife & Drum Miniatures

With all of the AWI posts loading up the blog, Jim Purkey of Fife & Drum Miniatures wrote to me a while back and asked if I'd like some samples of their new AWI militia models. The only models I have to compare them with my Perry minis. The photos below feature Fife & Drum on the left and Perrys on the right.

First of all, let me say that my photos do not either brand justice. There is an art to taking pictures of unpainted castings that I don't have down. These models were sculpted by Richard Ansell. All of the models I received are accurately proportioned and well posed. The castings are very clean with very little flash or mold lines. The details, particularly on the faces and hands*, are nicely sculpted and the models carry a nice variety of equipment for that campaign look.

The models are a bit smaller and much slimmer than the Perry and I'm not sure I'd mix the two in units, but I would have no problem fielding them in units along side my existing units. The range is expanding - the continental greens look even better than the militia and the new mounted officer looks fantastic.

Thanks to Jim for sending the models. I haven't had time to paint anything of late, but I intend to paint some of these when I get the chance (and I will of course post them here)!

*Not to take away thunder from F&D, but maybe this adds another thing in their favor. One of the problems I've had with the Perry AWI models has been the hands. Many of the 'open handed' officers have 'paws' with short stubby fingers. A pointing officer's extended finger is only moderately longer than the thumb next to it. Some of the hands holding weapons seem to only have three fingers! My Napoleonic Perry minis don't suffer from this so I'm not sure why my AWI models are so afflicted... maybe they were simply bad casts? Anyway - Bravo to F&D for the hands on their models.

Waterloo Weekender

Barry Hilton hosted the first REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE weekender over the... err... last weekend. Kind of a mini convention where he booked a hall in a hotel and the participants payed a fee that included room and board. The battle was Waterloo featuring two 6x12' tables of stunning League of Ausgburg terrain and over 2000 pro-painted models. You can read about the build up and subsequent glowing reports from the event on the Fighting Talk forum. The first pics are going up over in the League of Augsburg Gallery and include relevant notes on the action and the rules. Here is one of the first nine shots posted with more to come!

With a bit of further REPUBLIC TO EMPIRE news, Mark Severin of deepfriedhappymice.com has added a very detailed review of the book to his Rules Directory. Very nicely done and Mark actually read the book before commenting on the rules.

More terrain articles are on the way, but real life has intruded on my hobby time as of late and I've gotten precious little accomplished on that front.

Perry Dragoons

Yesterday I arrived home to find a package on my doorstep from Nottingham - two boxes of Perry Brothers Dragoons! The first thing I noticed is these kits are packed! There are enough sprues to build 13 mounted dragoons, 8 dragoons on foot, and 6 casualty figures (3 French and 3 British)...

There are enough spare heads to make a six model elite squadron in helmets or fur caps. Of course there are enough bits to make an officer, eagle bearer, and musician. The separate heads and right arms will make assembly slightly slower than some of their kits, but will give you a wide variety of poses to make a very dynamic unit. The foot dragoons come with three different sets of arms - with the combination of two different bodies and again separate heads, you should be able to make eight unique models that would be perfect for those Sharpe-style skirmishes.

These are great models. I am a huge fan of multi-part plastic minis and have been very happy with the releases from both the Perrys and Victrix. My only gripe with this kit is that the models are in 1812 uniforms and it's doubtful many of these new uniforms found their way to my favorite theater in the Peninsula. Now, since I'm the guy who used Victrix early French to make a couple of  'close enough for me' Spanish battalions for my collection, that's not going to stop me from adding a couple of regiments to my 1810 French army. If I have the time to paint them, I plan to add a couple of squadrons of these models for my game at Historicon.

More terrain stuff is on the way in a couple of days...