Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Baron Opal

Wow, those are long; pikes indeed.

Any commentary on a place to get miniature armies on the cheap? I'm mostly looking for your generic spearmen, sword and shield, cavalry, &c.

They are indeed, but they look great on the table; Craig Smith did a cover illustration for one of the army lists that has the soldiers at one end, and the entire rest of the width of the cover is nothing but pikes. That's the look that I wanted.

Um. Well, here's my thoughts on the subject.

At present, your best bet is the re-issued Ral Parthe line; they are bringing back the Tom Meier (and others) sculpts, and for a pretty reasonable price.

http://www.ralpartha.com/

They are also going back into the molds and finding all the figures that were sculpted but never released, so there's some very familiar figures and some totally new ones there. Best value for money, in my opinion, just like they were back in 1978.

My other suggestion for less expensive miniatures would be Old Glory. These are not always the finest of sculpts, but quite a few of them do have what I call 'charm'. I have a lot of them, and I enjoyed painting them up, as these are "painters' figures" where you make all the difference in how they look. Not for the beginner, maybe - the Ral Partha figures are easler to paint because they do have better detail - but as an inexpensive way to get some troops on the table this is a good line. And they do have a lot of stuff - have a look, and see what you need.

Moving away from metal to plastics, there are a lot of companies out there doing sets of historical figures that can be repurposed. Quite a lot of these are reasonably priced, and you do get quite a few figures in the packages. I've done more then a few, myself, and I'm generally pretty pleased with the sets I've gotten.

There is a downside; lot of little fiddly parts, and the assembly time can be very long. Look before you buy, if I may make that observation.

Having said all that, I usually use the less-expensive figures for the large units, and the more expensive ones for the personality figures that command them. Photos on my Photobucket page, of all this...

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

Define "cheap." Older generation D&D figures can be cheap at some dealers, and in the mid 2000s I was able to get "common" Star Wars figures at about a buck apiece.

But you're going to have to be prepared to sink a few hundred dollars if you want more than a couple of handsful of figures.

Agreed. It all depends on what you want, what you like, and what you play. I am very much a specialist - and have been so since the middle 1980s.

Play miniatures with somebody else's figures, for a while, I tell people, and then make a decision as to what you want to do. And then stick with it.

Pike and Shotte battles are a lot of fun.

Cheap miniatures aren't too hard to come by these days. Wargames Factory has ceased distribution and while Warlord and Dreamforge Games both carry them, the prices aren't as insanely good as they had been. They had republican Romans, Celts, Germanic Tribes, Numedians, Saxons, Vikings, Hopolites, Amazons, Orcs, Skeletons, War of Spanish Succession, Post Apocalyptic Survivors and Zombies, and futuristic Shock Troopers. I've got a fair bit of stock on the shelf that I purchased when the Canadian Dollar was stronger, so that's one possible source anyhow.

Mantic Games Horde units of zombies, skeletons, orcs, goblins, and men at arms come in at about a dollar a figure.

Beyond that it gets hard to find three dollar metal figures, though the late nineties Fantasy Armies from Ral Partha can be had from Iron Wind Metals at reasonably cheaply.

Old Glory has cheap metal historical figures but they're packaged in bags of thirty with the same gear for mass wargaming purposes.

RAFM has decently priced metal stuff though their range is mostly pretty old but they're worth a look for a variety of things including the original Citadel Traveller 15mm figures.

If you're into 20mm historicals, you have a lot of choices. I'm given to understand they've solved the Airfix "unpaintable" problem. Plus, of course, in this age of R/C cars, flexible paint for model bumpers is readily available.

http://www.hobbylinc.com/italeri-teu...Fdg6gQodabMFXA

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

As Chirine and I were discussing among ourselves, miniatures are both an expense and a logistical problem if you want to travel with them. Be prepared. "Come run a game at a convention" sounds easy until you're the one humping the boxes of lead across the parking ramp, up the stairs, over to the freight elevator, up to the fourth floor, across the exhibit hall, and over to the table.

And repeat in reverse on Sunday evening.

It's one reason I'm grateful to Paul Stormberg at GaryCon; I can run a CHAINMAIL historical battle using a sand table and 40mm Elastolin figures, and all I have to do is drag my sorry carcass to the room. And thanks to him I've been able to start playing TRACTICS, "Don't Give Up The Ship," and "Fight in the Skies" again.

And this year I played "Cavaliers and Roundheads" for the first time, with none other than Jeff Perren as referee.

NOW I know why Chirine is so enthused about that period!

I could not agree more with this. It's not the painting of the figures that's the pain, it's the logistics of running a big game like the ones you see on my Photobucket page. Most of those games are about 30 cubic feet of scenery and figures; my van holds 64 cubic feet, so it's a challenge to pack everything up to go to an event. And then it's the drive to the venue, and then the set-show-strike sequence for the duration; it's why I insist on being given a table or space entirely for the event.

The nasty, nasty part of this are any moves around the venue because the event organizers have no idea what it takes to run the games that they want one to. I've had event organizers schedule me to run big games on different tables on opposite sides of the exhibit hall every four hours, with no time allowed for tear-down and set-up, let alone the time it takes to move across the hall. And I keep a fleet of carts for this - which, in turn, take up more shipping space and have to be kept chained up; they do tend to get 'borrowed' by people.

So, I have a pretty strict policy in place about this; if somebody wants to have me at their event to run games, I'll be happy to do it - but we work by my conditions. I've lost count of the number of times where I was promised the sun, the moon, and the stars (help unloading, meals brought to me, etc.) by event organizers, and it always seems to be me and one or two close friends doing all the work at two in the morning.

I feel sorry for Paul - I keep thinking of those eight buckets, with the forty gallons of wet sand that he has to haul.

Muskets, pikes, and flouncy shirts - gadzooks, prithee, what's not to like? It's why I did my Tangier Garrison campaign - Charles II and his son vs. the Sultan of Morocco, of all things...

(Truth really is stranger then fiction. Look it up.)

And off to pills and bed; I'm nursing a nasty sinus infection, at the moment. had it ever since the brain surgery, and occasionally it gets to be more then an annoyance...

Originally Posted by David Johansen

Pike and Shotte battles are a lot of fun.

Cheap miniatures aren't too hard to come by these days. Wargames Factory has ceased distribution and while Warlord and Dreamforge Games both carry them, the prices aren't as insanely good as they had been. They had republican Romans, Celts, Germanic Tribes, Numedians, Saxons, Vikings, Hopolites, Amazons, Orcs, Skeletons, War of Spanish Succession, Post Apocalyptic Survivors and Zombies, and futuristic Shock Troopers. I've got a fair bit of stock on the shelf that I purchased when the Canadian Dollar was stronger, so that's one possible source anyhow.

Mantic Games Horde units of zombies, skeletons, orcs, goblins, and men at arms come in at about a dollar a figure.

Beyond that it gets hard to find three dollar metal figures, though the late nineties Fantasy Armies from Ral Partha can be had from Iron Wind Metals at reasonably cheaply.

Old Glory has cheap metal historical figures but they're packaged in bags of thirty with the same gear for mass wargaming purposes.

RAFM has decently priced metal stuff though their range is mostly pretty old but they're worth a look for a variety of things including the original Citadel Traveller 15mm figures.

Agreed; all very true, and you make a lot of sense. I didn't know that the Wargames Factory figures are out of distribution; that's a pain.

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

If you're into 20mm historicals, you have a lot of choices. I'm given to understand they've solved the Airfix "unpaintable" problem. Plus, of course, in this age of R/C cars, flexible paint for model bumpers is readily available.

http://www.hobbylinc.com/italeri-teu...Fdg6gQodabMFXA

Yep. the old polyethylene that Airfix used has been superseded by a much more rigid plastic, and it holds acrylics much better then the older enamels we had to use.

You can basecoat airfix bendy plastic with Krylon for Plastic and paint it reasonably well these days. People always think that washing off the mould release agent helps but my Dad's a chemical engineer and he explained the problem to me years ago. Poly Ethelene plastic has just about the same surface energy (I think that was it) as Teflon. In essence the figures are made of no stick coating. Krylon for Plastic actually chemically bonds with the figure. Don't use it on Reaper Bones though, they're vinyl and it never quite sets up properly.

Fortunately Vinyl takes paint pretty well, though Reaper's range is big, over the top and a bit silly. They are a great source for monster miniatures and the prices make me feel young again. You can bend vinyl and some resin figures back into shape by immersing them in hot water until they soften up a little, making the bend and plunging them into cold water.

One other good source of dirt cheap plastic figures is EM-4 who have the old Grenadier Fantasy Warriors (yeah I know "old" new fangled European style figures) Dwarves and Orcs at around $0.50 a piece.

Originally Posted by David Johansen

You can basecoat airfix bendy plastic with Krylon for Plastic and paint it reasonably well these days. People always think that washing off the mould release agent helps but my Dad's a chemical engineer and he explained the problem to me years ago. Poly Ethelene plastic has just about the same surface energy (I think that was it) as Teflon. In essence the figures are made of no stick coating. Krylon for Plastic actually chemically bonds with the figure. Don't use it on Reaper Bones though, they're vinyl and it never quite sets up properly.

Fortunately Vinyl takes paint pretty well, though Reaper's range is big, over the top and a bit silly. They are a great source for monster miniatures and the prices make me feel young again.

Good points!!! Thank you!!!

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

So, I have a pretty strict policy in place about this; if somebody wants to have me at their event to run games, I'll be happy to do it - but we work by my conditions. I've lost count of the number of times where I was promised the sun, the moon, and the stars (help unloading, meals brought to me, etc.) by event organizers, and it always seems to be me and one or two close friends doing all the work at two in the morning.

One reason at last GaryCon I made sure you at least got a chicken sandwich before the EPT game.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

I feel sorry for Paul - I keep thinking of those eight buckets, with the forty gallons of wet sand that he has to haul.

Terry Kuntz got a little overenthusiastic with wetting down the sand... we very nearly had actual quicksand on the table.

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

Muskets, pikes, and flouncy shirts - gadzooks, prithee, what's not to like? It's why I did my Tangier Garrison campaign - Charles II and his son vs. the Sultan of Morocco, of all things...

(Truth really is stranger then fiction. Look it up.)

A lesson you taught us many, many times over the years...

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

And off to pills and bed; I'm nursing a nasty sinus infection, at the moment. had it ever since the brain surgery, and occasionally it gets to be more then an annoyance...

Very, very sorry to hear that. I hope you can get some rest.