Making Arab infantry masters

 Cavalry figures for the next mould are now with Pete. Some of these figures will then be further converted as Fantasy Arab infantry.

Meanwhile I've started with some of the robed infantry figures anyway. The one with the upright spear spear will act as a standard bearer - spear a bit short but... Torso is from the Mameluke, spear arm and robes from my robed Achaemenid Persian conversion. So a conversion made from conversions. A shield from the '25mm' Norman range gives a bit of variation...

Robed swordsmen - the one with the Khmer shield will also serve as an officer!

These are some of the figures done as 'proof of concept'. The one in Turkic clothing is simply a cavalry figure on a base. 

To do once I get the mould back - robed archer plus Turkic swordsmen, spearmen and archers. Turkic swordsman and archers are just a matter of puttting cavalry figure on a base, Arab robed archer will have the same sort of body swap as the Robed swordsmen, and the Turkic spearmen will get a new arm from an Achaemenid Persian!

Gothic, Rhoxolani and Fantasy Arab cavalry for mould...

 

Still  a bit of tidying up to do on these figures but this is generally the expected composition of the mould.

Rhoxolani Sarmatian cavalry - conversion of Sarmatian cataphract, simply cut down the kontos and add a Dacian officer's shield. Seriously wishing I had photographed these on a different coloured background - white is boring...

Gothic cavalry. Bowcase replaced by sword and figures given slight variations on shields. For standard bearers I'll just use the standard Sarmatian standard bearer but give it a shield... 

Lancers plus officer. The officer doesn't carry a bow... These figures will be mounted on a different horse.

Likewise generic Arab cavalry. The swordsman might be used as just another archer as he's got a quiver. The archer and swordsman figures are direct conversions of the 1972 Garrison Mameluke figure FNC1. 

Some of the later lance/bow/shield generic later Moslem cavalry - conversion simply consisted of giving the Sarmatian cataphract a shield. Flanked by figures on the horses I expect to use.

And this is the horse I expect to use for the lancers and horse archers.

These figures should be sent off in a couple of days. When I get the mould back the archer and swordsman  will form the basis of infantry archers, swordsmen and officers, not sure yet about the spearman element of the army.

Miskatonic University, Newhaven campus

With the current heatwave I have to admit I've done virtually nothing over the last couple of weeks. However, I did get round to do a set of walls for the 20mm/1/76th card model of the University I built. 

 

It also gave me a chance to see how the Oxford 1/76th vehicles manage to fit in - look OK.

One of the issues I have making these walls is how to do gates. I'd love to do loads of nice ironwork style gates but finally decided to keep it simple - just another strip of balsa. The photo also shows how crude the build quality of these walls are - very much wargames standard - but look OK on the table. Very much wargames buildings!

As it's getting cooler I have done some limited casting to get figures together for my next moulds. I have now cast enough figues to be able to convert the figures for two moulds - one with Arab infantry, one with Arab, Gothic and Rhoxolani cavalry. 

ex Old Glory 42mm Victorians

Spotted a new source of figures for my 42mm 1897 figures... and Old Glory were selling the range. So I bought it... Limited range, all Brits and no firing infantry, cavalry or guns but...

 

The range came with 6 moulds, 25 painted figures and 6 unpainted. The unpainted figures have now been undercoated.

The figures are bigger that Zinnfiguren or Irregular, but roughly the same as Shiny Toy Soldiers - which are now available again.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at my 25mm armies, especially concerning the space they are taking up. So I'm going to pare down my Minifigs figures - first up will be the Minifigs Gauls. The army totals 189 infantry, 20 cavalry and 8 chariots and I'm offering it here first for a straight £200 including UK postage. If it doesn't sell, it just goes back into the army pool... Usual thing, email me if you are interested at garrisonminiatures@gmail.com  Later I'll look at my Macedonians, Perians and reduce the Indian and Egyptian armies to more manageable sizes!

Dalek Emperor and Cyber Leader

Just for completeness - couple of figures from a company that shall not be named and a project that quietly died because said company is just so bad at communicating or sending out figures...

 

Increasing my Pulp armour

And now for something completely different... 28mm Empress Miniatures Pz1A and American T1E2. The Panzer 1 I've had a while, the T1E2 I bought this year at Partizan. 

 

Second lot are 20mm Whippets from the now defunct Frontline Miniatures... they will be missed. Wish I'd built up stocks but... same is true about Irregular... can't get everything...

Developing the Medievals

 

With only two infantry figures in the Medieval Era range I've had to look at other ranges to fill the gap. That means either the 25mm Medieval range and the Normans and Saxons ranges/

So these are my choices... archers from the Normans (the Saxon figure didn't look right), crossbows from the Medieval range. And the result... they pretty much fit though the '20mm' figures are a bit on the slim side. It just shows that, generally speaking, the Garrison 20mm range is really a 25mm range!

Meanwhile, foes... cavalry no problems. The two at the front make good general Muslims from several periods/countries. Standard Sarmatian cavalry with Khmer shields. The two behind are mostly head swap conversions. What I haven't done yet (way behind schedule) is sort out infantry conversions.

Personal conclusion? Looks promising.