Getting Arab infantry moulds ready

Still a little bit of work to do, but figures for the Arab and 'Turkish' infantry should be going off soon to have moulds made.

There's a lot on these moulds! Robed figures include, spearmen, swordsmen, riflemen and archers. I wasn't sure about standards but have decided to use a Sassanid standard - the spearmen or swordsmen are easy conversions and with two points of attachment the joints should be strong. Saves having four separate figures! I'm looking on these figures to be basically wild desert tribesmen. Didn't do  a robed cavalry figure but I think one of the unmodified Achaemenid Persians will do that job.

The tunic/trousers mould includes some J/Bw/Sh light cavalry to give a bit of variety. Figures themselves - apart from the cavalry and javelinmen perhaps a bit more 'regular'? Spearmen backed by archers or rifles as a kind of palace guard, town militia or government troops? Unmodified Rose Zulu war figures make good Ottomans as they are - good for 20mm, though bit small for 25mm.

I must admit I've been surprised at how this lot of figures has grown in scope - I was originally just going to do one mould for all the infantry! Figures are a bit variable, but with uses in both 'normal' wargames and Pulp scenarios I'm quite pleased with them.

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.

Minifigs Gallic army Review June 2026

 

With both my Garrison and Minifigs armies being sorted, I thought I'd do a Review for each then another one for the combined armies. I'll spread them out over a few days though...

Still got 8 chariots but now 3 45 strong warbands...

Close up of one of the warbands.

Side view of the army. The army has 20 cavalry and 54 light infantry. This army is pretty much surplus to requirements these days so is on my 'downscaling' list - the Garrison army is bigger and growing, this army was always an afterthought and won't be enlarged by me.

Minifigs Indian Army Review June 2026

 

Having added those extra elephants recently - plus a small number of cavalry - it seemed like a good idea to do another Review - the last Indian Army Review was in 2019.

Back then I had 9 painted elephants, today it's 16.

4 horse chariots still the same.

Likewise 2 horse chariots.

The current right flank, cavalry and javelins. The cavalry force is a bit bigger than last time, but not by much.

And left flank cavalry and light archer unit.

Sizewise, the army includes 126 Bw, 80 Sp, 24 Ps,  81 cavalry, 16 elephants and 11 chariots. Barring a sudden urge to paint a load of chariots I don't see this army getting any bigger.

Oxford cars

 

With playing around making a sort of 20/25mm Newhaven I thought about getting some 1/76th scale cars to match - most of my current lot are more suited to 28mm. Expensive, but a one-off for cars and later I'll do an order for trucks and things - plus see what I've already got of course.

S Range Spartan cavalry

 

Over the years I've collected a lot of odd figures and units that really need to be spruced up a bit. This lot seem to have been sourced from at least two different places...

Anyway, can't see me doing a full overhaul of these so I've pretty much done the minimum to make them presentable. At least it's another unit on the roster.

Martian Tripods

 

Originally bought two, misplaced one (habit of mine), got two more for Christmas from Steven and Sarah... so finally found the misplaced one but it's still unpainted. I'm not sure where to go with these - leave it at the four or go all out and eventually build up a force of about twelve. At about 7cms tall they can be used with just about any scale from 6mm upwards to 28mm.

There are two different models - one as a straight gunship, the other with 'grasping appendages' - either command or to collect victims for 'research' purposes...

Note for some reason I couldn't get the link to the Minifigs/Matchlock Miniatures to work! Just came up as a blank screen.

War of the Worlds Tripod

 

As well as Romans and Newhaven I'm also working on various stand alone type figures. In this case I came across a War of the Worlds Tripod...

It's from Minifigs/Matchlock and I think I need a couple more to make it up to three. Nice figures.

Here with the on-going Newhaven build - in front of the park, graveyard to the left. Still working on those...

Better idea of it's size compared to a couple of unpainted 20mm figures. The blue background is a prettyfied river - I've done A4 mdf sheets part water, part paved, to give a river front. 

20/25mm Miskatonic U (Newhaven campus) finished!

 Took a while and I'm sick of cutting out windows and sticking them on buildings!

So this is the finished set. I did break one self imposed rule - actually bought the walls and side gate!. They are Busch set HO 6014, Wall and Gate.

I confess - didn't allow for the saw blade width and cut the walls a few mils too small!

Side view with a few 20mm figures for comparison. The smaller scale allowed for a much grander building setup. Didn't always get the windows right... main building has an attic and slightly lower ceilings!

Another side view  showing the size of the building. Looks really solid. 

Back view. Probably shouldn't have put windows over the joint but...

Courtyard is very much compressed for use in city sized use. If I do scenarios based on just the university I would add a few more wall sections and possibly also do a separate wall not connected to the buildings. The roof wasn't painted, just had a couple of layers of PVA glue covering it - I thought it looked more realistic than paint. Must do something about the camera date staming pictures. Possibly set the right date and time on it?

Size comparison with the Sarissa manor house and gate house- haven't got an annex for the Sarissa version, beginning to regret that!

The 20/25mm version allows a much more believeable size building to be made.

The gate house comparison really gives the game away! 

Overall I'm really pleased with this set of buildings. I can see them being very useful in the future.

Miskatonic University and town update

 

Getting on with the university buildings - probably half way there!

The most obvious unfinished part. The two buildings in the foreground are just place holders for a U shaped building to create a central courtyard. A couple of gateways and the base itself need sorting of course...

The 'original' having that fantastic Sarissa gatehouse I thought I had to do something. The green gate is from that pile of bits and pieces I'm finding so useful!

Things are buildng up quite nicely!

I've got a large pool of HO buildings I can use - nothing in this picture is what I could call canon though, it's all just there to give me ideas.

I really like the idea of a town square/shopping centre for instance.

Roads, fences and other 'fillers' are an obvious requirement.

ECW Moulds

First job was to get a mould made using original masters and other figures so I could put together the production moulds. Apart from tidying up the figures I've now sorted out figures for the moulds needed to complete the ECW refurbishment. 

After this, think I'll take a break on casting until some time in September!

Some of it is to rationalise moulds, putting a lot of the figures together instead of scattered. However, the EW6, musketeer in helmet (classic Roundhead figure) mould was no longer fit for purpose. 

EW15, Pikeman armoured in hat at rest and EW16 Pikeman unarmoured with plumed helmet at rest. These two didn't have moulds attached to them so I looked at a master mould that had some pikes on. The pose was the same as the 'Reserve' figure so I discounted them... until I finally realised that the rest and reserve  poses were the same. So now they will be on a production mould...

This is a case of putting everything together - so I will now have a production mould with all the ECW cavalry together. Still need to do some tidying up on the figures first.

I did start a plastic Swedish 30 Years War army back in the 90s. Blog post here. 

I have also updated the ECW entry on pages.

Tenements finished

 

Seems like I'm not putting much in the blog at the moment, but these things are taking time!

16 tenement buildings including a couple of shops. Should be enough for now.

General store after Sutter Cane. The name of Peyton's Plaice seemed obvious so I had to look for a justification in a 'horror' town - easy. It included one of  Mia Farrow's first roles, later she was the star of Rosemary's Baby, listed as the second best horror film of all time.

New World Incorporated was involved with advanced technology, shipbuilding and munitions. From  The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopaedia. 

Curwen House, named after Joseph Curwen.

And one I haven't named to give me a bit more flexibility. I intend to do a few more of these bigger buildings - might even go up to four or five stories!

Comparison between 'my' 20/25mm buildings and Sarissa's 28mm ones.

Side view. My buildings cover about a quarter of the ground space, allowing for a much bigger number of buildings and more realistic 'city'.