Wargaming with 20mm Soft Plastic Figures

One of the more problematic aspects of ancient wargaming with plastic figures, is the lack of cavalry, especially for the earlier armies. The situation for later armies is a little better, with a number of manufacturers (notably Italeri) who have brought out some mounted figures for medieval armies.

(Thursday, 7 March 2002 - Man, did I write this ages ago! ('Bout 4 years in fact). Things have changed remarkably since then (see the Reviews page for more details). But, as Mike Hansen has just proven, converting ancient cav in plastic can still be a jolly good idea!)

Airfix did produce Ancient British chariots as part of their now discontinued 'Roman Fort' play set (including a Roman chariot, which would seem more appropriate to a triumphal procession than the 1st century battlefield), but they are proving to be difficult to get hold of in any quantity by themselves. However, HaT industries have just re-released the Airfix Ancient British and Roman figures (from the old Airfix moulds), complete accompanying chariots.

As for any other armies, this problem requires a little simple modelling to get around. There are two basic techniques that I use, depending on the type of plastic the figures are moulded out of.

For the harder plastic, the gentle application of force will generally do, but be careful. The harder plastic is more brittle than it's soft cousin, and it is possible to snap off the part your working on quite easily. Trust me, I know! I have started pulling together a 350 point DBM Norman army, using Revell figures, by putting the vast majority of foot figures (you only get 2 mounted figures per pack) onto horses. Most of the foot figures are standing front on with their legs apart, and a couple of poses look like they could just be plonked onto the back of a horse. I therefore chopped off their bases, and bend their legs a bit to fit them onto some Italeri cavalry. Needless to say, a couple have become amputees requirering the judicious application of glue!

However, this technique requires the original figure to be in just the right pose. What follows is a technique that can be applied to a much wider range of figures.

What I do, is get hold of some ancient figures whose top half look like they could be riding a horse (that is, those whose torso's are facing straight ahead and more or less erect, so that they will look appropriate when mounted on a horse - it doesn't matter what their legs are doing) get hold of some Napoleonic cavalry figures (of which there is a plentiful amount), and join them.

First, I glue the legs to the horse, and then I join the torso to the legs, applying a thin coat to both sides. Don't use too much glue, or it will overflow around the join and make your soldier look like he's either wearing a life preserver, or he's eaten too much! I then apply PVA to the join between legs and torso, and between rider and horse. The PVA strengthens the finished figure considerably. Before discovering the PVA trick, my riders often broke in half during their third or forth game. Very inconvienient!

This technique can take a bit of practice to get right. But once you've got the hang of it, it actually becomes quite easy. But if things do go wrong, don't panic! We come back to my original argument of why fighting with plastic is a good idea. Price! If things do go wrong, then it doesn't cost the earth to try again.

Well, ok, so just Mike's so far. If anyone has anything to add, please let me know.

Mike's Gallic Converts

Mike Hansen (he of 'Mike's Quiz' fame) sent me these scans of some conversion he has done from Italeri's Gallic cav and foot figures that he has just completed (the conversions that is, not Italeri's figures). They will significantly add to the overall variety of these Italeri Gallic boxes...as well as showing that converting your own ancient cav figures is still a jolly good idea.

	Here's how he did them...(cut from his e-mail) Hi Spanky...er, Nick. (umm...don't ask!!) Right here are some scans of my own I thought might interest you. Since there are no command figures in the italeri celtic cavalry, I tried a little conversion with some of the infantry figures and it worked out OK for a couple of hours work. What do you think? They should look good when they're painted. Just swapped over two of the cavalry torsos with two of the infantry ones - It was a lucky break having the two hands on hips lining up like that!....Well, luck and a little bit of tricky fiddling... Some pinning and gluing and a couple of glue-stiffened tissue paper capes later... The standard bearer was much simpler, he just had his spear arm and wrist bent forward, and the standard's one of the Hat roman boar thingys mounted on a pin wrapped in tissue and glue - supposed to look like thick leather binding...that's my story anyway. Not sure if I'll put a little banner or something on it yet. Mike

Thanks Mike. Good work. Ever so keen to see them painted, I am! If you want to discuss his work with him, I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you dropped him a line.

Nick