Old School Update: More Marx Madness

More Marx Captain Gallant figures.
As I said before I have a bunch of these and I have tried all sorts of simple conversions or just straight paint jobs to find a use for them.
First up is a pic of some US Civil War era figures. Union soldiers, Confederates and early war Zouaves.

Back to my 1866 Sadowa figures. This first group is a 40mm Austrian command set I picked up on ebay. They were in a sorry state of almost no paint and showing some damage. The figures are Kober (I think) and are meant to represent Austrians of the late 19th and early 20th century. The few paint flakes left were a medium gray. I decided to promote them to command my growing Austrian army. Their large size is in keeping with their stature as command figures and as grand dads of the wargaming ilk. Shades of Callan perhaps.....

The Austrian army has grown by 4 more battalions. I have done away with trying to add plasticine packs as they fall off quite readily. In fact I'm begining to think that "achoo!" is a secret Austrian order to "Drop Packs!". A lot of fiddly repairs every time I get them out.


The last grouping is an attempt to use some of the figures as a Wild Geese Regiment. I'm hoping that the addage "The bigger The Hat, The Better The Soldier" holds true on some future wargame table...

An Old School Attempt To Make Use Of Odd Figures

I literally have a few thousand of the 25-28mm plastic Marx recast of the Captain Gallant Figures. Some are fine as they are, but many are just strange and silly poses. Arms and weapons are akimbo, they don't stand up very well. So I decided to try something. I was reading "the Battle of Konnigratz" by Gordon A. Craig (C. Tinling & Co. Ltd., Great Battles of History series) and I was inspired by the images in Richard Holmes' "Epic Land Battles" (isbn 090740801x).



Waterloo miniatures makes the Austrians in 20mm plastic, but I didn't want to spend a lot. So I decided to use up those pesky Marx copies. I painted them white, with blue trousers, and made back packs from plasticene. I did the faces and guns and used a Sharpie marker to do some minor details. The only real trouble is that the poses are so odd that they do not stand well next to one another. There are too many bits sticking out for them to even stand next to each other on their bases. Oh well, I will forge on. I did 2 units of 48, the officers, drummers and flag bearers are coming. I made 1 unit of Airfix Hussars as Austrian Hussars, somewhat fanciful, and some artillery. I even threw in a supply unit from a Hong Kong toy. There is a great blog with images of the real soldiers here:
http://1815-1918.blogspot.com/2010_07_25_archive.html
Also there is a good article in Miniature Wargames #47 by Luigi Casali. Incidently, this issue also has N. Henry Hyde's first article entitled "Ficticious Wars", introducing Prunkland in a very Grand Old School Manner.