Some Dollar Store Silliness

I imagine a lot of people buy those bags of dollar store soldiers for an item or two and look at the rest and wonder what use it might be. Anyway I have a lot of these type of toys and it occurred to me that I could make generic armies roughly based on WW2 armies. Just a suitable paintjob and enough old Airfix figures and these would be usuable. He's my generic early war Germans. I also painted up an ersatz Focke Wulf 190

Wagons And Limbers

I use a lot of cheap Made in China stuff. Here's a Giant Limber, painted field grey. With the addition of a gun shield and a converted barrel, it would make a decent WW1 type gun. Also I put a picture of a 25mm limber made from the Airfix World War 1 British Horse Artillery and a Giant brand gun. The horses and men are Napoleonic Prussian Dragoon Officers from Warrior Miniatures. I used a plastic gun as the lead ones cost a few bucks, and I have a bucket of these around(well, maybe a big coffee can anyway).
(http://www.warrioronline.demon.co.uk/).

Ebay Aquisition And A Little Paint

I won an auction for a box of napoleonic figures. The paint jobs were basic, so they needed some touch ups. Inside were some 20 cannon, several hundred cavalry and infantry.

I was pleased to find over 90 HaT Industrie Russian Cuirassier, so I made 4 Regiments in true Charles Grant fashion, 24 other ranks with 4 Officers, Trumpeters and Guidon Bearers:






I haven't flocked the bases (Dollar Store Dominos, 3/4 inch wide by 1 1/2 inch long). I'm not sure if I will use Woodland Scenics or Games Workshop flock, or static grass.
I store the figures in plastic containers.

Marlburian French Foot Dragoons, From Airfix WW2 Japanese

Here's a unit of French dismounted cavalry. They started life as WW2 Japanese. There were a number of dismounted cavalry units on the Franco Bavarian side prior to Blenheim, due to an illness that struck down many horses. These guys fought on foot near Blenheim.

Marlburian Style British, Via The US Civil War

I started making some Marlburian style British Infantry, based on Airfix's US Civil War Federal infantry. I also used some WW2 soldiers in the command group. The flags are those cheap plastic flags you get in dollar store bags of toy soldiers. The artillery is Esci, and the female personality on the horse is Maid Marion from the Robin Hood Set. I started making some Charles Grant style personalities from Airfix's Civilian set.

Some Plastic Conversions, More Comic Book Toy Soldiers

Here are some more of the Lucky Toys "204 Revolutionary War Set" cavalry. Fanciful uniforms for my Charles Grant style battles.
The commander is a slightly modified cavalryman, with a plasticene hat with sand feathers, and a plasticine shabraque.
Here are some pictures of more Lucky Toys, as well as some Esci Hussars. Sadly they never made shabraques for these, so I made some out of plasticine, and some Revell Swedish cuirassiers mounted on Giant horses.

I'm still alive.
Been busy this summer getting the roof redone and such.
Anyway, I have been busy painting and will get some more pix up soon.

In the meantime, here's a link to a new blog by a true giant in the wargaming world, Stuart Asquith. Mr. Asquith is an author, writer and editor of many sets of wargame rules and publications. I was lucky enough to purchase some of his older Spencer Smith Napoleonics a couple years back.

http://blasthofblog.blogspot.com/