Skip to main content

A Possible Solution to the Artillery Conundrum. . .

Hah! The artillery question may be worked out. I posed a question about size and compatibility of the old Garrison SYW Prussian range over at the Old School Wargaming Yahoo group this afternoon, which yielded quickly the answer I sought. Seems there is life in the old girl yet.

John Preece and Doug Crowther indicated that the Garrison figures are indeed 25mm and comparable in height to MiniFigs, but much slimmer and with better proportions. An added advantage is that they are also cheaper than MiniFigs at this point. So, without seeing any photos of the SYW miniatures by Garrison, my impression is that they will be reasonably compatible with my RSMs, Spencer Smiths, Revells, and scattering of MiniFigs already in the collection.


It would appear that these might, therefore, be just the figures I require to finish up Stollen's artillery contingent. But I must be strong and wait for a definite response from Rob, the man behind Garrison Miniatures, before I dash off an order via PayPal! Ok, try to think about something else, Stokes! A cup of cold clam chowder, a cup of cold clam chowder, a cup of cold clam chowder, a cup of cold clam chowder. . .

Now, what makes these particular figures so attractive is not just their height, correct proportions, and lack of overemphasized detail, but the fact that the Garrison name can trace its origins to 1966, when the first figures were, I believe, sculpted by one John Braithwaite. A name that will need no introduction to old school wargaming afficienados. So, they certainly are in keeping with the old school ethos, a way of thinking that lurks behind much of the Grand Duchy of Stollen project and the associated blog.

How strange then that one rarely encounters enthusiastic remarks about Garrison Miniatures these days, at least as far as I have noticed. They seem to have been overshadowed by the likes of Suren, Spencer Smith, Holger Eriksson, and Stadden figures. Well, just one more of those strange anomalies of the old school wargaming world I suspect. ;-)

Comments

johnpreece said…
I think it will be a question of personal preference as to how compatable you find them. They are certainly better than mini fig but they are a bit shorter than HE.They do have a nicely OS appearance though.

I notice that Historifigs have 3 AWI artillerymen from the original Scruby range of 30mm. These are described as 'tricorne'.

Hinchliffe have 25mm crews for Austrian and Prussian which might be slightly taller than Garrison, though probably bulkier. It is hard to find dlim figures these days.
Stokes - Please see the response that I posted to your query on OSW, there is a link to the Garrison site with photos of many of the figures. Also, if you look in Rob's Gallery, his AWI figures are very similar. Many, many eons ago, I painted two full brigades of these and they have a very nice OS, almost "toy soldier" feel to them, slim with very nice detail and elegant posing.

And Rob is among the best to deal with, he's cast me many OS Vikings, Saxons and Fantasy "Northmen" for my OS Anglo-Danish Horde.

Bill
Der Alte Fritz said…
I saw some Garrison Napoleonics this afternoon and they are true 25mm so they should fit in nicely with RSM, SS and other figs that you are using, if the SYW figs are the same size.

What about the RSM artillery crews?
Jim,

Well, I hadn't really thought about that. The RSM Prussian artillery crew are few in number, and I like five figures plus and officer/NCO with each gun. I suppose that I could use the French crew though. A slightly different coat, but greater variety in poses, including a simple "standing" figure which would enable me to do something like Brigadier Young's batteries in Charge, but without the Tarleton helmets! Hmmm. Well, I see what the Garrison figures look like in person.

Best Regards,

Stokes
andygamer said…
If you're looking for inexpensive cannons that are for 25mm figures (and not 30s), then you might give RAFM in Canada a try. They have generic 4-pdr, 6-pdr and 8-pdr guns and a galloper gun piece that are quite inexpensive: two guns for $7.95 (I don't know if that's Canadian dollars or if it's US dollars for overseas or U.S. customers.)
http://tinyurl.com/pp6dmd
(Towards the page bottom.)

You could still use them with "big" 28mm or 30mm figures as one weight class lower (e.g. treating the 8-pdrs as 6-pdrs etc.) if you thought they were too small to match a suitable gun size to go with the gunners.

[BTW, I've got no financial interest in the company, I just want to promote a local manufacturer.]
Der Alte Fritz said…
RSM cannons are only$2-$3 as I recall. You can augment the Prussian crew by using the officer pointing and advancing as your artillery officer. The Prussians have a figure in just the sleeved coat that can be used for any army.

The newer Mindens would be even better.

Popular posts from this blog

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings.  Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat.   The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week.  Next up, the neck stocks.   I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit.  Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step.   "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

A Little More Brushwork. . .

    A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday).  Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform.   The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men.  Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished.  Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

And We're Off!!!

  Arrrgh!  Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus.  Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown.  More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart.   I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands.  In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands.   As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff.  Depending on ...