Monday, June 13, 2016

My "new minis" meet my old minis...more on my WSS collection.

This is a follow-on blog to my previous post entitled "New minis, new friend," in which I describe the beautiful 6mm Baccus collection I acquired from my new friend Alan in Australia.  As soon as I knew it was on it's way to me, I ordered some bases from Litko so as to rebase some WSS figures I already had.  The bases arrived, and the rebasing commenced!  First, I converted the Baccus figures I already had to the bases that matched my new collection.
The figures came off the old bases fairly easily...no cut fingers or damaged figures.
 After a couple of nights' work, I had four more British regiments and seven more French regiments ready to be based and made pretty for joining the standing armies.

 
Honestly I have to admit that sometimes I might, just perhaps maybe, have more figures than I realize.  All along I was thinking of a box with two Baccus armies that I picked up in a Historicon flea market some years ago, and then when I dug out the boxes to start blending the armies together I realized that I had more French and Bavarians that I had purchased from a guy in England a few years ago.  They were on the right sized bases, but they were based in two ranks rather than three ranks as my new Franco-Bavarians were.  No matter, says I; I can live with that slight difference.  Although the bases are the brighter green ones below, once I repaint and flock the bases they'll all look like the darker bases.

Notice the difference in the two-rank vs three-rank units; each unit will still only represent one battalion, so the number of figures per base is irrelevant.
There's only one problem at this point; I realize that I now have a total of 18 British-Dutch infantry units but I have a whopping 28 Franco-Bavarian infantry units.  Now, I know there are plenty of wargamers who put a lot of stock in the invincibility of the "thin red line" but that's a pretty big difference.  So, let's look at my options.  First, there's the obvious...just don't put all those French on the table at once.  Really?  You mean, have figures that I don't actually play with?  Isn't there some rule against that in the Gamers Code?  Ok, seriously now, there's option number two: buy more Baccus British infantry and paint them myself.  That's the option I usually go for...buy more!  That's probably the option most attractive to me so far, but there is actually a third option.  This one I'll take your thoughts on, because as the pictures illustrate it's not the optimum option.
 

I have in my possession a vast collection of 6mm WSS (or maybe SYW...hard to tell at this scale!) of another brand.  I know the brand but I won't mention it because I don't want to slight them.  I do not intend this comparison to be a slight or a statement of preference; I sincerely just want to illustrate the difference in size of my available resources to see what  you all think about mixing them in an army.

 The other brand is painted quite well, with King's colors and Regimental Colors for all of the British, and regimental colors for the French.  If I use them, I would have more than enough British to even the balance of power.  I wouldn't mix figures on a base; I would just base up the slimmer figures in regiments.  They would compare something like this below:
 

Baccus on the right in the pic.
With the new Litko bases being about a millimeter thicker and the slimmer figures being on thin cardstock that I'm not about to destroy to rebase them, it will actually make them about the same height as the Baccus figures. 

So now it's crunch time; do I buy more Baccus and sell off the slimmer guys, or just use them and not worry about the slight size difference?  I'm open to comments.

2 comments:

  1. Rob, as a co-architect of this dilemma, I have to say I would forever be troubled by the differences between the 'slimmer' guys - with the base thickness playing into that as well. I have found, not to my credit, that when I have had NQR (not quite right) figures in my armies before that I sideline them or try and lose them as quickly as possible (and that can be quite quickly, the way I play!) just to tidy up the table! Seriously though, I would favour selling the smaller 6mm armies to fund some more Baccus.

    Something to keep in mind, is the wargamer's red cross parcel that is winging its way towards you should have enough minis (mostly unpainted) for about 4-6 more bases. Slowly, the OOBs are levelling out. ... and yes, the (unwritten) warmers code clearly states that ye must field all the troops ye possess! Best of luck in your difficult choice!

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  2. Ah, yes, Alan, you and your devilishly good painting skills did get me into this pickle! Of course it had nothing to do with my inability to pass on a nice new shiny object! Seriously, though, your thoughts echo the majority opinion. To your credit, you saved the day for me with the "red cross" package you sent. I can get 6 more infantry units from that, which I will use to add another allied contingent to John Churchill's army. Lots of good suggestions from my TMP post about this. So once again, thanks so much!

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