A Zieten Figure Does Exist - Minden Miniatures

 

A couple of days ago I was rather gobsmacked to to look at my Facebook feed and read a post by someone lamenting the lack of a von  Zieten personality figure across the 28mm spectrum. All I could do was to just shake my head in wonderment since Minden Miniatures has not one figure, but TWO ZIETEN PERSONITY FIGURES.

So for your viewing pleasure I present pictures of both the mounted and dismounted version of Minden Zieten figures.

Zieten is the figure base that is second from the left. Frederick of course is in the center.

Oh, and by the way, Minden offers the only Marshall Maurice de Saxe riding in his wicker carriage at Fontenoy figure. Simply put, if you are looking for 18th Century military personality figures, then Minden Miniatures has the largest selection of such figures by a wide margin over any other manufacturer of 28mm figures. That’s a fact.

By the way, let’s dispense with all of this copyright nonsense that we see elsewhere; if you want to copy any pictures on my blog then feel free to do so.

Maurice de Saxe and his uhlan escort. All are Minden figures.

A close up, and better picture, of a dismounted Zieten handing a message to an orderly.
Minden Miniatures 

Please click on the pictures to enlarge your view and look at these wonderful Richard Ansell sculpts.

ACW Camp Life & Little Wars Game Photos

 

Civil War illustrator Alfred Wand

Alfred Waud, original picture that inspired the miniature figure

Alfred Waud figure unpainted

I really like to create little vignettes on my table top, especially for games that I host at wargame conventions. They add a bit of life, character and sometimes unexpected discovery or humor to the tabletop.

The two pictures above illustrate famous Civil War illustrator Alfred Waud. I believe that the figure is made by either Barszo or LOD Enterprises, both in 1/32 scale (54mm or Toy Soldier size). When I first saw this figure, I knew that I had to have it a place it somewhere on the table for my Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg game. I always get a kick whenever some one discovers the figure on the table:"oh wow, it's Alfred Waud!").

Here is another vignette of General Meade and some of his staff, inspired 
by the picture below.

This is a rather famous picture of camp life in the Army of the Potomac.
Note George Custer on the lower right, petting his dog. The inclusion of
the dog adds a touch of whimsy and brings life to the story that the 
photographer is trying to tell. This photo inspired the vignette in the previous
picture above.

I recently commissioned a set of figures from Speira Miniatures, a company in Sweden. Speira creates 3D printed figures that you can order in almost any scale. This picture of three Confederate prisoners captured at Gettysburg is a well known photograph from the American Civil War (must I really add the word "American" when I say Civil War?)

I received my three figures the other day and I am eager to paint them and recreate the diorama for my own games.

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A group of Union soldiers enjoying a cup of joe.

Some slackers! Confederates enjoying a brief respite to play a card game.

Here is another set up that I did of Meade's headquarters at the Leicester House
behind Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg. I added the signal tower because I thought
that it would make for a good picture. In the foreground a settler is sitting in front
of his tent reading his newspaper

Meade's headquarters. I painted a rather bad looking plastic model made by BMC
and added a base, storage chest and some exterior chimney stones to the model.
I am rather chuffed by the finished result.

You can see the white plastic Meade's HQ building in its unpainted state.
Some of the pieces were warped and I had to drill a few holes to make the
fitting pegs align with the holes. This made the structure much stronger. The
roof on the porch extension was a total mess, so I replaced it with a piece of 
Balsa Wood. My intention was to cover all of the roof sections with tree wrap
to make new shingles. However, after painting and dry brushing I decided 
to leave the roof alone.

Here is a better view of Meade's HQ and its surrounding vignette pieces.
I am amazed by how nice the house looks after repairs and painting.

I am always on the look out for more vignette/camp life scenes in the toy soldier or 54mm size of figures. Speira fills this need quite nicely. I have a surgeon and his assistant doing some surgery on a wounded soldier and I plan to pair the scene up with an ambulance model that I bought from Classic Toy Soldiers company. I also have a Matthew Brady photographer figure from Speira that I have not painted yet.

My next post will cover the Pickett's Charge game after action report from my weekend at Little Wars The Confederates prevailed on the first day/game, but the Union army won two seesaw game on the second and third days of the convention. My game rules worked very well and the players were practically running the games by themselves. All I had to do was to hover around the table and answer rules questions or make some interpretations of various actions.

As gamers are want to do, they found a couple of minor loopholes in the rule sheet and I have since corrected and updated the rules in version 9.0.

Here are a couple of teaser photographs of my game that show the vast expanse of playing on three 6ft by 24ft tables.

The middle table (of three tables) had the entire Emmitsburg Road

Armistead's Confederate brigade crosses the stout post and rail fences of the Emmitsburg Road.

Confederates cross the middle table. In the background you can see the table 
that represents Seminary Ridge, the starting point of Pickett's Charge.

Action on Cemetery Ridge. This was on its own table and the Confederate
attack had to cross over from the middle table containing the Emmitsburg Road.

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Game Slots Available For Saturday's Game

 

Union artillery battery on Cemetery Ridge

It looks like tickets for my Pickett's Charge games for Thursday and Friday are sold out, however there are plenty of openings available for my Saturday game on April 20th at 10AM. If you would like to play in the game then click on the link below which takes you to the Little Wars event sign up web site. Search for Saturday games at 10AM and my event number is 118.

Little Wars Event Sign Up

For added inspiration, here are a few photos of the collection for your viewing pleasure. Click the pix to enlarge the view.

I am looking forward to meeting all of the people who have signed up for my games. Your participation and support are very much appreciated.

Getting Ready For Little Wars Next Week

 

A few slackers congregate at the Codori barn next to the Emmitsburg Road.

Well, it is six more days until Little Wars game convention begins on April 18th to April 21st, 2024 and I think that I am in fairly good shape as far as having all of the things that I will need for my game(s). I am running games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The scenario and the rules have been play tested five times and I really feel that the rules work and will allow for a fast playing game with lots of D6 dice rolling across the table top.

I still need (want) to add more post and rail fences for the Emmitsburg Road, but I have plenty of stone wall and rail fence sections and a huge number of snake rail fence pieces. Were the game to start tomorrow, I would have all of the fences that I need. I have 24 feet of road sections for the Emmitsburg Road, so that bit of terrain is completed.

I have set up a 12 feet long section of the game table.
The actual table will be twice the length shown in this picture.
Pickett's and Pettygrew's divisions are deployed on the right in this photo.

A close up view of the Emmitsburg Road. Pettygrew's division can be
seen in the back righthand area waiting to advance through the corn field.

The troops are painted and ready to fight. The Union army has six brigades of infantry as does the Confederate army. However, I have started a seventh Confederate brigade and have completed two of the three regiments that comprise a brigade in my game. I should be able to finish that final Confederate 30-figure regiment within the next couple of days. Trust me, these 54mm figures paint fast.

Here are a few pictures of some of the terrain enhancements that I am working on. With three 6ft by 24ft tables covered by Cigar Box Battles mats there is a lot of wide open green fields to work with and these need to be visually broken up with some terrain bits. The Codori barn and orchard will be at the end of my tables in the game, so they probably won't get involved in the action to any degree. I like to set up buildings or towns in the corners of my games so that they do not interfere with the troop movements.

Confederate artillery take up position around the Codori barn. The artillerists
are there for the "show" to make for better photo composition. 

My experiment of adding more bits of terrain around the Codori barn.
A orchard (peaches, cherries or Apples?) on the left to break up the vast canvas
of wide open fields on the game table.

Confederate artillery deploys next to the small peach orchard next to 
the Emmitsburg Road. I will have to refight the Battle of the Peach Orchard
sometime after the Little Wars convention.

Last week I brought all of the figures and terrain back home after their extended encampment at Keith L.'s house (he of the three 6ft by 32ft game tables) and have set them up on my 6ft by 15ft and 5ft by 15ft game tables. They are organized by brigades, of course, and the regiments are undergoing inspection to see if any paint touching up is required. So far I have not found any damage to the paint from handling. General Kemper did fall on the floor and was unhorsed as a result, however, he has been glued back onto his steed with epoxy glue and he should be ready to return to the battle.

Meanwhile, back to the painting table. I still have some work to do.

Iconic Gettysburg Photo Recreated with new 54mm figures

 

The picture above is probably one of two of the most commonly known photographs of the battle of Gettysburg, the other being the posed picture of the dead Confederate sniper in Devil's Den.

Well guess what? I recently commissioned a company to reproduce the three figures in this photo for 3D printing in 1/32 scale (54mm). The figures were made by Speira in Sweden. These figures will comprised a vignette that I will have on my game table at Historicon, where I am hosting Pickett's Charge in 54mm.

Here are the renderings of the three figures. 

Eventually I assume that this vignette set will be made available by the company on its web store. You can order Speira figures in almost any size or scale and they will print the figures for you and then send them off in the mail to you.

I am very pleased with how the commission turned out and I look forward to getting the chance to paint them and mount them on a base with a pile of fence rails.

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OUR LAST PLAY TEST BEFORE LITTLE WARS

Yesterday Keith L. and I did our fifth and final play test of the Pickett's Charge game at his house. There were a couple of minor tweaks that we had made and we wanted to see how they played out. We also created several "situations" that are likely to pop up in a game, so we set up some figures for the situation (infantry charging into an artillery battery, among others), rolled some dice, and played out the moment.

I am very confident that we have ironed out all of the bugs and loop holes in my rules and that they are ready for the big stage. I expect some of my game players will find a thing or two though that are head scratchers.

Here are several pictures from yesterday's play test. I have already posted many pictures from earlier games so I only snapped four photos this time.

Armistead's brigade moves across the Emmitsburg Road

Garnett's brigade climbs over the post and rail fences. Another unit on the 
road has seen enough and is skedaddling to the rear.

The Rebs attempt to charge home into the stone wall. The casualty figure represents 
the spot on the table where the regiment lost a stand. The red D6 indicates the
number if casualties in the remaining stands of the regiment. I plan on replacing the 
D6s with wooden dial counters that will have terrain atop of them.

Looking down the Emmitsburg Road (facing south) as it runs to the Codori farm.

I am finished with the painting of figures and combatants for the game. The only remaining task is to make more post and rail fences for the Emmitsburg Road, the casualty counter dials, and a couple of vignettes.

Some Conversion Officer Figures

 

Actor John Patrick Stuart portraying Colonel Porter Alexander,
Longstreet's corps artillery commander at Gettysburg.
(image from the film "Gettysburg")

Artillery played an important role during Pickett's Charge on Day Three of the Battle of Gettysburg, as it will in my 54mm Pickett's Charge war game at the upcoming Little Wars convention (April 18-21, 2024). I thought that it would be a good idea to have an overall commander of the Confederate artillery in my game so I endeavored to make my own version of Colonel Porter Alexander.

Longstreet: how old are you son?

Alexander: I am 28 years old, sir.

Longstreet: uh huh

I like the color of the Confederate artillery soldiers with their red kepis and facings as the uniform adds a bit of color to the otherwise drab grey and butternut uniforms of the Confederate army. I wanted Alexander to be looking through his binoculars, as he does frequently in the movie "Gettysburg" (1993), however, I could not find a suitable 54mm figure of a mounted officer with binoculars, so I would have to convert some figures and make my own Porter Alexander figure.

Colonel Porte Alexander (left) and Brigadier General James Kemper (left).
Standing figure is a generic Confederate officer.

Colonel Alexander and Brigadier General James Kemper figures were made from one particular Americana brand figure. The picture below shows the figures used to make the conversions of Alexander and Kemper. The officer standing figure from Armies In Plastic donated his arms and binoculars to Colonel Alexander, for which the latter is no doubt grateful to have.

Basic Americana mounted officer (left); Kemper figure (middle) and Alexander figure (right)
Armies In Plastic Union artillery officer shown standing.

As you can see, I made both commander figures from the same Americana officer and did some head swaps from other figures that I had. To start, I lopped off the head of the Americana officer and also decapitated the head of a Confederate soldier wearing a brimmed hat and I put the brimmed hat head onto the Americana torso to make Kemper. I also carved off the reins of the horse and made new ones out of florists' wire and put the reins in Kemper's hands.

Colonel Alexander conversion work in progress

Porter Alexander proved to be a more difficult conversion operation to perform. Doctor Fritz started by beheading the Americana officer and removing his arms. I took another Americana figure wearing a kepi and put his head on the officer's torso, using a pin to connect the head to the torso. Some green epoxy putty was used to fill in the gap around the neck of the figure.

Next step was to carve off some of the torso below the arms to thin the piece down and make it ready to attach the arms. The Armies In Plastic officer had removable arms to I did not have to do any surgery to remove his arms. Then I drilled holes into the shoulders of the mounted officer and fit in the set of arms with the binoculars. I made sure that the binoculars fit in at eye level for the kepi head and then I glued the arms onto the torso using Super Glue. Then I used more green putty to fill in the gaps around the arms and to smooth out some of the cuts that I had made to the lower torso of the officer figure.

At this point the converted figure is finished but it looks rather rough. I knew that the figure would look fine after it was painted. I would have liked to have put Alexander on a standing horse, and I have no doubt that I could have done this work on the horse shown in the pictures, but I didn't think that it was worth the time spent, so I left him on a walking horse.

Here are some pictures of the converted figures from various angles. The officer on foot is merely a head swap conversion.

So now all that is left to do is to glue the officer figures to bases, using epoxy glue, and then terraining the bases with my usual mix of spackle, paint and fine ballast material. I have another, final, play test game tomorrow so the bases will likely not get the usual static grass and tufts to finish them off. This will be done on another day.

A New ACW Video From Der Alte Fritz Productions

 

Pickett's Charge play test game on Keith L.'s huge tables.
We used three tables measuring 6ft wide by 24ft long.

I made a new American Civil War video (1 minute and 40 seconds long) yesterday and posted copies all over Facebook and so far it has been very well received. I employed the Ken Burns method of showing a series of still photos that are accompanied by music. It can be very effective. Since many of my viewers don't have access to Facebook I have posted the video here on my blog. Click below to watch. I hope that you like it, especially the bit of razzle dazzle in the last frame.

The Little Wars convention is fast approaching: April 18 through April 21, 2024 in the Chicago area. I will be running my Pickett's Charge game three times, once each on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. If you happen to be at the show, please feel free to walk up to me and introduce yourself. Better yet, sign up to play in the game.

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