FPW Zinnfiguren (Flats)

I recently bought a few painted FPW Zinnfiguren for German eBay. They were painted but were a bit rough around the edges.  I quickly over painted the 32 figures in a few days and have now finished basing the first stand.  These are a mixture of manufacturers (engravers is the correct term) and mixed together on these large bases (75 by 50mm or 3 by 2 " for non metric viewers). 

These figures have a certain charm and the feeling on movement and action cannot be bettered by full round figures.  

Form the side or an angled view the base is packed with action and looks like a dense formation of infantry. Looking straight on or from the rear does not work with these figures

A closer view shows how a simple single shading brings the figures alive. In fact these were a lot easier to paint then I thought. But then I am a wargamer and not a flat collector. I have some more figures kindly donated to me from Roy Boardman (British flats figure society) and I will be stripping these factory paints off using Dettol and painting from scratch.

My plan is to use these figures for some 1866/1870 gaming use a range of rules including Donald Featherstones the War Game with additions rules in his War Game Campaigns book in the re fight of the battle of Spichern.

Hey ho isn't this hobby fun.

The Campaign

After a couple of false starts I have finally got the Campaign underway. It is basically a 2 player game of the Sport of Kings campaign from Age of Reason. Tim is commanding Britain, Prussia and Sweden whilst I am commanding France, Austria and Russia.


The open move has generated 3 engagements which will be played put over the next 2 months.

The first battle is between the Austrians (7 sps) and Prussians (6 sps). We are going to use Bob Jones new rules Zoauve :Repique rules. http://repiquerules.com/

We are going to play the game as an FPW game with the French representing the Austrians. Each SP will be a brigade which will be represented by 2 wargame units on the table.

The second game is an action America with the French (5 sps) taking on the British (3 sps). The game will be fought as an ACW game with the Union taking the role of the French and the Rebels the British. The game will be played using Don Featherstone’s Horse and Musket rules from the Old School classic - the War Game. Each SP will be represented by a brigade of 2 regiments.

The third game is a much larger affair with a battle in Silesia between Russians and Austrians. Each side has 12 SPs. We are likely to use Piquet for this one but this may change.

Ilkleylads Archive - No 2 - Marston Moor

Here are some shots of a game we put on a few years ago at Sheffield. Infantry units have 40-50 figures per regiment. The game look impressive and we used 3 collections with some 2000+ figures on the table. The Royalists won this one.

Panoramic view of the infantry action






Massed regiments of Cavalry

In your face. Royalist and Scots go toe to toe

Battle of Fontenoy

I will be putting on an OS game at the Leeds wargame show later this year. The game will feature my Prince August collection. I hope that Steve Metringham will also be adding his collection to the game. 

I am thinking of doing the battle of Fontenoy.

More later.

30mm Flats - an Old School Alternative

Well I have taken the plunge and bought a bunch of Kieler Zinnfiguren or Flachfiguren. In all I have bought 67 figures - all Prussians.  They are all painted but will need some work to re paint some paint chips. 

I am not sure how I will base these figures yet - I will either go OS classic and base singularly with green painted bases or base on 60 by 40mm with 5 figures and base and texture as I would standard wargame figures. 

Here a few photos of what can be done with these figures. These can all be found on  British Flat Figure web site. The last one shows the some figures in wargame action.  

And for something different.

I have been toying with the idea of getting some 30mm Flats ftrom Germany. The range of figures is huge and then quality looks fantastic. They are probably going to be hard to paint and I not sure wheter they will work for wargaming. I am going to get a few next week from  

http://www.zinnfiguren-gruenewald.de/pages/ggpag.html 

Probably get some SYW and FPW to start with. 

Anyway thought I would see how flats would look and made a few paper ones over the weekend. These are lots of figures avaialble from  http://www.juniorgeneral.org/

I downloaded a few and played around with them in paint and resized to 35mm.  Here are some French Infantry. This is a quick and easy way to build an army and something I can do with my 4 year old son. One of the advantages is that  once ytou have the master it easy to get units with different facings or uniform colours done.

Ilkleylads Archives No 1

GNW scene with Russian and Saxon Infantry defending against a determined Swedish attack.







A close up from behind the Saxon lines. The Swedish Cavalry take fire but charge foward into contact.







A view from behind the lines.





SYW in India plus some Prussian Hussars. These photos were taken for use in the publication of Piquet Cartouche 2 supplement.