Wednesday 19 August 2009

Guard? Yes, I've got some, and incredibly, some of them are Old Glory


OG Old Guard (stiffened with a Connoisseur officer)

Old Glory make some truly horrible wargames figures, but, occassionally, they make some really good ones as well. I have 2 40 man btns of these fellows and found a bag containing another 48 the other day, so they are on the painting list. then I can use them as 4 x 32's or 3x 40's or 2x 32's and a 48...(you get the picture) 4 btns of Grenadiers should do the business ( Johns' got another 4, anyway) I didn't realise just how nice these are, LOTs of different poses, they are extremely animated, and VERY "shouty" which usually doesn't work with OG stuff, and is often their downfall, but somehow it works for these guys, some extra officers were required, from Connoisseur, (the Guard officer with his sword in the air is just such a great figure) plus a mounted colonel who is a Willie figure.

OG Light infantry (I think)

One young guard uniform I've always really liked is the Conscrit Chasseurs, they weren't around as a unit for very long; only from 1809 to 1811 but I always thought they looked "way kool" (as the young folk would say).
Very tricky to find figures for them, and in the end I plumped for Old Glory. I think they are Line light infantry flank coys. Again, light on good officers (Front rank and Foremost, this time), and a bit of a mental high porte pose but I like them.

The final piece of Old Glory Guardsters is this 40 man regt of Polish Lancers, the heads are a little big, but they are quite sweet. The big advantage of OG is that the quality of the metal they use is rubbish...???...which means they are very easy to bend and perform head twists, arm bends etc. As you may have noticed I like my cavalry units to be as varied as possible, so this is a bit of a help. Also, they used to (not sure if they still do) have a policy of only selling cavalry in packs of ten. Which is frankly, pathetic. Who actually buys cavalry in tens? About the only unit it works for is, funnily enough, 40's of Guard under Grand Manner ( coincidence?), but for 24's or 32's its pretty useless. If...no, when, I do the Dutch Lancers, I'll probably use Elite, as the trumpeter figure drawing his sword is REALLY nice...although the Connoissuer ones are still lovely (and the Elite ones are a straight copy of them)
The only other OG figures I've bought are a load of their generals...they do HUNDREDS, so you can get all sorts of stuff, I painted a load up one time for Gerry...lots of Pussians and Russians.
Anyway, the next 5 days will be spent in front of the telly watching the final test and painting Victrix Italians, so I should have them finished over the weekend.
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have hundreds of OG figures for most periods but I really don't like their Napoleonic range. The French are the best and some of the Russians are OK but the rest are not very good. The Second Edition Range is much better.

I agree that I dislike the softness of the metal. Not only do I avoid any figures that will bend easily enough to be damaged, but I suspect the flexibility comes from a high lead content that I would really like to avoid. I love the metal Elite and FR use -- hard and robust.

On a related note, how hard is the metal used by Bicorne for their Connoisseur figs? Good quality? Have they maintained the quality of their moulds for this now aged range? I got some Foremost Hinchliffes and wasn't particularly happy with the evident mould quality.

Cheers,
Chris

Chris Cornwell said...

The metal that Andrew at Bicorne uses is top notch.
To be honest, I've not bought many Connoisseur figures, if any, from him, (I still have hundreds from when I imported them) but I have bought a lot of the Firing Line stuff and the metal he uses for them is way superior to the metal PG used to use. On a par with Elite, very tough.

Anonymous said...

Thanks

Red Cardinal said...

"have a policy of only selling cavalry in packs of ten. Which is frankly, pathetic. Who actually buys cavalry in tens?"

*Cough*

Well I do for starters. I suspect plenty of other people do too. You know, just because you're gaming "In the Grand Manner" with large units shouldn't lead you to presume all other wargamers are as well :)

Keep up the excellent blog!