Fast Forward to the Future of Wargaming
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| The Old Ral Partha figures still stand up today. |
This magazine was one of those turning point moments. As I turned towards 'real' wargaming. The magazine was full of great articles but it was the Fantasy Wargaming article by John Treadaway that really caught my eye (along with the free Saxon army).
A lot of the figures featured in the article are still available from Ral Partha (from the their Legacy range) and from Essex miniatures. So I decided to get the featured Ral Partha figures. I think detail is extraordinary and it is only really the 25mm scale that marks them out as different.
One of those random thoughts is that I have always thought that most of the human sized figures on the 20mm bases always looked cramped when ranked up for Warhammer. But when the 1st edition of Warhammer was released the 25mm miniatures were the norm. And these 25mm figures look perfectly ok on the 20mm bases. So, I suppose they didn't revise the base sizes when Citadel moved from 25mm to 28mm as the standard sized human figure.
At the time getting a free cut out Saxon army from Standard games was a real game changer. I think of this as my first proper wargaming army and I went on to get the Norman army as well. Unfortunately the Normans (& the original Saxons from the first magazine) were lost to time and I haven't been able to find any copies of the Normans on the internet. Once I can get my printer working again I will print and cut out a few of the Saxons from the second magazine. I believe they were designed by Gary Chalk.
I managed to get a second copy of this magazine at B&B a few years ago with the Saxon army still intact.
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| On the paint bench |
Rob
The size change from 25mm to 28mm wasn't a major problem I found. 25mm scales pretty well with 28mm with just some characters being a bit taller/shorter. Though some companies 25mm can kinda com off as a bit too small.
ReplyDeleteAs for the card figures.. Love them. Don't really do them much myself these days and all but I love that fact of using Card proxies being perfectly fine. I remember the Warhammer 4th Edition box set and the 40K starter both having plastic figures but for the larger stuff (Hawk for the High Elves, Dreadnought for the Space marines etc) being a card proxy to use which you could then replace with the model if/when you could afford. A magazine giving a whole army you could use like that (and in fact, Both sides) is a great thing. Younger people or ones without the money etc to get the minitures, can perfectly join in with them.
I'm sure I remember seeing some bulk armies on card for sale at some point.. probebly late 80s/early 90s but I don't think anyone sells that kinda thing now and some of the newer people seam to look down their noses at some of the older days.. sigh..
That's a great article.... I've managed to Id most of the figures in the battles shown, and am lucky enough to own many of them from Joe's collection.
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DeleteThanks and it would be great to see some more of those JD minis on your blog :)
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