A small and enjoyable 1:1 skirmish game played solo with 36mm converted Pound Store plastic ‘penny dreadful’ figures, fought over a number of evenings on a portable game board.
Peter Laing 15mm WW1 Late War German infantry, converted to WW2 Desert DAK Deutsche Afrika Korps. Almost finished except for faces, fine details and gloss varnish.
You won’t find a Peter Laing 15mm WW2 Western Desert range as his WW2 range was a limited WW2 range of Americans, British and Germans.
Now that the Peter Laing figures are sadly no longer available and the original moulds probably lost, there will be no specific WW2 Western Desert range. However the slight detail of Peter Laing’s 15mm figures, which were painstakingly carved from laminated plasticard, here proves to our benefit:
“Detail is kept muted so there is no overscale effect, the detail in the figure depends on the amount that is put in the painting.” (Peter Laing Catalogue intro)
“It is naturally difficult to cover every Army type, but I have tried to give a good representative range to enable satisfactory games to be played. In 15mm scale it is possible, by judicious use of paint, to vary one figure to represent various army types, and of course the use of a file and knife can extend the utility of a figure even further.” (Peter Laing Catalogue Ancients section)
Conversion was something Peter encouraged through his suggestion of Dual Use Items / Suitable Items from other ranges.
As Peter produced an unusually comprehensive WW1 range at a time when few makers (except Airfix) had any WW1 gaming figures, there are perfectly good WW1 Late German infantry and artillery that can be used for WW2 troops.
F743 German Infantry Advancing, Steel Helmet
F745 German Infantry grenade thrower, Steel Helmet
Simple paint detailing of straps on the rear side.
This set of unpainted WW1 German figures came with a few Feldgrau painted figures, some with red insignia and piping etc of a WW1 German soldier or a colourful early pattern camouflage of a Stalheim or Steel helmet.
Peter Laing 15mm field grey WW1 Late War German Infantry F743, also suitable for WW2.Some of these already painted but second-hand WW1 Peter Laing figures needed a little repaint but arrived with some useful conversion details such as the Plasticard square / rectangle knapsacks. The centre figure has the colourful WW1 stalheim camouflage.
At some point when I have acquired enough Peter Laing British steel helmet figures, picked up online in ones and twos, I shall paint these spare British infantry in desert colours for a small WW2 desert skirmish force. Some of the khaki Indian infantry with Turbans would complement these well.
My 2017 WW1 era desert skirmish with Indian troops and a trial Desert DAK type German figure with WW1 Turks.
I have also experimented with filing down the pointed dome of the pith helmet on some spare WW1 British Infantry Tropical Helmet F748, working on spare figures who have broken bayonets etc, in order to make more of a steel helmet WW2 “desert rat”. They already have the desert shorts. I should be able to make a scratch rifles Platoon / section for small skirmish games in this way.
Peter Laing 15mm WW2 figures
I have posted previously about Peter Laing’s WW2 range and skirmish games
Today’s figure combines the women’s right to vote Centenary on 6 February 2018 and the wider focus on women’s role in the war as part of WW100 and the First World War Centenary Partnership.
A handy little biography is included with each figure.Emmeline Pankhurst – Part of the 2006 Corgi Forward March range
At the outbreak of war in 1914, Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), one of the leading voices for women’s suffrage, had firmly decided to embrace the war effort.
She halted their increasingly militant and destructive campaign for women’s suffrage for the duration of the war. This move divided her family and the suffragette movement.
Emmeline Pankhurst redirected her efforts to push for an increased role for women in support of the war, particularly in industrial jobs, so that women could directly help the war effort.
The “shell scandal” of lack of artillery shells and munitions for the British troops in 1915 saw a need to put more workers into the munitions factories to replace those male workers left for military service.
On March 17 1915 the Board of Trade set up the Women’s War Service Register to pair willing women with jobs in war industries. Some parts of the British government was not overly enthusiastic about the plan. By the end of 1915, only 8500 of the 42000 registered women had been matched to jobs.
On July 17 1915, Emmeline Pankhurst and the WSPU organized the Women’s Right to Serve march in London, in support of the hiring of women in the munitions industry, demanding the same pay as men.
This “Right To Serve” would doubly contribute to the war effort, both by producing munitions and freeing up men to serve on the front.
The Women’s Right to Serve march received direct support from Lloyd George’s Ministry of Munitions. Despite these efforts, hiring of women into jobs vacated by men via the government Register set up for the purpose remained lacklustre throughout the rest of 1915.
There is an interesting photograph on this Alexander Palace blog showing Emmeline Pankhurst with MariaBochkariev.
“Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, who had arrived in Russia in June 1917, showed her appreciation of the wonderful sacrifice made by the women of the the Battalion of Death by becoming an ardent champion of Maria Bochkarieva. The latter, in turn, appreciated Mrs. Pankhurst’s sympathy, and a warm friendship sprang up between these two leaders of women.”
Mrs Pankhurst and the Battalion of Death – There’s a FEMbruary double for you that I didn’t expect.
Time is running out with only a week left of FEMBruary, I’m not sure if my third FEMbruary challenge, converting a Mexican peasant woman figure into a Suffragette will be complete in a week. If only I could find an extension of the FEMbruary painting challenge into March somehow?
Maybe I could finish my suffragette over the next week or two. Aha! There’s always #MARCH, the MARCHing figure, MARCHing parade or MARCHing band painting challenge that I just thought of. Sweet Procrastination!
It is according to the blog of CupcakesandMachetes, also Women’s History Month in March, and so has already linked to blogger Imperial Rebel Ork, who was my accidental introduction to FEMbruary via the Suburban Militarism blog.
Women’s History Month is always held in March so that it coincides with the celebration of InternationalWomen’sDay on March8. In 2018, Women’s History Month will run from March 1 to March 31 and is marked in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
International Women’s Day (IWD) has occurred for well over a century, with the first March 8 IWD gathering supported by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. Prior to this the Socialist Party of America, United Kingdom’s Suffragists and Suffragettes, and further groups campaigned for women equality. Today, IWD belongs to all groups collectively everywhere. IWD is not country, group or organisation specific. Make IWD your day! – everyday! https://www.internationalwomensday.com
Two or more weeks already into February, how am I doing on the three or four targets that I have set for myself to celebrate the female figures in my toy soldier and gaming collection?
#FEMbruary 1: look through my toy soldier collection and pick out some of my favourite female figures for this blog
#FEMbruary 2: do a tissue paper and PVA Featherstone conversion on one of my childhood 1:32 Airfix Footballers into a high stepping saloon girl (with or without rifle?) for 54mm Wild West games
My Fourth FEMBruary challenge: The lovely Land Army women from Annie Norman at Bad Squiddo Games have been on the painting table this weekend.
Some quick “pewtering” (a quick coat of paint and then wiped off before dry) brought out how much detail these figures have. It also usefully fills in some dark and shadowy places before the colour coat.
Rather then try and fail to emulate the superb matt realist painting on the packaging by Andrew Taylor, I thought I would use Gloss Acrylic (as I don’t have or normally use Matt paint anyway). I wanted a more gloss Toy Soldier style look which is a bit more difficult at 28mm, rather than at 54mm toy soldier size. Still some tidying up to do on the Land Girl figures including smoothing out the gloss / flesh Acrylic mix, which is a bit lumpy still.
I was trying to second guess what figures from Bad Squiddo Games that Marvin at Suburban Militarism would choose, having incidentally introduced me to FEMbruary. I chose Land Girls, he chose Catherine The Great
Aim high and aspire for the top jobs, why not? Empress of Russia, or the Queens shown as my first part of the FEMbruary challenge, photographing some of the female figures in my collection.
High kicking! Work has begun on FEMbruary No. 2 the Donald Featherstone suggested Airfix footballer to Wild West saloon girl conversion. First out comes the PVA and tissue paper to add some feminine attributes, hair and then flowing big flouncy showgirl dress.
At this early stage, the big hair still looks like a 70s footballer Kevin Keegan, albeit in a dress. Some more work required here! Once the frills, chokers, flounces and real tiny feathers are added, hopefully ‘she’ will look more like a 1880s saloon girl.
Pound Store Plastic Warriors FEMbruary challenge.
The Pound Store Plastic Warriors challenge to convert these Poundland 32-36mm plastic soldier figures into tribal African style Amazon female warriors is underway. These should be colourful, more red and yellow and bling, than the white robed male desert warriors that I have worked on recently.
To be fair, we started late, not on FEMbruary the First. There are still nine days left of the FEMbruary challenge 2018 and there are plenty of topics and figures left for FEMbruary 2019. There is always MOREFEMber too!
What might you do you for FEMbruary this year or 2019?
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN, FEMBruary 18th 2018.
Beautifully packed and presented, my Bad Squiddo Games order was like receiving an artisan taster box of chocolates through the post.
As part of my FEMbruary challenge of exploring the female figures in my collection, I have been listening to the amazing Annie Norman of Bad Squiddo Games on the Meeples and Miniatures Podcast talk about her believable female gaming miniatures and her recent WW2 range.
“The number one aim for Bad Squiddo Games is to create and supply the miniatures that would have made the hobby far far better for my 10 year old self. To welcome more young girls and women into wargaming and miniature painting, as well as providing diverse options to the entire gaming community. And yeah – cool toys!” Bad Squiddo website
I currently don’t game in 28mm scale, so this beautiful little vignette or diorama of a Land Girl or Land Army Picnic caught my eye. It has now been added to my expanding FEMbruary challenge of photographing my collection and painting and converting more female figures.
Despite running a one woman business creating new figures and involved in Kickstarter projects, this order was speedily returned. I haven’t ordered direct from many metal figure manufacturers since Peter Laing’s friendly and personal mail order and speedy return of 15mm figures back in the 1980s but Annie at Bad Squiddo Games matches this well.
Annie Norman’s presentation of her figures and range is colourful and eye catching, her range of figures widely incorporates from Vikings to WW2 and on to fantasy and even fighting fluffy beasties (coming soon).
Up close the Land Girl figures commissioned by Annie Norman from sculptor Alan Marsh are crisply sculpted and “believable” women in 28mm scale.
I am not sure yet how I am going to paint these – Matt or Gloss? Enamel or Acrylic? Toy Soldier style or more realistic, like Andrew Taylor’s painted examples of these figures.
Nicely animated, these Land Girls certainly looked like they needed a rest and a cuppa, lying back against a handy hay bale from my old farm collection.
They really do look like they are chatting and soaking up the sun, over tea out of enamel or NAAFI pint mugs and sandwiches out of wax paper wrapping.
To help you relax with a cuppa yourself during the painting process, Annie has included a handy tea bag. I received Blackcurrant and Blueberry. Marvin at Suburban Militarism received Darjeeling. A colourful and flavoursome marketing touch.
I have for other past projects read several Land Girl memoirs and histories. I have also been fortunate to meet some Land Girl re-enactors along with a few sparkly and sprightly elderly “Land Girls”. So I look forward to painting these figures which are Annie Norman’s way of celebrating her Land Army Nan and the other elderly Land Army ladies she knew growing up in Wales.
As she pointed out in her podcast interviews, the more figures you buy, the wider the range of interesting female figures she can make. Certainly a figure range and manufacturer to watch.
Blogposted for FEMbruary by Mark, Man of TIN February 2018.
(Asset Miniatures MA23) Flower Seller with fantastic non nonsense wrap around housecoat or pinny. You can almost hear her sing her street cries.
Having focussed on Queens in the last FEMbruary post, I thought I would focus on slightly more ordinary or achievable female jobs.
FEMBruary is a challenge set up by Leadballoony to focus more on the female figures in our collection as an attempt to be more inclusive as a hobby, along with all the things Annie Norman is trying to do with her believable female Miniatures stocked at Bad Squiddo Games. More on Bad Squiddo below and in my next blog post.
Here for #FEMbruary are a few more female figures from my toy soldier collection, a collection of old and new metal figures with a range of paint styles to guide my brush on my FEMbruary painting challenges.
The WRVS Women’s Royal Voluntary Service was one of those stalwart wartime women’s organisations which received recent and well deserved publicity in Housewife 49, the Mass Observation WWII wartime diaries of Nella Last in Barrow in Furness. This was turned into a TV drama, written and performed by the much missed Victoria Wood. If you have not read the diaries or seen Housewife 49, they are well worth tracking down as a book or DVD for an interesting view of (extra)ordinary women and their families on the Home Front.
and has an interesting wartime history and archives collection on its website.
Britain’s Farm Range featured this 54mm figure, supposedly a Land Army WLA girl / woman. In need of a new right arm!
I have one of two Land Army girls, including this Britain’s figure. Annie Norman at Bad Squiddo Games has featured some new Home Front women in 28mm including some fine Land Army Girls in three collections: working in the fields, armed with shotguns (bunnies and parachutists beware) and at picnic. More on Bad Squiddo in another post http://badsquiddogames.com/shop#!/WW2
Dorset Soldiers Salvation Army Band Lasses – another figure ripe for conversion to 54mm Suffragettes? Votes For Women!
Salvation Army bands were once a popular figure for Britain’s and other manufacturers, still highly collectable.
For more modern civilians there are always those sets of plastic civilians for model railways sold online unpainted. This young woman has a 1940s / 1950s look.
Work in progress on a Gloss finish plastic railway civilian 54mm.
Still need to do some work “putting her face on” before she goes out with a serious case of panda eyes.
Another distinctive and smart young woman in uniform was the Nippy.
A Nippy was a waitress who worked in the J. Lyons & Co tea shops and cafés in London. Because the waitresses nipped (moved quickly) around the tea shops, the term “Nippy” came into use. Nippies wore a distinctive maid-like uniform with a matching hat, the clean uniform being part of their wholesome image. Nippies appeared (and still appear) in all manner of advertising and the Nippy soon became a national icon until the last Lyons Corner Houses shut in the Seventies .
A smart Nippy waitress from the Lions Corner House (Asset Miniatures MA6)Oops, Ma’am! Laddered stockings on this Nippy requiring a quick paintbrush repair.
A Famous Crimean Nurse
Another recurring female figure in hollowcast metal and plastic ranges, apart from the odd squaw or a farm worker, was the army or civilian nurse. I have picked up a range of nurses (mostly in job lots) which could fill a whole future blogpost.
However the most famous nurse of them all is also featured in the recent Corgi Forward March range. Here is the other figure link to The Crimean War, which was mentioned in our last blog post about Queen Victoria and the first VCs. The Crimea is a curious, mismanaged and inglorious conflict that has always fascinated me. There was a Peter Laing 15mm Crimean War range that I wish I had bought but no nurses were featured.
Until the New National Gove Curriculum threatened to remove her and other historic figures, Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War had long been a part of the old National Curriculum primary history syllabus in Britain, along with Mary Seacole and Queen Victoria. I know some weary Primary school teachers who were pleased at the prospect of never having to teach Florence Nightingale again after years and years. However she was retained, as you can see below.
I wish we had done the Crimean War at school.
Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell and Mary Seacole along with Suffragettes and Queen Victoria are still suggested primary school content for British five to seven year olds:
“the lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements, some should be used to compare aspects of life in different periods for example, Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong, William Caxton and Tim Berners-Lee, Pieter Bruegel the Elder and LS Lowry, Rosa Parks and Emily Davison, Mary Seacole and/or Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell.”
The Corgi Forward March Miniatures limited edition range featured several other women and some handy mini biographies of each figure. They have a simple and attractive ‘hand painted’ paint finish.
Part of a limited edition distribution worldwide.
Few figures exist of Mary Seacole, the Jamaican Nurse and Sutleress who also served in the Crimea, although I have tracked down one recent 28mm limited edition which will feature on a future blog post.
Looks like FEMbruary might carry on past the 28th February this year at this rate.
So there you are, a range of believable female miniatures and female job roles from Nippy to nurse, flower seller to Florence Nightingale, from Sally Army Lasses and Land Army Girls to Suffragettes.
Cakes and tea supplied by the WRVS and the Lyons Corner House Nippy.
More to follow …
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN during FEMbruary 2018
Blog Post Script B.P.S.
I was saddened to hear that the sculptor of many of the Asset Miniatures figures Alan Caton died late 2015. Asset Miniatures figures like these WWII female figures above are still available secondhand online.
I was alerted to the online sale of this small box of John Mitchell Military Miniatures, thanks to Stephen Prentice. Stephen had seen my previous entries on John Mitchell box sets and buildings.
Some of the figures IDs are obvious – I had heard of the Victorian girl with hoop F7051 and Victorian boy with flag F7052 so I was confident that these probably were Peter Laing figures as best I could tell from the small online sales pictures.
The missing figure of the eight is possibly a duplicate of the girl, standing man or boy with flag? As one of my family pointed out, in keeping with today’s pulp fiction / Victorian Science Fiction VSF gaming, this might also be an ultra-rare, uncatalogued Peter Laing 15mm figure of The Invisible Man.
Hopefully my fellow Peter Laing collectors will assist me in identifying the other figures, which are presumably:
F7049 Civilian Male standing – presumably the male figure with the larger hat?
F7050 Civilian female standing – presumably the female figure with the hat or bonnet?
This still leaves unidentified the standing woman or older girl without hat and the man with hat and gesticulating arm on the odd-one-out green base.
Female figures are pretty rare in the Peter Laing range of figures. As part of FEMbruary looking at female figures in my collection, there is
F3006 A female settler and
F3018 Squaw in the ACW / Pony Wars series,
F8006 a Cantiniere in the Franco-Prussian range,
F9013 a peasant woman in the late Samurai series
F6009 a European woman (Memsahib) in the Indian Mutiny range.
Any of these might be in this box masquerading as Victorian Civilians.
Handling the box itself was interesting, it felt like the same flimsy card on which his card buildings were printed. The box is in fact a single sheet of A4 printed card cleverly folded. Unfortunately they were printed with a spelling mistake or printers typo of “Minatures” instead of “Miniatures”.
Fascinating to have one of these Mitchell sets and best of all, some delightful Peter Laing figures I thought that I would never own.
London 1945: A young Princess Elizabeth in her ATS uniform meets Civil Defence ARP workers whilst the amazing WRVS lady provides the tea (Asset Miniatures and Britain’s Ltd.)
The first of my #FEMbruary challenges was to find and photograph some of the female figures in my toy soldier collection:
This is based on a #FEMbruary challenge by Leadballoony which ImperialRebelOrk passed on, in his own words: “I would like to propose that we add Fembruary to the list – a time of year for us to collectively challenge the male domination of our collections, and commit to painting some female miniatures for a change…”
I may not have painted any of these following fine toy soldiers but they do challenge the male dominance of my toy soldier collection in a big way.
If you are going to give young women (gamers) something to identify with and aspire to, why not start with the top job?
First out of the toy soldier cabinets were two very different Queens, Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria. Both are recent hand painted miniatures from William Britain’s Ltd.
2006 HRH Princess Elizabeth II in her WW2 ATS Uniform
This WWII young Princess Elizabeth is quite a different figure from her familiar Britain’s metal incarnation on horseback as Queen for Trooping the Colour.
A far less glamorous uniform, more in common with the sensible stockings and drab green of the WRVS lady, although I think this WW2 Princess Elizabeth figure rather “bigheaded” in its moulding.
This fine Britain’s horseback Queen figure lives in a box or a display shelf. Somewhere I have a fine parade version on her horse Burmese in the modern Britain’s Hollowcast Figure range.
Two Queens, two very different Wars, separated by a century. Two reigns ending and beginning fifty years apart.
An even finer horseback figure is the young Queen Victoria in a recent Britain’s release of Queen Victoria presenting the first VC to Commander Raby, RN for his service in the Crimea.
Fine attention to detail. – The Navy were presented at first with a blue Victoria Cross, long before its current purple ribbon.The postcard shows one of the original prints or paintings by G.H. Thomas probably used as source material for this fine young Queen Victoria figure.
These sets look good from all angles, with excellent toy soldier Gloss style painting. Having these in your collection gives you some fine reference points.
So that was the top job.
Somewhere I have a rather Davros looking, stern Queen Victoria in her old age (Dorset Soldiers I think) to look out and finish painting for FEMbruary.
My next #FEMbruary blogpost will feature some slightly more ordinary women than HM the Queen, women such as the WRVS lady and others, along with another Crimean figure. A female one … any guesses?
Blogposted for #FEMbruary by Mark, Man of TIN February 10th 2018.
B.P.S. Blog Post Script
Here are the candidates for my #FEMbruary challenge 2: some Featherstone Airfix footballer conversions to Wild West saloon girls …
I don’t have many female miniatures or toy soldiers. The Queen, the odd nurse or land girl, a few female pioneers or Wild West Civilians. None of them are quite like the scantily clad Phoenix Phollies Figures (Phigures?) that lurked expensively in the back pages of Military Modelling magazine in the Eighties, near the latest Peter Laing adverts. You could (and I did) buy a small 15mm Peter Laing army for the cost of one of those female (or male fantasy) figures.
Marvin of the Suburban Militarism Blog sometimes features femalesoldiers including recently Serbian WW1 women soldiers
I had heard of Flora Sandes the British Sergeant Major through Kate Adie’s book From Corsets to Camouflage. I had also heard of Scottish nursing teams in WW1 at Ostrovo in Serbia. http://www.britserbcham.eu/british-nurses-in-serbia-1915/
Maybe #FEMbruary this year is extra special because it is the 100th anniversary of The Representation of the People Act on 6 February 1918 / 2018.
This enfranchised or gave the vote for the first time British women over 30 who qualified as property owners etc and British men over 21. To match the men without property who could vote, the women’s vote would finally be widened to all women over 21 in 1928. About blooming time!
Women partly earned this long-fought-for right because of their contribution to the war effort in WW1 stepping into many professions that had previously been denied them as men were called up.
How could you conscript and sacrifice the lives of large numbers of working men in the name of democracy, when these men without property didn’t have the vote back home?
A surprisingly large number of women died on the Home Front in munitions, air raids and overseas on active service through enemy action and disease.
This is the focus of the WW100 commemoration this year with the First World War Centenary Partnership and the Imperial War Museum.
#FEMbruary, Women, fantasy and gaming?
The Fantasy gaming world has more female gamers than the historical gaming / wargaming community. There are a few female Wargames bloggers such as Tamsin P. , “That mythical beast – a female Wargamer!”of the Wargaming Girl blog http://wargaminggirl.blogspot.co.uk
and also Victoria Dickinson at Vicky’s Crazy Wargames World blog with lots of unusual fantasy / historical gaming (Wormingrad? Fabulous Fimo fantasy figures?) http://crazywargames.blogspot.co.uk
Gaming has also had (in the past?) some fairly unrepresentative or oversexualised female miniature figures, something that is being challenged by the ‘Dice Bag Lady’ Annie Norman who runs Bad Squiddo games.http://badsquiddogames.com
Annie produces some interesting WW2 Russian women soldiers, British Land Girls and Women’s Home Guard figures, but in 28mm, unfortunately not one of my current gaming scales.
“The number one aim for Bad Squiddo Games is to create and supply the miniatures that would have made the hobby far far better for my 10 year old self. To welcome more young girls and women into wargaming and miniature painting, as well as providing diverse options to the entire gaming community. And yeah – cool toys!” Bad Squiddo website
What can Man of TIN do to mark #FEMbruary and the WoMan of TIN?
At a risk of distorting my New Gaming Year Unresolutions 2018
#FEMbruary 1: look through my toy soldier collection and pick out some of my favourite female figures for this blog
#FEMbruary 2: do a tissue paper and PVA Featherstone conversion on one of my childhood 1:32 Airfix Footballers into a high stepping saloon girl (with or without rifle?) for 54mm Wild West games
Man of Tin blog 