The figures I ordered from Donnington last weekend have arrived in the post today. Just to recap, they are:
"Alan" type:
24 light horse bowmen
These will be first up for prepping and painting once I've done 36 armoured lancers. This will give me all the figures I need for my Early Alan army for Campaign.
Scythians
General, standard bearer, cataphract/armoured lancer - command group
12 cataphracts/armoured lancers
24 light horse bowmen
These will provide a "Later Scythian/Saka Allies" contingent to use with my Sarmatians and potentially with several others. There's no rush for me to get these done, so they'll go in the queue to be done after all my Sarmatians are finished.
Grrrr!!
Last night, after posting, I carried on with figure prepping. Part of the prepping involves gently splaying the legs of the riders so that they will actually sit properly on the horses. In the previous 150 or so riders I've done this to, there has never been a problem. However in the last set of 24 there were 2 that decided to break off at the right knee (and the lower legs pinged off somewhere, so are lost) and another 2 that broke off at the right hip. Looking at the break points, there are lots of tiny bubbles in the metal which suggests that water or air got into the molten alloy as it was being poured.
The 2 figures missing their lower leg can be hidden when I base them, so not really a problem there, but I'm going to have to do some nifty stuff with the ones that came off at the hip (pinning, filling, carving/sculpting down the filler). Mind you, I do potentially have 2 spare lancers from the strips I was painting up for command groups, so I could use those in the battle groups.
About Me
- TamsinP
- London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- A mythical beast - a female wargamer! I got back into wargaming in the summer of 2011 after a very, very long break and haven't looked back since. I must admit that I seem to be more of a painter/collector than a gamer, but do hope to correct that at some point in the near future. My gaming interests span the ages, from the "Biblical" era all the way through to the far future. I enjoy games of all sizes, from a handful of figures up to major battles (see my megalomaniacally sized Choson Korean and Russian Seven Years War armies).
Sounds like a right pain in the neck......or is that leg??
ReplyDeleteThey're obviously battle-hardened soldiers who have had their legs amputated after previous engagements in the service of their commander. Maybe?
ReplyDeleteright nice bit of consumer advice there. I'll avoid that company
ReplyDeleteIt happens, there's bits of figures all over my work place!
ReplyDelete@Joseph - maybe, maybe ;)
ReplyDelete@Gowan - I'm not saying to to avoid Donnington. It's only 4 figures out of 150 or so cavalry (plus the 96 foot), and casting problems like that do happen sometimes to all manufacturers. As the bubbling was internal, not on the surface, there's no way they could have known it was there.
It's just annoying that it happened to me. Apart from these, they're a great company - nice sculpts, easy to use website, sell figures individually, large range of figures, decent price and pretty quick turnaround of orders.
That's a real shame Tamsin. I'm not good at repairing figures so I hope you have better luck than me at it.
ReplyDeleteHow about casulties? Straighten the legs, cut the lance out and put the figure under the horse?
ReplyDeleteIt is a pain, especially as you have painted the horse already
Ian
@Rodger - if I have luck, it will be of the beginners' variety - never done this before ;)
ReplyDelete@Ian - that's not a bad idea. Hmmm, casualties for status markers......
Casualty figures are a good idea.
ReplyDeleteAh a little bit of soldering is what you need - and then they will be as good as new. But it takes some practice!