Wagons and multi-based civilians - a start

 

The first of the stagecoaches.  Russet red base color with yellow wheel spokes.

That green color was an 'oops' in dry brushing the texture on the base - since fixed.

Driver and shot gun.  There are four painted figures inside as well but my photo skills aren't good enough for that level of macro photography.

The six horse team.

The chuck wagon.

Two buckboards, lady in colorful dress achieved with an ink wash.

Closer shot.

The other buckboard.

Two buggies.

The doctor.

A well-to-do man and son.

The grain wagons.

Horses of a different color for each wagon.

And some variation in the drivers.

Three.

And four.

A group shot of the ten so far.  Note one dead figure for the stagecoach.  A later batch included some dead draft horses - but no photos yet.

And then a bunch of civilians.

Men, mostly unarmed but a few in this group with weapons, note each group of 12 figures on four bases also gets two dead figures.

A closer shot - man in back with a banjo and to his left (our right as viewed) a young man with a book.

This counts as an armed group with at least two armed men per stand.

A closer shot.

Copper miners created using artillery crew figures and some 'out of ammo' figures.

Closer shot.

A group of women with a couple toting rifles.  Dead women are a challenge - no one makes any (except two in Blue Moon horror range - too big for here and only two as part of a set of about 30 figures).  Bought some Peter Pig Vietnam range dead villagers I will be using in the future - for women and children, at least they are smaller.

Closer shot.

Another group, one woman with a cleaver and another with a pistol in her right hand.

Closer shot.

A group shot of all the multi-based civilians painted so far.  LOTS more of these to paint - eventually.  Except for the group noted as armed, these will normally count as unarmed civilians and generally be used as background for a game.  Of course, they can be used as more active participants if desired.

The wagons and the civilians all together.  So far.  Individually based figures - all named - coming soon.  The individually based figures will include mounted/foot/dead groups of three plus one standing horse and one dead horse - though one group a bit different.  Key non-mounted figures get a foot and dead figure (and sometimes an animal - mule, dog, etc.) while other non-mounted figures will be two dead per twelve figures - for the more active unarmed civilians.

 

Some painted figures and a scenario in development

 

Figuring out a stock yard - got the size I want, need to base of course.  And not shown but at the bottom of the yard I'm going to add a loading ramp to get the cattle in to the stock cars - which I have in the wings waiting to get finished, conversions/scratch builds on top of Peter Pig flat cars.

Newbie Pauls - mounted, on foot, and dead.

Eldred Gregory

Picky Slim

Bren Walters

Buckskin standing horse and dead horse - another character due on buckskin horse, three characters form a group and each group gets a standing and dead horse.

Palomino group - another character due on a palomino horse.  These are painted by a friend - and if all goes according to plan there will be a total of 24 characters as well as a dozen each unarmed men and women from him on foot only.  The twelve figure foot only unarmed groups only get two casualty figures for the whole group.

The First Old West Scenario:

 

"Incident at the Van Vittles Ranch Stock Spur"

 

George "The Dude" Van Vittles owns a spread about the size of Rhode Island and has his latest shipment of longhorns ready to board trains and head out to meet an army contract.  Kettle Kelly, the ranch cook - and the best in the west: as George says, "With a name like mine, I've got to feed my men the best I can and 'ole Kettle sure cooks a fine meal" - is preparing to put on quite the spread.  And some of the 'neighbors' are traveling to enjoy the festivities, the ranch's spare rooms are among the finest in the territory so why not and George always puts his guests up overnight given the travel times required.  Why, heck, there just might be a few surprise dignitaries showing up on the noon (well, noonish) stage that runs near the stock pens.  Or maybe they will be making a whistle stop at the station nearby that serves the ranch; it is a huge ranch.  

 

What isn't known on the ranch is some of the recently hired cowhands have acquaintances in that nest of thieves Muleskinner Canyon.  Word has made it to the worst of the worst that there will be quite the pay day for the cowhands and a plot is brewing to 'borrow' the strong box, no interest to be paid.  A few of the old timers warn that tangling with Van Vittles is asking for several wagon loads of trouble, serious trouble.  The young guns intimidate them into keeping that nonsense to themselves.  And since it's been a while since the last score, there is no shortage of 'volunteers' willing to ride out for the promise of so much loot.  Naturally, the local soiled doves - denizens of The Pig Farm - egg them on in the hopes of getting their own share of ill gotten gains.

 

The sun has risen on what promises to be a glorious day.  At least until it isn't.

 

A whole lot of horses are getting saddled up over in Muleskinner Canyon.  A whole lot of appetites are whetted near the main ranch house given the delicious smells emanating from the cook house.

 

Never know what might result if a lot of gun play goes off in the presence of a lot of cattle - even if they are all penned up.

 

What will sunset see?

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In preparation for that scenario and in addition to what is being painted for me, I have the following items in process - hopefully get it all for the event but don't strictly require it all to get done:

An overall shot of some of the items.

Water tower from Blue Moon with modified spout, small train station from Stone Mountain (?), grain wagon from Blue Moon's Napoleonic generic wagon range, buggies and buckboard from Blue Moon's Old West range - with swapped out drivers except for the doctor in his buggy.

Stagecoach from QRF/Freikorps' Yellow Ribbon Range.

The two outhouses - one with door open! - are from Peter Pig as is the well.  The six figures represent George van Vittles and two of his formidable side kicks - Johnny 'Forest' Blue and Clark Twilight.

Windmill is from Woodland Scenics (?) acquired from an estate sale.  Chuck wagon on the left is from Peter Pig as is the sign just to its right - and the longhorn head (from Peter Pig) will be attached to the sign.  The figures in 'yellow' at the bottom are certain women of the Old West: Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, and Belle Starr - no mounted versions though I wish there were (not designed at such, just figures I've designated as such).  The two dead on the right belong to Sister Veronica aka Veronica Veloputous who also has two mules which can be seen in the overall shot above.

The 18 ranch hands (or whatever they need to be) from various sources including some Frontier Miniatures figures I've had for decades and then hitch racks and water troughs from Stone Mountain and Peter Pig and others.

The, mostly, unarmed and multi-based civilians, five groups - two of women, three of men.  The bottom group of men is armed, a few other figures have a few weapons but don't count as armed groups.

This box includes what has been painted for me and much of what remains to be painted for me.  Painter, John W., has eight more characters to paint and those twenty-four unarmed individually based figures plus four dead.  So, at least - I hope - will have twelve characters ready for the game from him.  Perhaps the civilians, too.

I will be painting the balance not being painted by John.  The train and tracks are already painted enough to be in a game but could use some additional work.  A variety of additional buildings to be included in the scenario also already painted.  May pull out a bunch of tables primed and ready to paint to represent that spread from Kettle Kelly.  As of now, planning to run the game in early to mid-December so really need to push to get all of this done, or as much as possible.

Single Bases Arrive! No need to panic.

Almost from inception, I've planned to multi-base my Old West figures.  Recently, however, I've toyed with doing at least some on single bases - in large part from having found some nice round steel bases which work a lot better than square bases for me both for stability and aesthetically.  So I rummaged through the 'periphery' of the collection and found 24 mounted figures which I matched as best I could with 24 foot figures and added in 24 dead figures to make 'sets' of matched mounted/foot/dead.  Didn't have enough 'extra' saddled horses to mark dismounts, only eight, so I made eight groups of three, did have enough dead horses so each group will also have a dead horse.  I plan to make each group of three mounted on similar colored horses, all three on roans for instance with a matching roan saddled horse and dead horse.  One of the 24 is a woman, the rest are men.  

Since I'm so fond of games with unarmed civilians roaming around, I also dove into the unarmed figures on the edges of the collection and found a dozen men and a dozen women - but with too many duplicated sculpts (leftover figures more or less) so I went into the 'main collection' and swapped out figures from various groupings to reduce that unwanted duplication.

So far, the metal is only cleaned up and primed and that is what the images below show.  However, I've named all 24 of the 'sets' figures and the unarmed civilians.  The 'sets' are inspired my western movie actors, the unarmed civilians have character names from various western movies.

The first image shows the 12 unarmed women and two dead to go with them.  There are still a couple duplicates but just paint differently (dress and hair colors) and live with it. 

This second image has the 12 unarmed men.  Again the two dead.

An image of the eight standing saddled horses and eight dead horses.

On the right in front is group 4 and in the back is group 8.  

From right to left is group 1 through group 3 in front and group 5 through group 7 in back.

And just a shot of all the figures, 140 total pieces counting people and animals, alive and dead.

The above is really a small fraction of the total Old West collection but should be more than enough to get the period onto the gaming table this year.  Might add in some young folk, adolescents, and smaller children, a dozen of each, just not yet.

Here are the "Sets" by name:

Set 1: Willie Chiller, Picky Slim, Bren Walters

Set 2: Livy Landsalot (the lone woman), Eldred Gregory, Newbie Pauls

Set 3: Elm Jackeye, Wynn Keen, Boon Dickie

Set 4: Flint Haymaker, Mitch Roberts, Bron Carlitos

Set 5: Wayne Morris, Stew Jameson, Ford Glenburg

Set 6: Coop Garrulous, Lance Burtman, "Fondles" Henryson

Set 7: Maquerie "Mac" Stevens, Marvin Leafie, Eli Samuels

Set 8: Duvall Bobman, Arney Jimmer, Cob Burnjim

The unarmed men:

Nathan Burdette, Charley Hecker, Emmett Quincy, Mose Harper, Charlie McCorrey, Dalton Peabody, Cassius Starbuckle, Peter Ericson, Byron McElroy, Sam Fuller, Chris Calloway, Jack Wilson

The unarmed women:

Debbie Edwards, Hallie Stoddard, Emma Nelson, Alice Evans, Amy Kane, Mildred Fuller, Marian Starrett, Kate Nelson, Penelope Cushings, Lucy Mallory, Kathleen Yorke, Jill McBain, 

More thinking

 27 x 3 = 81 - that's how many individually based figures I'd have if I go that way for all 27 'units' of 12 mounted/foot/dead(standing horses, 1 for 3 only).  But I really like 90 a lot better.  So, I'll have to see if I can come up with an additional 9 foot/mounted/dead.  Pretty sure I have enough to make that work - except maybe additional standing horses.

Bigger challenge is going to be horses to mark dismounts.  Easy enough when just using the individually based figures, if I go that way - and getting more likely, just use three of the four standing horses for each 'unit'.  But when I want to mix the individual based with the 3-to-a-base, not so easy.  No way am I going to add that many additional standing horses to the total (at 2 x 27 = 54 plus probably a few more); might have enough additional to get part way there.  Or, maybe I am nuts enough to get that many more standing horses!  Resistance must rush in!!

Well, at least I know I can do whatever level of 1:1 figure gaming I'm likely to ever want with what I already have.