The Old Guard

In a startling display of efficiency, I 've finished almost all of the models that I bought at Vapnartak a couple of weeks ago. That just leaves a single second hand dreadnought to do.

This time it's eight Home Guard I purchased from Wargames Foundry to fill the ranks of my ad hoc VBCW/Operation Sea Lion Bolt Action force, turn my Dad's Army miniatures into a couple of useable units and fill out the extras needed for the Vlad's Army 7TV feature pack scenarios.

The models are metal, as would be expected from Wargames Foundry, and were all single piece castings except for the chap on the left of the above picture, whose hand holding the rifle was separate. This was a bit of a swine to position as the connection was not very clean or well lined up.

Sadly, this was a bit of a recurring theme, as there was an awful lot of flash to clean up and some of the models are a bit messy in places. The chap in the centre with the Molotov cocktail below has an ugly mould line running down the left side of his face. 

I'm not sure whether this is because this sculpts, and therefore their moulds are old, or I've just come to expect a higher standard from dealing with newer miniatures and different materials recently. However, based on these and the police, I will probably pause for thought before buying more from Wargames Foundry.

Having said that, the sculpts are characterful. The rifles are a bit stunted (and in one case slightly warped), but the faces are, for the most part, older men. Receding hairlines, glasses and overgrown moustaches abound to really make they miniatures fit the role they are meant to play.

A couple of the group are clearly meant to represent characters from Dad's Army, specifically Walker and Pike, and so I took care to make sure that they are recognisably different from the Warlord versions, giving the not-Walker grey hair, and ensuring that not-Pike's scarf is more generic.

Although I was a little bit critical of the casting of the Warlord models, based on a direct comparison I recommend them over Foundry if you are keen on picking up the Warmington-On-Sea militia.

In terms of painting, they were all done very simply in the same way as the Warlord models and they do go together really well. They now have a date with some supernatural agents of the Third Reich in the first episode of Vlad's Army, just as soon as I rebase a load of bats...again.

I'm pleased to be making such quick progress, as I was worried I'd undone my hard work at the start of the year. I've also started to sweat less about being exactly right with the Lead Mountain totals as I keep finding new miniatures or getting rid of things I won't use . the figure is roughly right and is going down, so it's all good.

Acquired: -4
Painted: 60
Lead Mountain: 521