Saturday Update-Finally..A Head to Head Comparison

Dang...you woulda' thought that I was having a root canal by the length of time it has taken me to get this far on this unit. Geez...it's only 16 or so figures. The picture on the right is where the unit is at this point. I've put together a head to head gallery at Flickr. Please click here or on the title to take you to the gallery.

ALL THE BLUE FIGURES ARE WARLORD MINIATURES. THEY ARE THE MINIATURES WITH THE IN PROGRESS BASES AS IN THE INSET PICTURE

The unit is being based at this point. I've borrowed (stolen in a gamer's fashion) Clarence Harrison's basing style. It's simple and once it's dry is robust for fat war gamer fingers, dropping on the table, etc. This unit needs another24 hours for the basing sand and rocks to dry. I won't paint them until Monday afternoon at the least. I use Clarence's formula to the T. The bases get painted with Vallejo's Beasty Brown (I won't waste money on crappy GW paints-ever), let dry, painted again with a diluted Elmer's School Glue mix and dipped into mix of Medium and Light Woodland Scenics ballast (brown). The brown paint makes the places in which the ballast didn't stick invisible unless close. I then use a bright green static grass (again NOT GW) to work in on the bases. Clarence advised me to use a camouflage type of pattern so multiple bases go together well. Again, advise well taken to heart! It works and looks good.

Let's take a few moments to discuss head to head how Warlord compares to Old Glory, Dixon, Renegade, and Perry figures on the game table. As previously blogged, the Warlord figures look consistent with the other manufacturers on the game table. That's OK with me since I've got more to paint out of the box set. The OG figures are curiously chunkier than the Warlord (a little more well fed perchance?) and are a tad easier to paint. As has been blogged before, both sets of miniatures take my "git 'er done and don't Richard around with the project" style of painting. This may disturb more sedate and organized painters but; it works and looks PDG on my game table. Has for years!

In my opinion, Warlord figures will not mix well with OG, Dixon, nor Renegade but should mix quite well with Perry since these figures are on the scrawny side of 28mm anyway. I will paint another regiment or so plus some F'Lorne Hope to add to the collection. They do look fine when built into solely Warlord units. Funny how that works eh? It's a vast British conspiracy right? The Warlord figures just don't have the deep "cuts" (folds?) necessary for producing large amounts of contrasts on the figures. I'm not disappointed but probably just lazy...I would rather not do the Dallimore glop and paint every single musculature like a Rubens painting. I want to get things started, get things done and have units look good on the table in a reasonable time frame. Putting Warlord figures together is an extra time irritant for me. I knew that going into this mini-project. Would I buy more? I don't know. I want to see their cavalry just to see if I can paint plastic horses using my 30+ year old oil rub method. Hope Rustoleum primer sticks to horse's butts like it did to the musketeers.

For an inexpensive (relative term in any hobby) way for gamers to get started or add units quickly to an existing collection; Warlord ECW figures may be something to consider. I'm an old school lead junky and like the weight of figures on the table. I'd also paint Warlord figures if I was doing a demo game in which I didn't want my primary collection to get abused by fat, stinky war gamers with greasy hands from eating at Mickey D's.

We have a news spot here in Dallas called "Deal or Dud". I'd rate these figures a deal but if they don't get painted and still played....their OWNER is a DUD!