Reviews of miniatures is something that prevalent enough on the internet. Sure, if you aren’t interested in the product they’re invisible, but if you are googling a set of miniatures to see if they are right for you not finding any reviews can be quite frustrating. It’s also a good source of content for my website.

My favorite sculpt.

I purchased these Conquest Miniatures’ Woodland Indians¹ for a club campaign that never happened. I’m not bothered that I’ve never had the chance to use them because when I first saw them advertised on TMP I knew I wanted a chance to paint some.

The miniatures come six to a pack for $15 USD today, although I think I paid $11 USD. Still, that’s $2.50 USD a miniature, about average for miniatures of this quality. The packs are not random, what you see on the website is what you get. Here is a painted example of each miniature from this pack². The miniatures were sculpted by Todd Harris.

The miniatures are cleanly cast with little flash. Casting, as opposed to sculpting, is an under-appreciated art. The only time that most people notice it is when dealing with poorly cast figures. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between poor casting and poor sculpting. In this case, the casting does the sculpting justice.

The miniatures show a good level of fine detail on faces coupled with crisp, bold detail over the rest of the miniature. This rewards careful painting as well as providing a sufficient base for a more slap-dash style of army painting. Of particular delight is the finely sculpted musculature. The arms are not ill-defined flesh tubes or fantasy-style muscles-piled-on-muscle. This gives a painter something to shade and highlight while still looking realistic for the subject matter. The muskets are pleasingly slender and pouches sufficiently varied and interesting for a subject matter where every possession was both highly ornate and individualized.

A selection of miniatures from the Woodland Indian and Delaware Indian line.

The poses are full of action and animation. The only pose that a hardcore wargame may complain about is my favorite in the batch. The cradled rifle and casually held tomahawk might look a little out of place in a pitched skirmish, but to my eyes are evocative and full of meaning. Perhaps he is watching a battle from a distance, deciding if it is a good time to enter the fray. Perhaps he is a leader, waiting to give the order to attack. He would wonderfully suit a vignette featuring a foppish European approaching him hoping for a parlay. The tomahawk he carries also includes a pipe, so the pose is of an Indian deciding which end of the tomahawk to offer: the axe of war, or the pipe of peace.

These miniatures are a must have for anyone interested in the period. The sculpting is of such quality that display painters looking for an interesting subject would do well to pick up a few packs and create a diorama or vignette.

I rate these miniatures highly, receiving a 5 out of 5.

1) I don’t really like using the term Indian, but other terms, such as Native Americans and First Nations can be unwieldy. The problem is always applying a generic term to a varied group of peoples.

2) One of the miniatures in the gallery was substituted from Pack B. At the time I ordered these miniatures Pack A was listed out of stock. I really liked the poses in Pack A, so I inquired as to when it would be available. Conquest Miniatures’ owner Eric Roof replied that he was a couple of weeks away from restocking, but had a Pack A available minus a pose. He suggested I could substitute a pose from another pack if I was set on that pack. Since the missing pose wasn’t the one I cared about I gladly made the substitution. Great customer service.

Gallery Updated

While reading histories on the War of 1812 I am struck by the difficulty of translating what is written into units for the wargames table. My biggest difficulty is that it’s easy enough to say: “And Dennis detached a company to guard this point, where they fought a fierce skirmish” (not an actual quote). It is difficult to determine how to model that event on the tabletop. A Very Brilliant Affair has detailed OOBs for the battle, but with some units being given at a strength of 10, without indication if they just bolstered the ranks or another unit or fought as their own, 10-man Battalion.

In order to understand this more I’ve located a British drill manual. Hopefully that will help me understand how the combantants organized themselves on the field. Even without the drill manual A Very Brilliant Affair has explained a lot about the period that I wasn’t clear on. It’s been recommended that as I continue to read other books I’ll understand more. I’m sure I will. Once I do, though, I plan to write some articles for those that are in my current position so that they can better understand how to organize their wargames without the crutch of rules-specific army lists.

Last night I updated my gallery with the rest of the 500 Nations miniatures I’ve painted.

Gallery Updated

Last night I put my nose to the grindstone and finally updated the gallery. I added another unit to the Battle of Five Armies gallery in the fantasy section, and I added Pack A from Conquest Miniatures 500 Nations Woodland Indians range in the historical section. Instead of posting each figure individually I decided to group them by pack or unit. Since I’ve no idea what the unit structure will be in That Dark and Bloody River I decided to group them by pack.

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The plan was be a day ahead of these posts in my painting. For example, on Monday I painted the flesh, even though I posted about it on Wednesday. Last night, it all fell apart.

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Another 9 brave warriors have come under my brush as I continue struggling to come to grips with the Dallimore style.

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I’ve settled myself in to the pleasant task of reading my first piece of research on the French and Indian War, Fred Anderson’s Crucible of War. I ordered the book from Chapters and it arrived last night. I’ve only just cracked the cover, but so far am pleased with the number of illustrations and maps. I often find it hard to visualize things without maps, especially in the loosely defined frontiers of 1750′s North America. For example, it wasn’t until I looked up both forts on the map that I discovered that Fort Edward is south of Fort William Henry. I assumed, since the French were planning to attack Fort Edward, then diverted to Lake George where Sir William Johnson was building Fort William Henry, that Fort Edward (Fort Lyman at that time) was north, closer to French territory.

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The first batch of 500 Nations figures are finished and awaiting basing. They will be based with the rest of the unit and are resting until that time. Next week is when I plan to finish the last 9 figures, but will try to take pictures of the completed miniatures this week. I just wasn’t in the mood to haul out the camera and lights.

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One of the things that always strikes me when I am painting is how different things begin to look as more and more colour is added. The whole miniature is brightened as colour covers the black basecoat while individual colours become less bright and contrasted. This can sometimes lead to a miniature with a darker final effect then desired. This isn’t happening as much on these figures, but I struggled with this while painting my 10mm Warmaster Dwarves

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The easy parts are finished on my 500 Nations figures. Things go so fast when painting the big areas that it is easy to imagine the small details will go as fast. While this could be true on uniformed troops, on figures like these Delaware I don’t have the luxury of painting all the leather strapping and bags all the same colour. I’ve already been lazy and not covered everything with the decoration normally found on a Native American’s clothing. Aside from being too busy, it’s more work than I want to do on these figures.

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Shirts are finished.

The Dallimore style is definately easier render on cloth. Faces need some order, but cloth can be me free-form and willy-nilly, as long as you align your strokes along points of stress. These are areas where the cloth is bound, either by something enclosing it, like a belt, or by something pushing against it, like a knee or elbow. When I was finished I showed my wife and she was suitably impressed. Her eyes don’t normally pick up the more subtle blending that is my normal style, but they could see these much easier.

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