Army Red

In the original Little Wars, H G Wells designated his forces as the Red Army and the Blue Army, rather than deciding on any actual countries.

Funny Little Wars rules does the same, but matches the colours to actual countries from the turn of the century, so Army Red is British, Army Horizon Blue is French, Army Black German, etc.

I am aiming to reproduce the two armies in Little Wars so will be developing Army Red and Army Blue based on British and French forces respectively.

Each army will initially consist of 80 infantry, 24 cavalry and 3 guns. For Army Red this will break down to:

3 units of 20 Line Infantry
1 Unit of 20 Guards
1 unit of 12 Lancers
1 unit of 12 Dragoons
1 Heavy gun with 4 crew
2 Field guns with 3 crew

My plan for the figures is to produce basic bodies for the troops with different heads and arms to cover the different troop types. I am extending this to produce a body for troopers, officers and Standard Bearers, but the latter two are just variants on the main trooper body.

Having separate heads also means that I can fit a 54mm figure into a 9 inch mould meaning I can cast them myself. The cavalry are going to be trickier, but we will probably split the horse into two halves so it can be cast.

Martin Baker, who sculpts a lot of my ranges for Black Hat Miniatures, is working on the figures for me and so far has produced a sample British infantryman with two different heads. I have painted up a couple of samples here:



I've asked Martin to make a couple of changes to the Home Service Helmet as I'm not sure that the shape is quite right.

All the figures will be produced in minimal, "parade" style kit - so without back packs, etc as that is the style of figure most often used by Wells and also harkens back to the British Guard set from Airfix that I remember from my childhood. They will also all be in marching poses as I prefer that look.

I will probably look at buying other figures to use as Generals, etc rather than produce a figure that I really only need one of.

Eventually I will add light troops such as the Rifle Brigade and other ancillary forces which are used in Funny Little Wars.

More pictures of figures as I get the greens and then mould, cast and paint them.