Nice week-end everyone!
Best regards,

Strelets

Comanche and some very useful American Dragoons. I’ll very much be looking forward to this pairing. Thank you Strelets and good weekend to all!

Those indians are Apaches, by their hair. I do certainly hope mounted Comanches and rangers, dismounted dragoons and foot and mounted Mexican soldiers and bandits are also forthcoming. My dream would also include a 1840s-50s scalp hunting party with personalities based on Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

The roots of the hobby is boys and 'that more intelligent sort of girl' playing cowboys and indians? That's a big call Yuri! It's Friday: time for some over-analysis.

Aren't the roots of the hobby in Kriegspiel, 1824? The representation of battles and campaigns in a game-simulation with clear rules? That means 'Napoleonics', or at least the immediate-post Napoleonic period, though not with figures, but with blocks. Mind you, this is part of the use of wargames in the professional military, so we should look to HG Wells and 'Little Wars'. In this case its late 19th century and 54 mm figures, or larger. Of course, I am looking at this with my wargamers blinkers on. Making and 'collection' miniature figurines of warriors goes back millennia...

Still, from a personal perspective, I can see what you mean. I probably began with my Timpos (54 mm again), playing out scenes from Saturday afternoon westerns. This, and having some of my Dad's Britains figures of his childhood to look at and to play with, sparked the interest in toy soldiers, moving on to playing out scenes from World War Two films, with 1/32 Airfix. With the passage of years and (on-going) reading of much history, the toy soldiers of childhood became the military miniatures of adulthood and an interest in understanding it more by recreating battles in miniature...

So much for that, overly self-indulgent waffle!

It is absolutely marvellous to be greeted, on my Friday morning, with more photos of your sculptor's wonderful masters. I appreciate this three-fold.

Firstly, that you take the time to post late on a Thursday, to allow people to wake to this on their Friday as the world turns—although Asher cheated and looked at them late on his Thursday night, cheeky Asher hahaha!!
Secondly, since I, increasingly, am appreciating the sculpting of figures, beautiful little works of art that are intended to be transformed into moulds so as to churn out little bits of plastic (or metal) wonder. I enjoy this all the more as we are in a time when so much (too much, imho) is being produced by scanning, computer aided design and 3D printing.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, because it is further evidence that Strelets is 'keeping on keeping on' despite the many existential, economic and business challenges.

As always, thanks so much and best wishes,
James

Excellent thoughts and comments James.

I too like and appreciate the skill of the sculptor, something beyond most mere mortals.

My attempts at using clay etc in the dark past ended up looking like the Glob monster from Venus.

Thanks for the update Strelets. I'm sure you will continue to make many customers happy with the USA "western ranges."

Kind regards and happy modelling to all.
Danny

Hi

lovely set of figures and good to hear a little on the origins of wargaming James.

Cowboys and Indians with various 54mm for me followed by airfix and hence to the world of 1/72nd wargaming

Given the theme, is there any prospect of some Mexican troops in the pipeline, who fought the Comanches, Apaches, Texians and the USA? The Vachero style irregular lancers, regular Cavalry and foot in Somberos et al would be good

Keep safe and thank you Strelets

Very good, I am curious Airfix did a stunning US cavalry set in 1/32 and always expected someone to mimic it in 1/72 , but it has never happened, ditto Mexicans in sombrero's ? is there something about them that makes 5them difficult or impossible to make in our scales.

I always wanted Mexicans in sombreros too. I even bought extra Strelets Crimean War French cavalry back in the day waiting for Mexicans to be made so I could do Napoleon III in Mexico or Camerone. But I am happy to get the US Dragoons right now. I have many uses for them.

Haha I couldn’t help myself James. I usually try to wait as long as I can on Friday, but with all the great sets being teased lately I was watching all evening Thursday. I was hoping their opponents would be Mexicans, but I do like the Comanche route. I’d fully endorse the Rachero suggestion, or any Mexican irregulars. If I can ever figure out how to post pictures on here I’ve found a great solution to provide Mexicans regulars for the Mexican American War using a series of former Strelets sets. But I certainly hope you can see the proper thing someday. This certainly being a great start!

Hi

Certainly be interested in any conversion tips

I have the Strelets French Chasseurs Afrique for similar reasons

There is something of a gap in 1/72nd for the Mexicans, the only attempt at a range has some significant limitations, where as the Texans are well done. They did some nice Presido lancers but all on foot!!

The other staple feature of growing up with cowboys and indians, was Westerns set in Mexico


cheers

Thank you for the tips James. I’ll give those ideas a shot. And John I completely agree about your thoughts on Imex’s Mexicans. The cavalry set is useful in my opinion, and the Presidials are honestly great, but as you mentioned they’re all on foot! Even if the infantry and artillery were accurate to what the wore in the TWI that wouldn’t be appropriate for the Mexican War anyways. I’ll see if any of John’s suggestions to uploading pictures work so I give a brief rundown on how I created my 1846 infantry, but honestly they’re primarily painted to look like Mexicans.

Dear Asher,

The only way that I know of is to post it as an image using the relatively simple html on/off codes, but the image address needs to be from a published site (e.g. a blog, website, photobucket, or some other site). That is,

"["img"]" website address of the image "["/img"]"
(the quotation marks are so that the html 'switches' will show as text in this message, so merely use the braces to make them work)

You can see the various html 'switches' if you click on the 'bbcode' hyperlink next to 'Enter Message...' when you create a new post/reply.

James

Please fill the gap re the Western period: Mexican bandits (mounted & dismounted) & Mexican Camponeros. Thanks

Cowboys and Indians are definitely my personal roots in the miniature soldier hobby. A West German Fort playset at age five led to thousands of the little guys
over the years.

It's frustrating; the last few weeks the pictures don't come through. I get the small boxes. Any suggestions?

Dear Wayne,

Perhaps clear the cookies from your browser—which will delete any passwords and other info. that you have saved, so you may not wish to.

Alternatively, use a different browser?

Best wishes, James

Thanks