May: Dave's Parade....Part 2

Imperial mounted troops - from left to right I have 8, 20 and 8 plus an officer and a bugler. Note the chipping on the bases and the truly huge 40 mm square for the camel corps (and I am not sure about the camel furniture but it looks really nice!)!

I have spent some time today surveying the newly acquired WW1 Middle Eastern collection - and am even more delighted than when I collected it yesterday! I have counted the models in the collection and have come up with the following:

554 foot figures
6 artillery pieces
5 limbers and teams
77 horse mounted figures (cavalry and mounted officers)
50 Camel mounted figures
2 supply wagons and teams
1 mule train
2 armoured cars

This is a staggering collection in anybodies language but there are a few minor problems to be overcome. To begin with, roughly 60 percent of the collection is painted to a professional standard with the quality of the others ranging from a good gaming standard downwards. Now you could say that I am a fine one to talk having purchased the entire thing ready painted but the difference in quality is quite noticeable. I have a plan to help with this though. I shall be rebasing the entire collection - this will be a mammoth task for sure - so that it looks more uniform. The models at present are mostly on galvanised steel which is OK but it makes for a very thin base. I prefer mine with a little more depth as I routinely pick figures up by the base rather than touching the model so this is an important consideration as far as I ma concerned. The figures are currently on 20 or 40 mm frontage which I will stick to although for reasons that will become clear in time I will be looking to base the figures in multiples - probably 2 foot on a 40 by 20 or 2 mounted on a 40 mm square. I will having infantry units consisting of 4 bases and mounted of 3 - each base having two models on it. This has been designed around using Hexon tiles which will accommodate the units in the sizes described.

The ANZACs. The Lighthorseman at the top of the picture has some 20 companions and there are 102 foot figures with the two machine guns.

The Imperial forces - note the Indian machine gun (one of two - with the British also have a pair of Vickers finest)

The Turks - and there rather a lot of them. There are two types of cavalry and the gentleman sporting the red fez is the only such attired figure in the collection. He makes a great NCO though!

The troops of the Asia Korps. German infantry, artillery and machine guns used to bolster the Turks in Palestine.

Of the entire collection I would say that the Imperial infantry needs the most work. The Indian troops are fine but are not painted to the same style as the machine gun crew but I reckon this could be easily corrected. As you can see the bases have taken a bit of a bashing over the years but that could be easily rectified. the difficulty will be getting the models off the bases but I will give that some thought in due course.

I shall be aiming to get the rebasing finished for the first part of the collection by September so that I will be able to commence gaming with them during the autumn.

Conspicuous by their absence are the 30 mounted Arabs - 15 on horse and 15 on camels. This is due to them being pretty grim looking and I am planning on repainting these at the earliest opportunity.