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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Wargames Factory AWI Continental Militia Build

I have been doing a lot of AWI reading and then looking online at AWI miniatures. I decided to do something a little different and see how the Wargames Factory Continental Militia would build up. My first experience with Wargames Factory was their original Zulus and British Colonials, not particularly stellar models by any means. However, its been a long time and a full change in ownership since then. They have certainly come a long way. I found these very easy to build and they look pretty good as well. My quick pictures don't really do them justice.

I changed out the blade in my x-acto knife and went to work. A sharp blade is a necessity when working with plastic so don't skimp on this. I opted to build one sprue's worth of miniatures so for the Continental Militia that would be 10 models. The instructions are pretty good remembering that arms that share the same alpha numeric code go together and of course that alpha code will match the body (example there are two arms labeled E1, one left handed and one right handed and they fit to body E as a matched pair). First mistake of the evening, I cut all the bodies from the sprue so I could clean up the mold lines all at once (mold lines are typical for injected molded plastic and is easily removed with the edge of the blade with a scraping motion, avoid the use of files). Once I had all the bodies cut off and cleaned up I realized that I didn't really know which ones where which. I found myself referring to both the instructions and one of the other sprues to verify that I was working with the right body.

Just following the alpha numeric sequence will build up ten models pretty quickly. Now some of the arms are interchangeable, what I didn't check is if they matched the model's uniform or not. The hunting shirts aren't an issue but the civilian clothes might be. I would recommend building up one of the three sprues according to the directions as they are written.

Body A - Will accept arms labeled for A, B & D
Body B - Will accept arms labeled for A, B & D
Body C - Without more experimentation will only accept arms labeled for C
Body D - Will accept arms labeled for A, B & D
Body E - Will accept arms labeled for E, F & H
Body F - Will accept arms labeled for E, F & H
Body G - Without more experimentation will only accept arms labeled for G
Body H - Will accept arms labeled for E, F & H
Most of the arm variations simply are giving you a choice between giving the model a musket or a rifle.

You have a choice of heads wearing the round hat, the tricorn or the soft cap. They all have the same expression. While I understand why they did this I don't think it would have taken much effort to work in some facial expressions. I'm not fond of the tricorn simply because it looks a little odd when seen from above because of the way its molded.

The one issue I have is that the attachment point for the head is ill defined at best and because of the slope all of them will have a slightly head down look to them when looking straight ahead. When they are in a firing position it looks fine as it looks like the model is looking down their musket or rifle.

I would like to purchase some Fife and Drum miniatures and get a feel for how they will fit in with the Wargames Factory models. See if I can mix them or if they need to be in different units.

Here are some pictures of the results of the building process.

The box, although I really should have taken a picture of the back and not the front.

The instruction sheet. I'm making notes on this as I go.

Body F, kneeling and firing

Body B, standing and firing. While I'm carefully cutting I did manage to break this gun barrel. It bothers me enough that I'll go in and replace the whole right arm.

Body A, standing and firing.

Body E, cocking. Note that the right arm in this case is not an "E" arm but an "H" arm.

The first group as I work my way up the left side of the sprue

Body G. Note the head down position created by the slope of the shoulders.

Body H, there are two of these on the sprue, 

Body D, again there are two of these on the sprue. I went with the knit cap on the model on the right because I used all the round hat heads.

Body C, again note the head down look. I tacked this one to a base since it wouldn't stand on its own.

The second group as I worked my way up the right side of the sprue

There are still a lot of pieces on there, lots of arms and heads. There are not a lot of accouterments options but that's okay with me. Fewer pieces to get broken or broken off.

I built these pretty much straight from the instructions. I was a little frustrated with Body E because I was trying to build the version shown on the back of the package which you can't actually do with the "E" arms. That's when I figured out that the arms are more interchangeable than the instructions allude to although the box states that the arms are interchangeable. It was nice to learn that for a fact.

19 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this, it is nice to see them built up. I too wonder how they would work with Perry and Fife and Drum figures, since those are two of the major sources for AWI.

    The "cocking" hand looks strange to me, since I think of the hammer being cocked with a thumb rather than with a whole hand. What does your reinactor book show?

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    1. I'll have to take a look at that. It looks odd to me to but I'm not really familiar with the operation of black powder weapons. The muskets and rifles in general have less detail than I would expect on a metal miniature. The whole assembly looks more like a big square block of plastic that doesn't really resemble anything.

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  2. Good stuff Kris! How did the arms and weapons go together for you? My biggest frustration (and why I have huge piles of plastic models!), is even though you and I can have the same ten models, we can build them to look completely different, is getting the arms and weapons to match up and just look "correct".

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    1. Actually arms and weapons matched up very well. One arm, typically the right, will have the arm, hand and rifle/musket cast as a single piece so the only hand that has to match up is the left. I didn't have any problems getting the left hand to match up with the weapon on any of these. If you stick to the matching sets of arms, i.e. there should be two arms on the instruction sheet labeled G1 (sometimes three if there is a weapon choice) those will match up perfectly on Body G. These are probably the quickest plastics I have built. Glue on the arms, glue on the head and you are done! The fiddly bits are completely optional.

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  3. nice figures !
    I don't like a lot the multiparts figs, because I'm a lazy guy and I never do good job with that ...

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    1. These go together pretty easy. You would have a fine time with them, they are not fiddly at all.

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    1. Thanks Ray! They may not look so good after I'm done painting them.

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  5. Only just seen this - what a terrific, useful post. And as a result I might have to check out these figures. Thanks again.

    Best wishes

    Giles

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    1. Every now and then I try to slide a useful post in and see if any notices! Definitely give them a look. With ReaperCon over I'm looking forward to some relaxed tabletop painting for a month or so and getting these finished is on that list.

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  6. This is a great post! Thank you for putting it together.

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    1. My pleasure, every now and then something useful slips in.

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  7. Thinking of getting these for Muskets and Tomahawks. What's the mix of rifles and muskets?

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    1. I'm not at home but looking at the instruction sheet, I see 10 muskets and 6 rifles.

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    2. Sorry, 8 muskets in hands and 2 loose muskets.

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  8. Do you have any update on how these look after paint? - I'm interested - because i've gotten started on putting together maybe 8-10 of these guys but have not painted any yet.

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    1. I don't. I started them but didn't get very far before other things got my attention. AWI is definitely a sideline for me and it doesn't get the attention it deserves.

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  9. Hey Kris. Just came across this randomly today from a Google search. Scott S and I are looking at AWI (I've already got some British). Great article. Nice to be able to see the detail level and poses before buying these. Not sure If I will or not. The painted pictures I saw online look great, but not sure about the poses. Thanks for the post

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    1. Poses are a pretty classic problem with any of the plastic troops. There are always a couple that just look awkward, and sometimes you always have to have more kneeling figure than you want. I'm glad the post helped!

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