"Fort Apache, Rio Grande, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" Topic

Anyone game these great movies? No offense to all you Custer fans out there, I would rather have Brittles, York, Trooper Tyree, Sergeants Quincannon, and O'Rourke, and Lieutenant O'Rourke. Does anybody game the cavalry in the West without doing Custer? What figures are best?

Alabama,

I too am inspired by the classic John Ford/John Wayne Cavalry Trilogy. I have 54mm figures that I will be using. (I actually freeze framed she wore a yellow ribbon on DVD to count the number of troopers in each platoon and they were pretty accurate historically. I will also be using them for a quasi historical Little big horn as well. I copied a response I wrote on an exchange board thread about 54mm Barzso Buffalo. It also answers your question to some extent. Once again I am talking about 54mm figures.

The Cav figs are Airfix (IMEX now), Britains Deetails (versions 3 and 4) and BMC for personalities (like custer, T. Custer, Cook, etc, and DSG (hearld recasts from Argentina). I also won on ebay a set of the old Marx 7th cavlry from 1968 (but those are for collection only right now). Will also use a few Marx prospectors as grizzled old scouts.

The Indian figs are Airfix (which are awesome), Britains Details (versions 3 and 5) and BMC. BMC makes great tipis and other camp accessories as well as women for camp. I have 15 Tipis. Classic Toy soldiers mounted are also part of the force. They have some nice sculpts

Airfix,Britians Deetail, and Classic Toy Soldiers offer some nice firearm mounted figures.

I bought the two Fort Apache sets from Michigan Toy soldier. They are about 30 dollars each, but you will then have the front blockhouse gate and a rear gate. Also you will have some corner blockhouses. I bought them also for my FIW and Hollywood Cavalry scenarios.

I have a bunch of 10mm figs for little big horn and hollywood cavalry scenarios, but opted to do it in 54mm because I really like the sculpts of the figs and you can see them easier immediatly. The 10mm project will probobly still get done, but it has been put on hold. I researched the battle and am planning a trip next year with my brother to visit the battlefield and actually walk the ground. the 10mm will be a good scale to portray the terrain in an impressive manner.

the 54mm scale version will be less historically accurate: more as a harkening back to the days of playing on the stairs and living room floor and coffe table in my youth, when the John Ford/John Wayne Cavalry Trilogy movies inspired me to make my imagination turn those places into the wild west of lore.

I'm doing the same project using Minifigs very nice 15mm miniatures. I like 15mm even for skirmish as it makes the table feel large. But I'm also doing it in 25mm with the Wargames Foundry range for visual splendor of the figs.

Essentially, when I want lots and lots of maneuver I go 15mm, when it's more of a "circle the wagons" style game I'll be going 25mm….

I am just getting into the Indian wars but I do not plan on playing only Custer games. I grew up on all of the old western movies. Now I'm sorry to say that these three films, while good on character development do nothing for me with regard to a lot of ideas for gaming. Winchester 73 has some good stuff.

I'm not gaming the movies, but I don't have any intention of gaming Custer, either.

The three films (and Fort Apache) are based on the works of the same author, James Warner Bellah. Most of the stories were in the Saturday Evening Post, but there are some rare and out of print collections with these stories.

I mention this because he wrote a LOT of similar Cavalry tales, and many of them would make excellent inspiration for some skirmish-level Indian Wars gaming, and even some larger actions. Bellah knew his stuff well – he served in the Canadian military in WW1 and the US Army and OSS in WW2. He knew many old cavalry hands and was a stickler for detail.

If you can find any of his stuff, you will be well pleased.

Brittania miniatures produce a complete range in 28mm including Wagons,casualties,crow scouts,a trooper being scalped.I have lots of these, they are full of character.

Paul

Three of my favorite Westerns. The fight in "SWAYR" where JW leaves Lt. Agar at the river to hold up the hostiles would make a good scenario. Only a loonie would want to game Thursby's Charge in "FA." The rescue of the children in "RO" would be interesting. Onward through the choking dust of the Southwest!

How about "Duel at Diablo" or "Ulzana's Raid." or "A Thunder of Drums?"

A goodly amount of manuever, with some very sharp fighting moments.

AzSteven, a looooong time ago, our gaming group gamed
Bellah's "Spanish Man's Grave." Neat game, but we
had to specify that the Apache players couldn't kill
their kidnap victim…

Spanish Man's Grave – I think that was the first Bellah story I ever read, even before I knew his stories had inspired all those movies. Loved that tale, and the Conquistadore's cuirass the Apache chief was wearing.

Custer7th Cav, Iam interested in doing 10mm Littlebighorn also, can you fill me in on the figures and manufacturers you used. I currently only know of Pendraken and Irregular, any help here appreciated.

Takeda1,

I have quite a bit of Perrin ACW cav both mounted and dismounted, majority is Confederate because of the brim hat. however union kepi figures will be used as well.

I Picked up ODGW (old dominion games workshop)which are now out of production. The ODGW acw figs were not as well detailed but did provide basic mounted and dismounted troops and came with brim hats. Also they had a lot of dead horses and dismounted horses and the cost was very reasonable.

I have irregular. I also have some other brand (only about 10 figs) that I am not sure who is the producer.

I picked up GHQ's acw figs (rebs mtd and dmtd because of the wide brim hat) the dmtd figs are very tiny compared to perrin and irrigular. they are not as tiny but still smaller than the ODGW figs. I have some acw command figs in all of the ranges for company commanders. however I am using some ACW GHQ figs for personalities like custer, cooke etc. I could not find suitable mules that were inexpensive (at 1:5 scale, the mule train would have over 30 figures to represent it historically). I also picked up some wagons to represent the pack train (I know--not historically accurate) but it was more feasable and I could represent the pack train with around 5-8 wagons.

To summarize the cavalry figs--I have enough I believe to do a 1:5 scale LBH with personalities for company HQ and Regimental HQ. I also have figs to do some Hollywood scenarios as well as some overcoat figs mtd and dmtd to do 9th cav buffalo soldiers scenarios. I have wagons and some western cabins and small settlement buildings in resin. I also have Irregular infantry to simulate plains infantry, and some irregular artillary. I also have enough infantry to paint up some mexican troops for a rio grande scenario.

As for the indians. I have some apache irregulars to play southwest hollywood scenarios. I have a bunch of irregular plains indians mtd and dmtd for the LBH scenario. I have about 50 teepee from a company who makes accessories out of stonecast. I am going to mount them on CDs to create the tribal encampments.

Pony herds and buffalo herds will be made from pictures from the internet scaled down and made into paper figs and then glued to a CD to create a Herd area of occupation so to speak. I have a few women figs but may also supplement them with additional purchases.

Terrain for this scale is easily made with styrofoam and a trusty strofoam cutter and glue gun along with some hobby paints. I carved some neat canyons for the apache and some monument vally type rock outcrops (yet to painted though). The LBH terrain in this scale can be somewhat accuarately portrayed in styrofoam for the bluffs. The river I have is armorcast resin river set.

To summarize the project: the acquisition is done for the most part with only a few miscallneous items to get. the organization and inventory is done. now As i mentioned above the prep prime and paint portion perhaps proceeds in the next year.

I will consider selling the entire project if a reasonable offer is made because I am really enjoying the 54mm scale figs.

I hope that was of some help to you Takeda1.

Aw man! After reading this thread I want to go out and paint figures for the John Ford trilogy. Just what I needed, another project.

I am just starting my collection of Fort Apache Play Sets and I am interested in the gaming part but does anyone know where on the internet I can get a list of parts for the different sets. Thanks.

USMarine; under General Boards you will find "Plastic Soldier" board and ask your questions there. You should get some very good answers to your questions.

The Searchers have a short chase scene that should make into a nice little scenario for a skirmish game.

i'm collecting and organising those characters and need figures out of classical Airfix and Atlantic 1:72 types..i have all i could need at reasonable price…..my only doubt is to leave the Airfix Cavalry with swords (which seem to be unhistorical) and use all the single carbine armed poses of which i have many..or recruit and paint also the beautiful other ones…what do you suggest me?

Do not forget Cheyenne Autumn.

Thanks oldbob for the info !

Go to my blog CavCrazy, we did "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" game, it was great fun. It was back in February of 2012.

Hi, guys. If you look back to May 15, 2014 on this board, you'll find an entry titled Battle of Ft Phil Kearny. This is a picture story of a hypothetical Sioux attack on this Bozeman Trail fort in November 1866. The garrison of this fort consisted of 4 companies (roughly 350 men) of the 18th Infantry plus about 150 civilians. As you'll see mid-way throught the story one troop of the 2nd Cavalry arrives. In the pictures you'll see 1/72 figures from Air Fix, Amex, ESCI, Thomas (K+L) and others that will give some ideas as to figure availability. I've thus far painted about 200 cavalry troopers but was only able to work in about 60 of them for this story.