"Gaming with Prince August or Flats" Topic

I just finished a tour of military and historical museums here in Finland, and was struck by the innate attraction of some of the diorammas using the old Prince August molds, and processions of old flat figures.

Does anyone have any experience using these older style figures for wargaming, or any advice on finding out more about them?

Cheers,

Christopher

There are a group of gamers with the OSW yahoo group that game with Prince August flats to Peter Youngs Charge, they run events at ColdWars and Historicon or did!

Oh the Prince August site is full of info also!

princeaugust.ie

I think that you are referring to CorporalTrim and his wonderful GNW Swedish army. There are some nice pictures of his collection on the yahoo Lace Wars site.

I think gaming with PA home cast products would be great fun! Oh, flats as well… here's agreat link for a story in german that has a great selection of flats, apparently, they half thousands more than are pictured on the www store… zinnfigur.com

Whoops, sorry about the grammar…

Like the look of those 'shiny toy soldiers'.

link

Thanks for the links! Those old Spencer Smith and Holger Erikkson figures have a real charm to them, especially for the GNW, and they would beeasy for my son to paint.

Like the look of those 'shiny toy soldiers'

Those are nice! My birthday present to me is going to be a Division of Magyar's and a Division of Austrians for the Magyar War 1848-49!

I'm in the list phase at the moment.

"I think that you are referring to CorporalTrim and his wonderful GNW Swedish army. There are some nice pictures of his collection on the yahoo Lace Wars site."

That's very kind of you, Alte Fritz. :-) But Jan Arnerdal must be considered the king of the PA Swedes:
drabanten.se/galleri.htm

Flats can also be used for wargaming, Christopher. Tony Bath was probably the first, although in those days there was really no alternative. Here's a few shots of the 7YW Battle of Bergen gamed with flats.

link

Steve

Beutiful figures and terrain!

Are most of the GNW figures I see from Prince August, or are some of them the Holger Erikkson line? Does anyone know if they mix in size, style etc.?

Cheers,

Christopher

Awesome pictures, especially the one with the bathtub! Toy soldier games are always so pretty.

LOL, the bathtub one is pretty good.

In response to your question, Christopher. Holger Errikson IS Prince August when it comes to the 40mm GNW figures. The figures are one and the same. So far as I know, they are all his sculpts. The only difference is the original figures cast pretty flat. These are the molds with the double digit numbering system. Many of the molds were reworked and are now the 900 Karoliner series. These latter ones are a little easier to cast with, but stylistically all of the figures go together.

Someone else did PA's Battle of Rossbach range of molds. I believe that Holger Errikson also sculpted some of the 30mm 7YW which are sold by Spencer-Smith.

Steve

Steve,

Thanks for clearing that up. Can I ask if people generally just buy the PA casting metal, or are there other sources? I'm rather new to this end of the hobby, although I discovered that a local hobby shop actually carries the (more or less) complete PA line. How many figures does a PA metal pack typically cast?

Cheers,

Christopher

The easiest for casting is the Model Metal. It has a low melting point, so consequently it's easier on the rubber molds. It will also flow better to the extremities of the mold resulting in less rework. Unfortunately, it's also the most expensive.

PA's mail order service is good, but in Finland there may be easier alternatives. You're a lucky man if your hobby shop carries the molds, perhaps they also stock the metal. You can probably get 15 infantry or so out of a metal bar. There's little waste in the casting process, some dross to skim off the top now and then, but all the extra metal and reject figures can be melted down again.

Steve

I bought literally pounds of casting metal on eBay--very high quality, and low-priced as well! Do a search under "toy soldier moulds".

I have been periodically gaming with the PA 40's for a few years now. I was planning a V&B style game but since I was also contributing to the Charge! games that the HAWKS put on at Cold Wars, I decided to stick with that. For some pictures of the HAWKS game at CW07 plus a few shots of my own, check link

- Ross

If you want to really see some amazing flats, you should probably go to Germany. Every two years (this being one of the years) there's a big show at a castle in Kulmbach, near Munich and Nurnberg, in Bavaria. It's supposed to be the biggest toy soldier museum in the world – one diorama (depicting the seige of Kulmbach, no less) has something like 20,000 painted flats in it, and there are many other smaller (but still large) dioramas. The museum has 4 or 5 floors.

In Nurnberg there is also a store called Zinnfigur Hoffman, which sells lots of flats as well (the link above to Berliner Zinnfiguren is the other one I use a lot.) There's no reason you couldn't game with them – they're cast from pure tin and they bend back into shape better than other metals. Painting them isn't easy, though, if you want any good detail – it's like painting on a 2-dimensional surface. And since they're 30mm tall, they fit normal wargamng base sizes better than the 40mm Prince August semi-rounds.

I have never gamed with my flats – which I do with my semi-rounds from Prince August – but I know other people such as Pat Condray used to in the 1970s. It would be cool to see a game with flats, though!