"Using 30mm Flats for the SYW " Topic

During my internet wanderings I came across this site

crogges7ywarmies.blogspot.com which has absolutely stunning 30mm Zinnfiguren Flats being used for Mollwitz.

After a bit of extra roaming I found sites like this.

link

link

The numbers of figures available and the quality makes me wonder why they don't seem to be used for gaming and I was wondering why?

Anyway I think I will need to get some to see if I can paint them up. So if there are any UK members that have a few spare that the are illing to part with drop me a line at mark.dudley4 at btopenworld.com. If not them a small order to Germany seems the best way forward.

Any help or suggestions gratefully received.

Mark

The numbers of figures available and the quality makes me wonder why they don't seem to be used for gaming and I was wondering why?

They're expensive, difficult to paint, 2 dimensional (obviously) and only widely available in Germany…

That and the fact that artillery has a very difficult time hitting them unless they are in an enfilade position! They are nice figures, but not widely available, I think you can get molds to make your own somewhere too. They don't look too difficult to cast.

I have a friend who games with them; they have never been my thing, however.

I've ordered from Berliner Zinnfiguren before, and they have a friendly and efficient mail-order service, although I found it was best to wait for a good pound to euro exchange rate before ordering – don't forget they can paint figures for you too, although this can be very pricey!

E-bay is always worth a trawl; painted/antique figures command pretty high prices, but sometimes there are the 'naked' ones going for a song – make use of the search facility and look for 'zinnfiguren' or 'flats', or even 'tin flats' – helps to spread the search to 'Worldwide', too.

Hope this helps,
Cheers, SteelonSand.

The Germans have been mad keen on their flattened soldiers for a very long time

As noted, never quite caught on – especially after William Brittains made toy soldiers 'in the round'

Still very popular in Germany, though – I think they would be an interesting challenge to paint, but I like my 3D minis

We use Prince August 40mm semi flats for our SYW games. They are visually very pleasing and give a nice old toy soldier feel to the games, perfect for the SYW.

They're lovely collectors' items but a little impractical for wargaming, as the best view of the action would be from the short sides of the table (as illustrated by Christian's pictures) while players tend to be on the long sides.
It could work when using "frontal" flats, which do exist for some, but unfortunately not all, major troop types.

Well, I've been playing with flats ever since I got my first set of WRG rules around 1982. Got them from a school mate who bought them in England during his stay at our partner school. He played with Arfix plastics. I already had around 540 flats, in fact more then he had in plastics, so we could start playing instantly. At that time I wouldn't have been able to purchase 3D metal miniatures in Germany, even if I wanted. I recall Arfix plastics being around only. Thats why I continued with flats. For me they work perfectly fine, but there aren't all that many wargamers that play with them here in Germany. Most use 3D's now.
They arn't so expensive, really. I recall 15 mm Old Glory packs not being cheaper. The trouble for anyone outside Germany will indeed be to find a distributer. Most foundries don't have online-shops. If they do, they lack example images of their figs, so that you don't know what you're ordering. All is rather old-school. Berliner Zinnfiguren are about the only professionally run foundry – and very pricy. That's why I avoid buying from them. They also don't sell individually assembled packs, which most others do. Best place to buy flats in their plenties is the Kulmbach/Bavaria convention held every 2 years in August. Well worth a trip, even from abroad. Nice town, wonderful beer, and a very good museum for the Prussian 7YW army on the Plassenburg. Not to mention the Zinnfiguren Museum at same location.

Cheers,
Christian
crogges7ywarmies.blogspot.com

Christain

Who would you recommend I buy flats from based on quality/price.?

Mark

Christian,

Seems I should plan for Kulmbach next year then! – Hope you did read the frustrated temptation between my lines. Your pictures are certainly inspiring, though again, more so from the sidelines than from the command post perhaps…

I could see myself doing this using frontal and semi-frontal figures, and actually did trawl the internet for them recently, but found several types missing even for the "classical" pairing Prussia vs. Austria. Maybe I need to look harder?

If you are willing to go up to 40mm & make your own figures prince august molds might be worth looking at. I've just started making armies for AWS. THey take up less room on a base that 3d 28mm fugures. princeaugust.ie

Hi

I am already doing Prince August and painting then in old school style ie block colours and gloss varnish. They can been seen on my blog ilkleyoldschool.blogspot.com

However the 30mm flats look like an interesting painting challenge which I am finding hard to resist.

Mark,

To save yourself a lot of money, you could take figures out of your lead mountain, then simply, whack 'em with a lump hammer.

James

Mark,

Sorry for my delayed reply. Have been unable to post on TMP for some "trusted membership" issue.

I suppose you are interested in 7YW period. This will reduce the number of foundries you would want to contact anyhow.
I you could give me some more details on what armies you are looking for and what number of miniatures per unit, I can give you more detailed support.
You know the below contact?
link
or
flats-zinnfiguren.com
For 7YW your two most important foundries will be Berliner Zinnfiguren link (despite being among the more pricy side, you won't do without them sooner or later)
next comes Grünewald, who you already found. He has about the largest amount of figures for this period. He did a Minden diorama some time ago and therefore provides the largest number of French & Brit/Hannoverians. There should be a catalogue online you can download. Klick "Katalog Teil I" covering 7YW. There are also sheets of "Typenbilder" available online with a drawing of each character that comes with the various packages. However, the latter don't seem to be complete. For all you need the "gesamter Online-Katalog + Preisliste PDF". Grünewald is a tad cheeper. A pack of 17 horse for 35 Euros, while Berliner Z standard 14 horse is 33,50. Grünewald will also sell individual orders, so that you can order any combination of characters in any numbers. Though you should avoid making things too complicated to avoid getting a few wrong characters. In that case, better split orders. I had all this before

As said before, I you could tell me what you are looking for, I'm happy to give you more information. There are a couple more foundries out. Most cover many periods incl more or less 7YW.
Kieler Zinnfiguren is one of them kieler-zinnfiguren.de
Not sure if they still run their business. I will soon do an order and will find out. They still have some of the best figures, but also many among the worst, for their moulds are too old. It seems they don't come with online images. I can give you some advice which figures you would want to have and which not.

Also many good characters provided by zinnfiguren-kw.de
However, they don't seem to have an online catalogue. You'd need to order it. But it is only a few Euros.

That should do for now,
Christian

Mark,

Check out the British Flat Figures Society (www.britishflatfigures.org.uk). There's plenty of help there. If you join the Society (a good deal) you can access their links section where nearly all dealers and their contact information is available. Also, go to Ebay.de and look at their auctions. "Flachfiguren" is a better search category than is "zinnfiguren" since that latter can include rounds.
Good luck!