"ECW Figure Manufacturers" Topic

Like all wargamers I have been pondering what to do next for a few months now and finally decided to get to grips with the English Civil War in wonderful 28mm. This has resulted in me searching the interweb to identify all the manufacturers that have products for sale. Happy times.

The next job was to get samples of all the figures to see which would "work" together since I like to model my bases and do not like rows of identical troops in lines. Nothing wrong with that – just not my cup of tea.

Now I have all the figures to hand here is my summary, what I think of each product and which ones I think will combine to good effect. This is based on the figures sent to me by each manufacturer – and I have posted pictures here (www.loughtonstrikeforce.co.uk/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=161).

Assault Group
(www.theassaultgroup.co.uk)
A variety of poses but they do not seem as natural as most of the other makes. On the small size, will mix with Perrys and Wargames Foundry figures. The quality of the metal seems a little soft.

Bicorne Miniatures
(www.bicorne.net)
A variety of poses. Large sized. Designed with clean lines, I think these will paint up nicely. Hard metal. Will mix with Redoubt and Renegade OK. Maybe with Warlord Games platics.

Eagle Figures
(www.eaglefigures.co.uk)
Mid sized but very chubby figues, all the same pose. Made in a soft metal. Will mix with Essex, Matchlock and Warlord Games. Delivery was slow – about 3 weeks after order was placed..

Essex Miniatures
(www.essexminiatures.co.uk)
Mid sized but chubby. I think this is a very old design and the casting is the poorest quality here by some margin. Bits of musket stand missing altogether. Poor detail. Will mix with Eagle, Matchlock and Warlord Games. Not recommended.

Matchlock Miniatures
(www.caliverbooks.com)
Mid sized but on the chubby side. All the same pose. Nice clean cast in a Softish metal. Should mix OK with Eagle, Essex and Warlord Games. Quite nice – shame they are all the same pose.

Perry Miniatures
(www.perry-miniatures.com)
Small size. A variety of nice poses. Good detail. Fairly hard metal. I was really disappointed with the amount of flash on these figures since I was expecting great things from Perrys. Will mix OK with Assault Group and Wargames Foundry figures.

Redoubt Enterprises
(www.redoubtenterprises.com)
Large size. Variety of poses. Heads come separate and you can choose hat type when you order (a definite plus). Cast in a hard metal. clean design but some flash on the casts. I must comment on the very good customer service when I bought them at Salute. Will mix with Bicorne and Renegade – perhaps Warlord Games.

Renegade Miniatures
(www.renegademiniatures.com)
Nice, very large figures (30mm+?). Some flash on the casting. A variety of poses. Will mix with Bicorne and Redoubt. It took about a month for the figures to arrive after the order was placed.

Wargames Foundry
(www.wargamesfoundry.com)
Smaller size. Very nice figures with good casting but a small amount of flash. Very expensive made worse by the fact that you have to buy them in regiment packs. Will mix well with Assult Group and Perrys figures. One figure was missing from my pack – but excellent customer service fixed this to keep me happy.

Warlord Games
(www.warlordgames.co.uk)
Plastic – so require assembly and have no weight. Beautiful detail. Somewhere between my medium size and my large size categories – but probably more anatomically correct since you can do this more easily in plastic. For the same reason muskets are noticably longer than all other makes. I think these will (carefully) mix OK with Bicorne, Eagle, Redoubt and maybe some of the others if you trim the musket down.

CONCLUSION
You will need to choose your size and stick to it – at least within your regiment groups. There are 3 clear size brackets:

SMALL : Perry, Foundry and Assault Group
MEDIUM : Eagle, Essex, Matchlock, Warlord Games
LARGE : Bicorne, Redoubt, Renegade

Personally I would not match much outside those groups. Warlord Games figures are a little more difficult to classify since they are differently proportioned.

I really like the Wargames Foundry figures, the Perrys (apart from all that flash) and the Warlord Games (apart from the lack of weight). I may use the super size figures that I have already bought to make up a regiment of giants.

Have a look at the pictures and decide for yourself.

Nice overview but you missed Old Glory. They are nice and inexpensive, fit well with Perry, Foundry, and TAG.

+1 for Old Glory. It's one of their really nice ranges.

Did you get mounted figures for all of these also. I thought the Assault Group horses were too large for their riders.

You also missed the Eureka figures – Highlanders & Irish; similar size to TAG, Perry & Foundry. Nice figures too.

The vast majority of mine are OG,although for commanders I really like the Warlord Games versions. I really wish I had the problem of wondering what to do ;).

I have a wonderful mix of Essex, Redoubt, Renegade, Foundry, Assault Group, Old Glory, Perry and latterly Warlord Games, with a few boxes of plastic to make and paint. None of them are in mixed units, but they all look good on the wargames table!

Tally Ho!

I like soft metal castings! I find I can clean up join lines / seams etc with a burnisher rather than a knife / file.

As for TAG horses, they are tall and skinny. Horses vary, as do humans and this in itself isn't a problem.

There are however two issues:

First the horses seem "generic" – they aren't cast to fit the riders and you need to do a good deal of cutting and dremelling to get the riders to fit the horses. The worst culprit I've found was the Gustav Aldolf figure – I had to grind away most of his buttocks, which is probably treasonous in Sweden!

Second, the faces are sculpted with little apparent regard to equine anatomy – the eyes are far too far towards to front. I'm toying with the idea of going to town on the ones I have with Dremel and green stuff to improve this.

This is a wonderful comparison…thanks for that! I'm in the same boat as you…just deciding who to go with. Would it be possible for you label your pictures with manufacturer? also a group picture with all of them would be most helpful.

Either way you thoughts and pictures are very helpful.

Cheers,

Blue

@Blue – Glad it was helpful.

Just hover the mouse over the pictures and the filename will appear which is the manufacturer. Also you can click to enlarge the pictures up to full screen size so you can really see the detail.

I will do a group shot and post that on a new thread in a couple of days.

Thanks to everyone else that suggested other manufacturers. I will check them out.

Very useful post Teppsta.

Thanks

I bought a regiment pack of Renegade dragoons to go with the rest of my ECW army. I wasn't too bothered about the apparent size difference. I've used Renegade Saxons and they're noticeably big, but not too big. Then the dragoons arrived.

O.M.G.

These are humungeous! If you averaged my Warlord / TAG figures at (say) 5'10", these guys are all 6'6" plus, but beyond that, the WIDTH of the figures is something else – they're roughly twice as wide across the chest as Warlord infantry! Essentially my regiment of dragoons was recruited from clones of the late, great (in all senses) Giant Haystacks! I think I'm going to green stuff some wild beards on some of them to add to this image!

Renegade are nice figs when mixed with Bicorne and Redoubt.
Maybe the Warlord and TAG figures are 5'2" and the Renegade are 5' 10".

However you cook the height, the width of the chest of the riders is still incredible. The height:width ratio is hugely different, giving a very different, and to my eyes, rather odd proportion. I'll do some measurements later and post.

If you measure from the sole of the foot to the eye, and also the width of the chest at (as near as possiblt consistently) the armpit, then divide the first by the second, you get a feel for the "beefiness".
For Warlord, TAG and Perry this ratio is 4, almost invariably (based on 4 figures / manufacturer)
For Renegade foot, it's 3.3, and for Renegarde mounted it's 2.75 (again n=4).

If you calculate ou the height differences, you get that if Warlord et al are 5'10", Renegade come in at 6'2" (i.e. noticeably taller but not unbelievably so). It's the width / depth of the chest that makes them seem huge – Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy!

Oh I was being facetious Mitch.
I just paint my little lead men and paint them so I'm perfectly happy with their proportions being "off".
That said the reviews in the above post said the Renegade were in the large category so why the surprise?

Ooh, I'll see your facetious, handsome!

There's large, there's big, and there's these guys! I've got quite a lot of Renegade stuff and I like it, and I accept the size difference between manufacturers as an antidote to total uniformity, but I wasn't expecting how HEE-UGE these blokes are! I thought it might be worth flagging to other people.

As I say the size isn't so much a matter of height as bulk or volume. Once these are painted, and the Earl of Scruttockshire's dragoons are ready, I for one wouldn't want to meet them on a dark night!

Dixon also have a nice little range of ECW, beautifully cast and scuplted… but they are small – almost to the point of looking somewhat hobbit-y when sat next to my Warlord Games stuff.

1st Corps/Kingmaker have a TYW range that some figures might be usable from. Their cavalry are noticeably smaller than the Warlord Games ones, although that may be because the Warlord horses are real brutes.

I've mixed Foundry ECW infantry in with Warlord Games in the same unit, and they look fine although I did opt to add a bit of extra cardboard under the bases of the Foundry guys to get the height in line with the Warlord chaps. They are some of the pikemen in the Spanish unit here: link

Apart from the lack of weight of Warlord plastics which is something of a subjective thing, my main annoyance would be the Renedra basing system. If you want skirmishers you need to plan the basing well in advance of ever putting a model on the table.
Awkward and difficult to alter once the models are down they make getting foam to transport them very difficult if not quite impossible.

Ah….well, I solved that by basing everything on a 40mm by 40mm base, 2x2. Horse on a 50mmx50mm base. makes everything so much easier.

Ive just noticed a picture in March issue of WI, ECW/Prince Rupert special, page 74. Theres a pic showing a regiment of Warlord cavalry with a couple of Renegade Troopers and the size difference is immense. The Renegade horses look a 1/3 bigger, and the riders a complete head above the others. Its not just the size of the men, which as discussed that can vary, but hats, weapons, horses and it clearly looks out of scale.

Pendraken 10mm, super scale and nice figures at 30 figs for £3.00 GBP super value