"3mm Oddzial Ozmy Update and flag tip " Topic

Hello all,

First let me warn you that this post is long and requires some knowledge of 08s figs. However, if you're looking at picking some up ro trying to figure out how to make the most of them, this post might help you out.

So, as it stands I have 7000 painted O8 figs, about 3k based. Of those 2k are Conferates. Up until this morning I was in a real bind. I had all these things based up, and I have the terrain mats done up and the basic ingredients for a good looking game. I'd even decided on a 1 base= 1 regiment scheme, which means I can also use them for brigades for 2x2 ACW rules (with some tweeks). My original thought though is and has been to use them for giant games of Black Powder. My "standard" 300 man regiment is represented by 48 figs in two ranks on a 60mm frontage. 40mm is 200 men, 80mm is 500, etc, etc.

So, I had all these figs based up, but I still had a major problem. Only a few of them had standards, and without standards to act as an anchor for the stand the figs really don't have all of the umph that they need. So, the flag is really key. The problem with )8 figs is not painting the flags, but dealing with the command strips. IMHO, the command strips are the biggest problem with this otherwise awesome line of figs. They're basically a standard 8 figure strip on 20mm frontage, except that the last four figs are command figs. The two stanards are at the end, with an office and drummer next to them. The two stnadards are directly, immediately next ot each other, which means you cannot get a brush between the two flags. It also means that from a distance you can only see one flag.

The other problem that you might notice is that if you put two strips next to each, a regular one to the left and a command strip to the right (as you look at them), the flags will not be centered. They'll be offset a little to the right. Now, I am a centered-standard Nazi. I have to have centered standards. I cannot stand a standard or pair of standards that are off center. I don't see how people play with figs where, in an attack column the flag ends up in the front and all the way to the left. Center that sucker, or put it where it should have gone historically. But when the formation in question is a line then it really drives me nuts.

So, this question of standards and command strips had been vexing me for sometime. The Union regiments often had two flags, and the Confederates one. You'd think it would be an easy matter of snipping off the extra standard for the Confederate units. You'd think, but its not. The first problem is that the feet of the standards are rather weak, and the metal is very hard and brittle, so when you clip them off the extra standard often breaks right off his base. And, you then have to replace that extra spot by adding an extra figure to complete the line of figs across the front rank. So, basically you end up doing a lot of work to get that single Confederate flag centered. What I ended up doing was just ignoring the command strips entirely and putting down all regular infantry for the Confederates, and then "converting" one figure in the middle into a standard bearer. No office, no drummer. At 3mm you really don't notice.

I had to do this mostly as a way to deal with the difficulty of doing the Union standards. Now, the Union troops are a real issue because they had two standards, a national flag and a state flag. But the flags look really bad when you leave them side-by-by. So, I try to snip them apart usually and put them on either side of the drummer and the officer. This looks really good. However, about one of every three or four stanards will break when you try to snip them apart. This means that you need to have extra command strips on hand to make up for the ones that break. This sucks. Also, don't even think that you'll be able to glue that broken stanard bearer back to his feet. It isn't going to happen. This is a double problem for me, becaue I have enough figs for 120+ regiments and only 30 command strips. I'm not particularly patient, so I didn't feel like ordering them from Pico Armor just to have to get enough to make up for the ones that would break from cutting.

I'd tried glueing the flags onto rifle barrles for some Confederates (as I mentioned above) but this a) takes a long time and b) is rather fragile. I didn't want to have to deal with the flags breaking off all the time, especially since it takes forever to super-glue them on. This was putting a real damper on my project, until today when I had a flash of inspiration and came up with the fastest, best and best looking way to make standards for 3mm figs that are even better than the ones that come with the command strips.

You can do this using the command strips or not. For the Union I tend to do so, for the Confederates I'm still just using line infantry strips. Maybe in the future I'll add in officers when I finish getting the rest based up. Anyways.

First, you need to make some latex sheet. This is a product I came up with randomly that I use for terrain features and other stuff. To make it you need some latex caulk, a board of some sort, a spatula and plastic wrap. Take your plastic wrap and wrap it around a cutting board. You need to make it as tight as possible. You dont want any folds if you can. When you're done, hit it with a decent amount of caulk, and spread the caulk as thin and flat as you can get it without seeing the plastic wrap. Then let it dry.

When you're done you'll have a perfectly flat lying piece of caulk that you can do whatever you want with. The tight plastic wrap will keep it from warping. At all. In fact, this is how I base up my hills. I set the foam core or cardboard into the wet caulk over top of the plastic wrap and then cut it out when it dries. The hills I've made this way, even very large ones, lay perfectly flat with no warping whatsoever.

In this case though you'll want to carefull cut the caulk sheet up, and then cut a very narrow strip of it off. This is what you'll use to make the flags….

2) Get a hot glue gun/ break out your hot glue gun. This is where the inspiration really came in. I wanted an adhesive that a) set fast, b) was nearly indestructible once dry. Hot glue is the toughest glue you can find. Once it dries its waaay tougher than super glue, white glue, 5-minute epoxy, etc, etc, etc. I recently got a hot glue gun, when burned the crap out of myself with ti and put it away. This morning I decided to try using it to stick the flags onto 3mm figs. It worked really well. In fact, I couldn't imagine anything working better.

3) You want to have all your figs down in whatever set-up you've decided on. For the Union I put the officer and drummer in the dead center and attached the flags to the bayonets of the guys on either side. This allows you to see the two flags from any angle. Way better than the two side-by-side on the strip. For the Confedeates I just used a single flag on the centermost infnatry fig.

4) Heat up your glue gun. While that heats up cut out your flags. Cut them to whatever size. I find that a slightly exagerated flag works best at this scale, more like a 6mm flag. The flags that come with the command strips are a bit too small I fee. After you cut the square you then want to slice a tiny slot on one end, to about half way up the flag. This is where you will fit the flag over the bayonet.

5) When the glue gun is super hot, to where the glue is steaming when it comes out, you're ready. Have the flag and the base ready. You have to go fast for this to work. Take your glue gun and shoot out a little bit of glue. Quickly dip the edge of the flag with the notch on it into the glue. Then stick the flag onto the bayonet of the trooper in question. It will set instantly. Give it four or five seconds, and then use a pair of snips to cut off the little strand of glue that will be connecting the glue puddle with the flag. Repeat.

Doing this I was able to put together and paint 45 or 50 flags in about 2 hours. I'll get some pictures up here in a bit. They look pretty good. The glue is so strong that you'd have a very hard time pulling them off. And becasue the caulk is flexible if you wiggle it back or forth it will do just that- it wiggles. Combined these two things make the flags almost indstrucitble. Painting them is of course a cinch. Before you go out and do this though, let me warn you that hot glue guns are super dangerous, and that if you touch that small puddle of glue when you're dipping these very small squars of latex into it, you could very well take some skin off your fingers. I took some off my wrist the other week, about the size of a half dollar. So you've been warned. But if you can get this to work you'll be pounding out whole corps-worth of flags in no time flat.

Photos are coming up…..

As promised…

Here are the Confederate flags I did today. All of these, including painting, only took about an hour and a half. Maybe a bit less. I probably never would have finished this using super glue- its just too tedious. Hot glue is super fast, although a bit tricky.

Here are the Union. Most of the state flags arent done yet. I just do a few splotches of color in the middle to mark them out. These are rather generic…

In the foreground you can see a base with the standard flag bearers side by side. I think the flags seperated provides a lot of needed depth to the units.

A close up of a Union base from one angle…

Another angle…

From head on. You'll notice the flags are over top the heads of these guys. this was a base I did before I decided to notch the flags and set them over the bayonet. It still works from even a few inches away. The one real problem with these figs is that they don't photograph well. Thats one reason I put so much time into the terrain- they really need an environment that suits them or they dont look as good as they could. In person they are much more impressive. Fortunately it looks like they're being trotted out to convention flea-markets, so people can get a look at themin person. I'm hoping to put on some convention games myself on the West coast this coming year, or at least taking it out to club-nights. I think the scale has a lot to offer.

So, now that I have the terrain, and I have figured out the flag thing, all the technical barriers to getting this done are overcome. All I need to do now is get to work basing up the rest of these guys. My goal is to put together enough regimental bases to do either Chickamauga or Gettysburg at 6:1. I have enough to do all of Polks corps at Chickamauga currently, plust some Union in addition to what i have on here (I'm further along with the Confederates). There were about 120 or so Confederate regiments at Chickamauga, and I currently have about 40 based up and ready. I'll have to make another order of figs, clearly, in order to accomplish this. However, in the meantime I have enough figs done up to do the Confedeate army at Chickamauga by brigade, and with a days work I could ge the Union ready as well (might need some more arty for them though…). Once this is done I can start getting some battle reports on here and show everyone what a good 3mm game looks like. This will be doubly interesting as I'm not too sure myseld about that…

Nice work.

We too are painting for our collection 3mm ACW miniatures.
We have chosen 3cm x 2.5cm bases, so a frontage of 12 men and two ranks with some skirmishers. We' ll use them with Polemos ACW to recreate Gettysburg, and obviously other scenarios…

However it' s possible to use Volley and Bayonet also.

Happy Wargaming to All.

fogsoldiers.blogspot.com

The confederate flags look great. Definitely worth the time and effort.

That's what I like to see: The Confederates outnumbering the Union by about 4 to 1. :^)

The ones I'm doing are based on 40x20mm and I solved the command being off centre by snapping off two figures from an ordinary block and replacing them on the other side when basing. The command block of 4 is thus centred in the rank with 6 figures either side of it – if you wanted the flags centred then snap 3 figures off.

See the results here ….

link

I've done 106 bases so far – only another 70 to go. That's over 5600 infantry by the time they are done AND all the cavalry, artillery etc to go with them.

Tony of TTT

Looks GREAT! I am eagerly waiting for O8 to release 3mm Napoleonics.

GildasFacit-

Those look really great! You have a much better way of basing them up than I do. I mean the way you flock up the bases. Its much brighter than what im doing. My figs are designed to go with my table flocking. They look good on the table but sort of blah in the hand. The arty trains are also really good. 5700 troops is a good sized army in 3mm. And Im guessing it didnt cost over 200 bucks for everything.

The way you do your flags is easy enough. I just like the look of having the flags seperated for the Union. Plus the single flag for the Confederates. Actually, I need to find this one link somone sent me to a webpage for, I think, Chickamauga. They had every battle flag of every regiment. The southern regiments especially had some oddball standards, especially in the west, and Im going to write the names of each regiment on the bottom of the base and want to get the flags right. If anyone on here knows what website Im referring too and has the link Id really appreciate it!

Once you get those 100+ bases done then you can start expanding them out to either side for some real madness!

BTW, Ive been asking around on the 3mm page about the Nap range but Marcin hasnt responded to my posts yet. He is on there though, and has been hinting at an O8 release coming up soon. He did say if it was the Naps though. In fact, he didnt say much at all about it. Maybe hes busy getting it done? I dunno. If you happen to see this post Marcin, please, PLEASE throw us a bone and give us a hint on the Naps. Your fans need to start planning/saving/making space for their new mega-armies!

Im about to move to the West Coast, and when I do I want to work on an idea I had for a club for 3mm players. The basic idea would be to set up giant bring and battle armies at conventions. If 10 players each brought 10k trooops, which is not too bad in 3mm, youd be pushing 1:1 for almost any battle. I feel like this scale and its rather low price point for the quality give gamers the freedom to explore the outside reaches of representation. Doing Gettysburg at 1:1, for instance, would only cost you $5,000. USD That sounds like a lot, and it is, but its not that much compared to what some people spend on what seem to me like less ambitious projects. Maybe Im crazy, but I think 3mm could really lend itself to some entirely new ways of playing wargames.

Speakingof which, I want to repost this link I posted awhile back

TMP link

These guys really came up with something ingenious. Basically they have three long tables, or sets of tables three tables deep. The tables are set up on wheels. This way the players can pull the tables apart each turn to allow access to the deeper sections of the table, and then at the end of the turn, or every few turns, put them back together to see the big picture. I think this is a really great idea, especially for the size games Im talking about. It gets ride of the problem of having a units frontage too big to accomodate its weapon range and maneuverability across the table. Say you had enough figs to do Gettysburg or Borodino in 1:1. You normaly couldnt anyway because of table depth issues. If you set it up like this though you could do the entire thing with no abstractions and without breaking the bank.

I think Marcin has an agreement with his retailers that he won't announce new ranges until they have stock to satisfy any enquiries they are bound to get on any announcement. Seems a very fair arrangement to me – even though I'm just as frustrated as you are.

The stuff I'm doing is for a client so I'll never actually see them all at once anyway.

The green 'bushes' on the bases were a bit of an inspiration – made from the fine ground foliage similar to the clump stuff but much finer.

Cost of the figures for the whole job was well over £300.00 GBP – there is a lot of cavalry (mounted & dismounted), artillery (plus limbers & caissons), skirmishers & generals.

Over 400 bases once done – should look impressive.

Kudos to you for being able to paint 3mm troops so well. I am using Baccus 6mm ACW and they were not easy for me to paint.

First 3mm Napoleonics sets will be released after Summer holidays – September I think. Please be patient ;)

Marcin

Gah! Gah! Gah!

Mimimimimimimimimimimimimimimimi…

And me, with my ACW stuff still uncompleted. :(

Ohh man.
Thanks for that information Marcin! It's good to have a date, although I was sort of hoping they'd be out with the next release. That gives me time to figure out exactly how to layout a full 600 man French battalion in 1:1. It will also give me some time to get my ACW figs totally finished before I drop them for Naps (sad but probably true.)

I don't suppose there's any chance we could see some greens or WIP shots of these guys?

That's good news from Marcin.

I am hoping for some 18th century types, such as with tricorne, grenadier and fusilier caps of a couple-three types, and maybe some usable cavalry. It's too hard to fix with thousands of tiny drops of filler material. There is a crying need for wagons.

Columns are lacking but may be best reconstructed by the individual to work best with his chosen scales and ratios rather than be forced by the figures to be a certain size.

I have been enjoying the series of posts by forwardmarchstudios; there are lots of good ideas in here. I guess some things have to be learned the hard way in order to really sink in deep.

You can see photos in the 2mm Yahoo Group where someone tried the 1:1 idea using the Irregular 2mm blocks years ago.

However the result was that even though it is instructive and nice to see and all, it is also 100% completely wrong, because the base sizes and the dimensions of the figures are such that 1:1 is not possible while being correct at the same time. The guy who did it also did the math, and announced his conclusions. 1:2 was possible and could be correct, with those figures. It is because of the distance they are from one man to the next, and that cannot be made closer than they are.

On the 3mm, let's run the numbers. He stands 3mm tall. Let's allow that he is a six footer, which is really not that likely, but let's make it easy. If 3mm is six feet, then what is 2.5 mm? Five feet. The men are five feet apart in their files.

Without even figuring out artillery, cavalry, columns nor anything else, just the fact above calls for not a 1:1 but a 1:2.5 ratio of figures to actual men, if allowing a generous 24 inches per man in the file.

The way the figures are made it is at least sixty inches in the file. They would not be easy to jam closer together since they would break, so this cannot be fixed.

As it is, it actually is a fix for the way the 2mm were, since they could not be pulled apart either for other purposes, whereas these can, and they themselves were double wide as it was. At least with the 3mm they can theoretically be pulled apart, but you cannot make them stand closer together.

1:1 does not work with ACW formations. It would work for troops not in tight formations though.

No need for half men, if we consider two figures equals five men then 1:2.5 works okay.

But if we do not take this into account, when you finally deploy for Pickett's charge the right flank man in Hood's Division will be pushed halfway to Emmitsburg off the table/basketball court, and needs a ranch in Texas to deploy. Wellington's army had better form four deep lines or they will connect out to Hal after all. Marlborough could never cram 110,000 men into four kilometers at Malplaquet if everyone hogged five feet of space in a file.

Imagine the chagrin of discovering this after all that terrain was already built. Better to calculate now, than then.

Marcin, can I make a pitch? PLEASE put grooves inbetween your figures. It seems to me that it wouldn't harm the casting process at all and it would allow them to be MUCH more flexible when it comes time to base them.

Mekelnborg-

That was a very good post. I've had a lot of thoughts about exactly that issue. There is some space between all the 3mm figs and they are not touching elbows exactly. Almost but not quite. The only figs I can think of that are that close are 10mm OG. And I guess you cna shove 15mm figs that close together. But yes, you have a very good point.
Although, I don't think that the 3mm figs take up all of 5 feet per figure. At most it looks like there is about a 6 scale inch gap between the O8 figs. Thats comparing the length of the femur to the gap- I don't have any calipers on me. Currently, but that looks closer to me. There's no whay that there's 5 scale feet in every file….

(5 min later)

Ok, I just broke out the measuring stick to settle it once and for all… and I do admit I've been thinking about this a lot and never bothered to check for myself until tonight…

First, O8 figs should be described as 4mm figs. THey are exactly 4mm from their soles ot the top of their hats. They are about 3mm at the shoulders, not at the eyes. Since they are sold as 1/600 many places, I could see how confusion could set in. But yeah, the suckers are 4mm tall, NOT 3.

Moving on, the space from the center of one figures feet to the center of the next figures feet is 3mm exactly. Thats 48 inches.

I just checked on myself and then made my GF hold a broom handle and measured across. Us. I take up aboutt 24 inches across the shoulers, and together the two of us took up about 39 inches of frontage. She is, of course, a lot thinner than I am. If there were two of me in there two of us would take up 48 inches. 24 inches times 8 men would take up 192 inches or 16 feet of frontage. The 08 figs are on a 20mm frontage with 8 figures. If 4mm is six feet then the O8 figs are on a 30 foot frontage So, yeah, basically doubled out.

(*&(*^(^*&^()*&^)&^)&!!!!!!!

!!!!

Ok. I'm better. That gap always did bother men a bit. Well, it's 2:1 for an accurate portrayal I suppose.

To be serious- did I really think that I could collect and paint 100,000+ figs twice, for two armies, and get them painted? Well, yes, in fact I did. I can paint three or four thousand of these things given a Saturday and Sunday afternoon. So it would have taken me a year or so. Could I have played a game wihth them like that? At a convention, sure. But, I will persevere. 2:1 it is…. I'll fulfill my megalomania at a lowly 2:1 figure ratio. Don't worry about me… I will survive. As long as I know how to love 2:1, I know I'll stay alive….

I suppose it works out better this way…

Macunaima-

You can cut them really easily if you have some small wire snippers. Just make sure that you cup your hand around them before you snip. They literally fly off fast enough to knock an eye out. The only problem I've ever had with them is with the standard bearers. If you try to snip them apart you're rolling the dice.

Here is a photo of some 'pre-released' Napoleonics:

There is 10 minis on 2 cm stand.

Marcin

The best way to separate OO figures is to snap them.

Take two pairs of pliers and grip the figure at the point at which to break them – one pair on each side of the break – then twist the pliers apart.

This works almost every time without damage when the figures are 'grooved' but won't snap with finger pressure. I've had no more than a handful of broken figures from 50 packs.

Where the figures are not grooved it is marginally more risky but still no more than one breakage per 2 packs.

DON'T do it with the command base though – that is a VERY fragile strip and needs to be treated with care.

Wow Marcin, those are absolutely awesome! You're going to make a killing with that line. Those are every bit as good as your ACW figs- better even. I also like that you're going to 10 per strip. Really, really nice work.
Those will look incredible when painted up. They will be well worth the wait.

Hi

'There is 10 minis on 2 cm stand.'

Based on this thread, I hope you will put the flags in the middle!!!

Oh boy… here's what I'm thinking:

6 bases per french bn, 60 figs per base in three rows of twenty. Works out to 3 bags per battalion, or $12 USD each. 360 figs per battalion on a 24cm frontage. Should work out to about 2:1 or even a bit better as per conversation above.

Price: Modest
Awesomeness factor: Off the charts

The 200th anniversary of Leipzig is coming up a year from October. I could do that over some 16 by 13.5 miles nicely with around a half million or so men, plus a couple thousand guns. So if we have five men over 1cm, for Naps, then what?

I was actually going to do mine scaled down considerably anyway and not even thinking of 1:1 for mine. If 1:2 works, it would still be real big.

When it is scaled down even a little the calculations are different than the challenge of doing 1:1, so my ACW set was doing fine without this kind of trouble before the 1:1 thing was mentioned.

I am also looking at the diagram on pp 90-91 of Adkins' Gettysburg Companion where the 19th Virginia, going into Pickett's charge, has an engaged strength of 328 but of that there are some 19-20-21 percent pulled out of the line to stand right behind it, not counting those in the line by being between companies such as the colors. Those 25 in the spaces in the 2 rank line are taking up frontage, but the other 63-66 either immediately behind the line or a few paces back, are not taking up frontage.

They are positioned according to the Hardee manual. Their names are not only named, along with their ranks and functions, but also even their fates as to k, w, or c, or both. It is not entirely clear how well that percentage would hold up in the case of another regiment with much different strength, of privates, as compared with NCO's and officers etc, or stay around the same raw number of leadership slots, which would decrease the percentage not to be counted into the frontage.But that regiment is pretty close to the average in numbers for that army at that battle.

The idea of the figures being 4mm instead of 3mm would indeed change everything, mathematically. My whole calculation was based on accepting the premise that they are 3mm precisely and 1:600. If they are closer to 4mm, and if they are 'large' 3mm, then you are right, and it also would entirely vindicate the broomstick experiment.In fact Frederick the Great, according to Delbrueck, had his men measured the same way with the half-pikes because he wanted them to only take up 18 (Rheinland?) inches, to get more in the space.

So with the whole proposition riding on the question of just exactly how many millimeters it is from the sole of the foot to the eyes, and whether to call these 3mm, 4mm or just 'large 3mm,' I put in my jeweler's loupe to focus in and settle it once and for all, and while I was zooming in dang if a dang Aardvark didn't come and snarf all 2720 figures up his snout, because he thought they were ants!

I am stalking after him hoping to get him to sneeze right now.

I had the same confusion. People call them 3mm but they are EXACTLY 4mm from the bottom of the feet to the top of the hat. Since the hats were fairly snug, I think that we can say the figs are actually that tall. But we should really factor in the point that people weren't nearly as tall then as they are now. What was the average height then? Miles could depend on inches/micrometers here… madness.

I believe the average man was about 5'6"

Thats like six miles extrapolated over Borodno…..

On the cutting issue, I've used mini side cutters ( link ) on both grooved and ungrooved 3mm strips. A few times guys have lost their feet, but at about the same ratio Gildasfacit reports. Command stands were ok, since they're grooved already. The real trick I've found, is to make sure your free hand is enclosed around everything before you snip – one of the halves is going to fly off.