"Old School - Old Glory compatibility? " Topic

I've been given a bunch of ancient Old Glory 15mm ACWs both Confederate and Union. I already had some Union ones of my own to add too.

These are probably 20 year old castings, small in stature and often wacky in poses but perfectly serviceable for doing large battles with.

Strange request but does anyone do figures as bad as these any more?

No offence to those who have them and still love them but castings have improved so much over the years that adding new stuff would look really odd.

The old glory ACW 15 line is still available.
oldglory15s.com

My 15mm ACW collection is huge (I'm embarrassed to admit the size) and was done more than 20 years ago though I often add to it if a company like Blue Moon 15mm/18mm comes out with something interesting (like their field hospital). The Old Glory 15s make up the bulk (by far) of my collection, and I love them, but they are supplemented with Essex, Battle Honours, Peter Pig, Minifig, and Blue Moon. I think they work well together. You can see my collection in a diorama-like layout at link

@ Bashytubits – Sorry, I should have said that US suppliers are not on, due to the comedy rates charged for shipping from the US to UK these days.

@ War in 15mm – Quite right I can't tell what's what. How much of that is down to your painting and photo work! :o)

Bad is a relatively unfair word, given the fact that most ACW lines out there are from the same time period.

The only new line that has worked to hard to try an encompass the whole of the ACW period is Blue Moon. There are other companies and individuals in the last 5 years or so that have offered bits – basically a dozen or so codes of the basic troops, but most have relied on what has been available for the last 20 plus years to fill in the blanks.

I remember when those figures first came out, they flew off the shelves at Phoenix Games in Mpls. A few years after they came out, I started to attend HMGS conventions, both on the east coast and mid-west. The flea market as well as dealers were selling off older lines to replace them with Old Glory 15mm ACW figures.

And, if your reference to bad is in terms of style, then you are not looking closely at what a lot of miniature manufacturers are doing in the area of historicals. If they don't copy the Foundry style, then they tend to copy the Gilder style which lead to the Old Glory style. And by style, I mean more movement, NCO's doing the famous "Hey, Steve!" pose, and more variation in pose than just turning heads from left to right.

And, to be truly honest, the Old Glory 15's that you were given, being 20 years, are, from my experience lately, in higher demand than new castings of the same figures.

+1 Joel. I still remember my jaw hitting the floor when a friend opened the first bag of OGs. The standard was 10,or 24, identical figures in a pack,and here came tumbling out 100 different figures from one bag (literally--I think we identified two of the same pose).
That was a seismic shift in wargame manufacturing,leaving everyone else scrambling to catch up. What has come after has been in large part following Old Glory. Some of today's sculpts might be "better",certainly, and there are some real artists out there,but, IMO,without Old Glory's arrival on the scene, wargaming would be very different today.

My daughter is the photographer, and she does a great job on all my galleries. As to the chicken or the egg question, my take on that is that it works both ways. While a really nicely sculpted figure is much easier to give a good paint job, a well painted figure can enhance the look of a figure that's not the greatest sculpt. That said, I have absolutely no regrets about my purchase of the Old Glory 15s. In fact, once I completed my ACW collection, I went back to Old Glory 15s as the basis for my also huge Napoleonic collection, and I'm very happy with those results as well… and the Napoleonic figures have a great deal more going on with them in terms of color and detail. You can see the results of those in my Napoleonic gallery at link

In my view "bad" is not necessarily an unfair word, dumb or ill-advised perhaps but in terms of sculpture quality I would rate Battle Honours better, as I would Blue Moon, come to think on it I would rate Kalistra's 12mm sculpts better as well.

Like many players, while acknowledging the obvious fact real people vary I still prefer a more uniform appearance to wargame units so the overall stature matters too. Hence my request for a possible fit.

"Hey Steve" I can live with but crazy lunging figures, or the universal bayonets the length of Sabres and beards that would shame the cast of Gettysburg not so much. FWIW I'm not a big fan of Sash & Sabre in that regard either, when it comes to 28mm.

Oh and I never liked Gilder either. Animated, without question, aesthetically pleasing, no.

That said, no argument on the place of Old Glory in wargames and wargame figure history but time moves on.

War in 15mm,

I have always considered the OG Naps much better than their ACW, although some still have poses that make you wonder if the designer ever tried to mount figures on a base in more than one rank!

In particular there was a noticeable change at some point in their Austrian and French infantry that moved to a much more rounded and solid looking sculpt which would have looked great in the ACW range. I think they did the same thing with Brunswick and Dutch too.

I wonder if all the internal disruption that seems to have beset the company over the years and led to the split in 28/25mm production/ownership from 15mm stopped this happening.

The only reasons for this submission seems to be to offer insultt to Old Glory ACW 15mm figures and those who like them.

Most of my original army is 15mm Old Glory. A nice chunk of that is the original Dave Alsop molds. I'm in the process of painting some generic division(s) for my army. I'm going back and stripping the paint off the original Alsop figures and repainting them to high standard. My plastic modelling and miniature painting skill has grown over the years. :)

I do really like Battle Honors and AB Miniatures as well. But I have a soft spot for Old Glory 15mm.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, so I'm not going to beat a guy up because his views are different from mine. However, I have literally thousands of the first generation OG ACW figs. I seek them out at flea markets at conventions. I think they are outstanding.

Brad, those are some good looking paint jobs. You should bring your figs to Nashcon, along with your scenario books.

Who was it who said "You can please some of the people some of the time…?"

The only reasons for this submission seems to be to offer insultt to Old Glory ACW 15mm figures and those who like them

In the original post.

No offence to those who have them and still love them but castings have improved so much over the years that adding new stuff would look really odd.

Yeah that's me, never happy unless I'm insulting people and inanimate objects.

On my original point. Was there ever an update to the ACW castings, like the one I referred to in my above reply to 'War in 15mm'?

Its so hard to spot the OGs in the excellent photos and links that have been posted (hope that's not too insulting) its hard to believe they are the exactly the same figures with a superior paint job.

The irony is that the OGs I've been given are the first figures the donor ever painted in 15mm. His 15mm Naps are great and his 28mm stuff first class but like I said, the 15mm Nap OGs are better castings even before the obvious up grade to some codes.

The painting on his ACW 15mm is not horrendous, although his color choice is 'inventive' at times, as he was a total Civil War novice when he did them. Indeed I've seen a lot worse but his painting style improved over the thousands of Naps he did before moving to 28mm.

Trajanus, if you want to repaint them, then just soak them in Simple Green – it strips paint of metal very easy with an over night soaking. And, Simple green is environmental friendly.

Thanks for the tip but there's around 650 infantry alone!

The Union figures are a pretty good standard, its the Confederates that are not so hot!

The painting is not that bad in itself its more that the guy went for the "Ragged Rebels" look and even his deliberate lack of uniformity isn't uniform!

He kind of forgot that modern dyestuffs hadn't been invented and you can see some individuals shirts from the other side of the table! Not to mention the odd ones here and there sporting a white slouch hat!

Mississippi gamblers, maybe?

Rather than strip them I'll just tone the required figures down a bit and squint at the rest! :o)