"28mm Highlanders tossing the caber" Topic

This is kind of like my sedan chair racing project.
Several manufacturers make sedan chairs designed as sedan chair sets.
But to go outside the biz and construct something like a …. let's say a Renaissance Polish sedan chair team, the most important thing is to find "chair men" (yes, that's what they are called) with their arms in appropriate positions for carrying the chair or litter. You will need both right and left handed chair men. Old Glory did this with a Cossack vignette.

To transfer this idea to caber tossing, I would need a figure, almost by definition wearing a kilt, with his hands cupped to carry the caber, held low in front of him. 28mm of course, but probably the bigger the better within reason.
This could be a Jacobite Highlander, ECW Scot, or even a Dark Ages or Ancients figure. Shirtless would be good.
I'm thinking I could use this for my The Sword and the Haggis game. The mere sight of this bearing down on a Government line should cause a morale check or two.

Any figure recommendations?

The caber part is easy.
A 3 or 4 inch dowel of appropriate diameter and varnished.
The lad who tosses the caber (will this get caught by the Bleep-o-matic?) is the problem and object of this quest.

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Occasionally you find a chap in er…. Tossing pose in artillery sets lifting the cannon balls

Sorry to put a fly in the ointment --

Wouldn't some muscular, shirtless, large tree-bearing warrior coming at the lines with the intention of throwing said tree at the lines be a magnet for ranged attacks?

Wouldn't his movement rate be much slower than the rest of the attack?

At what distance would he have to close carrying that caber before being able to toss it?

I remember Citadel/Games workshop put out a Caber tossing Highlander and another wielding a broken bottle a few years ago – no national stereotypes there then.

Timbo's idea of "gunner carrying ball" offers the best pose, but most "Scottish" gunners are in trousers/breeches.

Old Glory do a range of Jacobite Highlanders, of which the lochaber axe, musket and falling dead packs all seem to have figures that could be converted (oddly enough, the musket guys actually look the best possibilities):-

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If you want slightly more "imposing" (32mm) figures, try Crann Tara, who have Jacobites in shirts or jackets; the lochaber axe types are more promising here, but still need a bit of work getting the hand into the right positions:-

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Good luck – and let's see some photos!

Sorry to put a fly in the ointment --

Wouldn't some muscular, shirtless, large tree-bearing warrior coming at the lines with the intention of throwing said tree at the lines be a magnet for ranged attacks?

"Till Birman Wood come to Dunsinane…."
I prefer to interpret that line from Macbeth to mean that an elite squad of Caber Men defeated Macbeth's army.

And the Caber men would count as being behind heavy cover,

I dug out a few of the older Front Rank Jacobite Highlanders, the skinny ones with thin weapons. A few of them with broken Lochaber axes that should have never been cast in the first place, show some promise.

As Qyburn said to Cersei Lannister, "The work continues."

From the film 'Utu':

Maori chief explaining to his right-hand man the Shakespearian Scottish play-inspired tactic of attacking a town by creeping up holding bushes as camouflage: 'Birnam Wood!'

Right-hand man's indignant response: 'You burnum your own wood'.

Found them thanks to stuff of legends – might try Ebay

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Good find. Thanks.

With my conversions, I'll need a larger washer than my usual, for balance. And I had better mount him at the rear.

Try Old Glory's Jacobite artillery pack. Some are in kilts.

Henry(way off topic,but he went there first)--I always wondered about that line. It seemed to belong more to a 1940's Hollywood Indian than a Maori. Looking closely at the scene when the DVD came out, I became convinced it was dubbed in later--the actor doesn't seem to be moving his lips. I have a feeling the director thought of it after shooting,and couldn't resist adding it.

Not that there aren't some great (and funny) lines in the film. Two off the top of my head:

"Funny tasting beer"

And: "I've only been a Pakeha for one minute,and I already hate you Maori".

Macbeth runs as a subtext throughout the movie. I noticed somebody on IMDb cited a character's quote of "Something wicked this way comes" as a "goof",because he was anticipating Ray Bradbury's story "by 100 years". Never heard of Shakespeare,apparently. I see someone's added a note of correction,finally.