"Punitive Expedition with Old Glory Figures" Topic

As I've mentioned previously on TMP, a friend recently acquired a 1916 US force to oppose my Mex Rev Mexicans. I thought our experience of organising them for battle and surmounting a couple of apparent obstacles to creating a realistic army might be useful to others.

My friend ordered two packs each of white and black mounted cavalry, one each of the corresponding dismounted cavalry packs, one pack of infantry, two packs of MGs (giving one MG model per cavalry unit, but… see below), one pack of artillery, one pack of artillery crew, and one pack of high command/personalities. This provides a nice, compact force of four cavalry units with MGs, two infantry units (15 figures each), and two guns; with the high points cost of US troops, more than enough to meet the rules' maximum points total, with some flexibility for variation in force composition from game to game. Most of our games will represent encounters from the Punitive Expedition; the infantry are there mainly to allow the playing of Border War scenarios. OG doesn't make a US infantry HMG for this range, so my friend will probably purchase one from another company (Pulp Figures?) at some point. We might add an aircraft and/or Jeffrey armoured car, too.

OG mounted packs contain ten figures and horses including command figures, which coincides nicely with the CLA rules unit structures*, and which is therefore the standard cavalry unit size in our games (historically small units, such as rurales, have eight figures). Strangely, dismounted cavalry packs contain thirty figures but only two sets of command figures: two each of officer and sergeant. This incongruity presents purchasers with a dilemma, but another failing of the range provides the solution.

Along with the mismatch between mounted and dismounted cavalry pack contents, another issue is that there is no specifically black MG pack to support the black cavalry packs. As you see, only two mounted cavalry packs per dismounted pack were ordered, leaving ten spare figures from each of the two dismounted packs. We agreed that I would take these, along with the ten spare artillery crew figures (you get four complete crews of five figures in a pack), and absorb them into my Mexican forces in return for transplanting heads from six of the spare black figures onto the contents of one MG pack (my friend has no experience of this procedure, whereas I've successfully conducted dozens of head swaps). I finished the 'operation' yesterday, and the resulting black machine gunners are entirely convincing. BTW, if one MG per cavalry unit seems like a lot for the period (regiments had 12 troops of… troopers, and one troop of MGs), it just allows for situations in which a whole MG troop was assigned to support a small detachment, as sometimes occurred historically.

So, there you have our work-arounds for the oddities of OG's range structure. I hope they help to ease the process of collecting Punitive Expedition forces for other gamers.

*We've reverted to CLA from the variant of TMWWBK I detailed a while back on TMP, both to preserve our Mex Rev games' distinct character while reserving TMWWBK for colonial games, and simply so that CLA, which I like, actually gets used.

Got pics of the figures?

Dan

The Old Glory packing system, especially for cavalry is a little puzzling.

As you said the dismounted versions don't match up the mounted set. This is not as much of an issue with the Spanish American War collection since very few mounted troopers are needed and most cavalry units are dismounted. I believe it's based on the 30 figure infantry units. Still makes problems for use with TSATF units. My only guess is like Matchbox scale it is based on how many figures fit in a single mold.

Good call on the head swaps. I've done the same for the mountain gun for the 10th cavalry in Cuba.

So these are the 25mm-28mm sets then?

Dan

TMWWBK I got, but CLA is what?

It is hard to beat Old Glory for the quality per dollar. I like the 30 figure bags for infantry and the 10 figure bags for cavalry.

They are listed as 25mm, however, they are actually 28mm.

They do not play well with RalPartha true 25mm.

That said, the Copplestone figures match well and I have recruted quite a few.

TMWWBK I got, but CLA is what?

Contemptible Little Armies, by Chris Peers.

LT

Column, Line, and Artillery was the best I could come up with for CLA on first reading.

The unspecified acronyms get a bit thick around here.

Yes, CLA is Mr Peers' WW1 era rule set.

Also, in case anyone is wondering, US cavalry MG troops had four Benet-Mercier (Hotchkiss) LMGs in this period, and the HMG then in service was the Model 1904 Maxim.

One model should suffice, and because it seems like an unnecessary expense and bother for my friend to have to order the Pulp figures pack – which is anachronistic anyway, containing a Browning Model 1917, and involves paying for a Lewis team that can't be used – I'll probably dig out the closest model I can find in my stash (maybe one of the Maxims from that SAW German MG pack I have), and use a spare artilleryman as number two gunner, and 'modernise' a SAW number one gunner (I bought a number of SAW US packs years ago for use as uniformed revolutionaries and US volunteers).

Interesting stuff, Henry, hope your Mexicans at least give them a good fight. Love that seldom played series of conflicts. I use OG figs also.

I have a sizable force of 1916 era Yanks now in 20mm ;)

Although he's not very digitally savvy, perhaps I can persuade my friend to post photos of them when they're painted, CC.