"How much equipment detail do you like on your miniatures?" Topic

While I love seeing field packs and lots of equipment, I find that there are quite a few times it adds to the painting time.

So curious

Do you like
a) lots of equipment detail – packs, blankets, side arms etc
b) just enough equipment detail to allow for customizing
c) just a rifle, pike or main weapon
d) Something else

Since my gaming is almost entirely solo, I paint figures to a level that pleases me. My infrequent opponent, a son in law really does not know much about military history, so does not know what may be missing.

As little as possible.

You know, it does vary a little with size and period. Massed battles with Napoleonic 5mm are not the same as Sf skirmishes with six castings a side.

Less is more, since I am doing battles the troops do not like to run around with all their camping gear on. More bullets, less frying pans.

Not a lot of detail – there's a war on! I do not like to paint troops in parade dress for Naps and ACW since I game with them and that's not how they look in battle. My 6mm do have some detail, a little more for 15mm. I probably fall in the middle. But no fancy gear if I can help it.

less the better..

With Tortorella on this topic, since my guys are going into battle, they would have shed their packs before heading off into line.

I guess I'm in category b).

For me, the miniatures are to be evocative more than strictly representative. That said, they are going into battle when they are on the table.

Tactical gear is tactical gear. Well kitted out miniatures indicate a well-prepared and flexible force. Field packs and logistics gear indicate an expeditionary force.

Of course, the extreme combination of flexible, well prepared, and expeditionary force would be SOF. To evoke this feeling, buck nekkid with a knife in their teeth works! ;)

'All of it'!

Phil

(b) some equipment, but not so much that it obscures the uniform

John

Depends on the period.

Napoleonic troops usually kept their packs on in battle, so that is how I like my figures.

Reading letters, diaries, and memoirs, you occasionally come across a mention of an order to leave packs behind. The context is nearly always that this is so unusual that it deserves mentioning!

Then, of course, there are the descriptions of troops running away and discarding their packs as they go. If they weren't wearing their packs, they wouldn't be able to drop them!

So yes, pack on for me…

(b) for me, if I am painting large armies/units. I have some splendid Minden 7YW miniatures, with every piece of equipment beautifully sculpted. In the same armies I have some RSM miniatures, also beautifully proportioned but very simply detailed, with just one cross belt and bayonet for some. The RSM's are therefore much faster to paint, but they both perform equally well, or equally badly, on the table. Each has it's merits, for faster painting, simpler figures, for spectacle and perhaps accuracy then the figures with more equipment. It depends on your own priorities. Now for small skirmish groups (a) for me, with lots of interesting detail.

Less is more, since I am doing battles the troops do not like to run around with all their camping gear on. More bullets, less frying pans.

I am with Bashytubits on this! I like the look of figures in fighting gear.
They are easier to paint too!

I prefer them to be wearing what they would in real life, so if that means packs on for Napoleonic, haversack and assault packs for WW2 Brits and Germans etc, then so be it.

Less is better, if it's not there I don't have to paint it!

Straps and buckles are the bane of my painting efforts.

C.

Please Lord, let it be 'C'

I would say b)

I can see why it would be mentioned in the Napoleonic Wars – leaving your pack behind behind meant you were probably not going to see it again

In the ACW troops often left their packs behind with a guard but they didn't like it – since more often than not they weren't there when they went back!

I would say depends on the scale should be a possible response. I might put a lot of effort for a 28mm and enough to get just the idea for 15mm.

All the gear they would appropriately have when going into combat, especially distinctive gear. I recall buying a bunch of WWII Germans…who did not have any breadbags! This is a distinctive bit of kit for Germans & its absence detracted from the figures.

Damon.

Napoleonic to Franco-Prussian I don't mind.

From WW1 and later I prefer no packs.

A

As Cerdic says how the Napoleonic era wore thats what I want.
That also includes losing some on my Landwehr

Ambivalent: if you don't have many variant it looks odd to have for ex. Many with exactly the same stuff at the same angle. Bit the same as holes in trousers.

C. The less, the better. If I can't see it on the tabletop, from 3-5 feet, it doesn't need to be there, and I likely will not paint it, if it is. Cheers!

I would like my soldiers to go into battle having left all the superfluous stuff behind.

10mm scale is my scale— the less superfluous detail, the better.
"C" seems to be phrased a little starkly, but it fits. I want surfaces for spot colors, and very few details to "pick out". It's supposed to be a mass of troops at arm's length or more— distinguishable for what they are as a unit, not so their grannies can recognize ‘em by name!

C. I want fighting men who dropped their packs before they went into action.

This much….

These are AB figs.