Miniatures
for 17th Century Gaming
Updated 1/19/04
Some Septentrionalis GMs have asked me to recommend sources
of 25mm miniatures for their own campaigns. Fortunately, there are are
several serviceable ranges of metal minis available from various American
and UK foundries. If you have anything to add, drop me a line and I'll add
your recommendations to the page.
A mini-FAQ about metal miniatures appears at the bottom of the page
for people who are new to the miniatures world.
Redoubt
(http://www.redoubtenterprises.com)
Scale: true 25mm (ECW and Pirates), slightly larger for Three
Musketeers
Price: about $1.25 US per figure, with discounts for
certain group sets
Service: excellent service, extremely prompt and accurate.
I have never had any problems or delays, even with tiny orders. One caveat:
their website is quite creaky and eccentric, but once you've found the
online shopping feature, is perfectly workable.
My top pick. This is a UK-based miniatures foundry with a long history
and a deep catalogue of 17th Century miniatures. I use figures from five
of their ranges: The Three Musketeers, Renaissance, English Civil War, Rebellion
in the Colonies, and Pirates.
Redoubt miniatures are charming -- that's the most appropriate
word I can think of. They aren't the most detailed, but they are lively,
and have a very consistent look to them, which makes them look good en masse
on the tabletop. The Three Musketeer range, although small, has some real
gems, including the only miniatures of 17th century courtly women I've seen
worth mentioning (Milady de Winter and Madame Bonacieux, of course). There's
even a great coach!
The English Civil War range is excellent, including not only proper
ECW combatants but also musketeers and dragoons from the Low Countries,
wild highland clansmen, peasants, and Irish kerns.
The Pirates range features puffy-shirted sailors in about two dozen
different poses, with pistols, cutlasses, muskets, and even belaying pins.
And of course, Blackbeard, and some lady pirates.
The Rebellion in the Colonies range is a little anachronistic for
Septentrionalis (too many tricorne hats), but I do have some ranger
miniatures, the quality of which is a little poorer than some of the other
ranges.
The Renaissance range yields some good Turks and other Eastern troop
types which don't show up in Septentrionalis, but are useful for
my Europa 1666 campaign.
One feature I love about Redoubt miniatures is that the heads are often
cast separately from the bodies, allowing an almost infinite number of combinations
of head and body. I recommend buying a pack or two of assorted heads, to
customize even the hordes of banditti and street toughs your PCs will face.
Speaking of faces, the faces themselves are the most problematic aspect
of Redoubt minis -- the rank and file soldiers tend to have poor facial
detail, looking a bit like Odo from from ST: DS9.
Old Glory
(http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com)
Scale: true 25mm
Price:$27 US per bag of 30 miniatures
Service: excellent
The American miniatures foundry Old Glory offers many 17th Century
ranges, but I use them only for their historically accurate Woodland Indian
miniatures, part of their French & Indian Wars range. The quality
is pretty good, although tending to be a little short in the legs, proportion-wise.
Old Glory minis are not available singly -- you have to buy a bag of 30,
albeit at a cost-per-piece of less than $1 US. Fortunately, you get 15 or
more poses in each bag. I would like to buy one of their ECW bags, but
I'm still recovering from painting all those Indians. In the meantime,
I sampled some of their Vampire Wars line, specifically the Sleepy Hollow
collection, which yielded some good villager types.
Old Glory also sells 25mm -- yes, that's 25mm scale -- ships, for boarding
actions. I haven't yet taken the plunge, but these big ship models are
made of resin, with metal fittings, and some have removable decks. If any
of you have bought one, I'd like to hear your comments.
The Foundry
(http://www.wargamesfoundry.com)
Scale: slightly larger than true 25mm
Price: about $1.50 US per miniature
Service: excellent
I finally ordered some Foundry swashbucklers and was pleasantly
surprised by their quality. They look much better in person: not as grotesque
or cartoony as they appear on the web site. The castings are crisp and full
of detail. I would like to give a special recommendation for the Foundry
site itself, which has color images of nearly all their miniatures, and
is much more logically designed than Redoubt's or Old Glory's.
Valiant Miniatures
(http://www.veltd.net/spanishm.html)
Scale: 1/1200 (one inch equal 100')
Price: varies
Service: unknown; I buy them from distributors
For at least 20 years, Valiant has made incredibly tiny, detailed metal
miniatures of Sea Wolf era galleons, galleys, and other sailing craft. They
are only an inch or so long, but come with separately cast masts/sails, which
must be glued into holes in the deck. They are the perfect for use with
the Sea Battles rules in the old Septentrionalis PDF sourcebook,
and look just great in action. Highly recommended.
A Mini-FAQ about Miniatures
What is 25mm scale?
A true 25mm figure is 25mm (one inch) tall, measured from the base
to the eyes, not to the top of the head, because of the great variation
in the height of military headgear, especially in the early modern era.
The trend over the past ten years has been toward larger, chunkier miniatures,
often called 30mm or heroic scale, which are just large enough to make
your old 25mm figures look odd when placed side-by-side on the tabletop.
What are miniatures made of? Are they safe for kids?
Recently enacted safety laws in the US have forced foundries to abandon
lead-based casting metals. Most foundries now use zinc or other so-called
"white metal"non-lead alloys. But I still wouldn't let a small child anywhere
near them.
How do you paint them?
There are many resources on the web which describe this enjoyable (if
time-consuming and exacting) pastime in great detail. But briefly:
Trim
Take a small knife and trim off any sprues (little stick-like
extra bits resulting from the channels in the mold which let the molten
metal in and the air out) and flash (very thin puddles of metal
that may have worked their way in between the two halves of the mold).
Take a small, fine-toothed file and carefully smooth off the little line
that runs around the miniature at the place where the two halves of the
mold met.
(Glue and Fill)
If the miniature is in more than one piece, glue it together with superglue.
I use a brand called Zap glue, whose holding power is quite astonishing,
but remember, the glue doesn't care whether its adhering to metal or to
your skin, so be careful to follow all safety directions. If a gap remains
after gluing, you can fill it in with a nasty-smelling toxic green substance
called Squadron Putty, available at most hobby shops.
Prime
Coat the miniature with a spray primer, to provide a good base for
applying paint to the figure.. The Armory and Flo-Quil are two manufacturers
of spray primers. The preferred color is neutral gray, but some people
use a white, brown, or black primer.
Paint
Paint the miniature with water-based acrylic paints. I use paints from
The Armory, Polly-S, and Liquitex -- I've heard good things about Vallejo
paints, too.
Seal
To protect the paint, coat the miniature with a brush-on or spray-on
sealer. Both glossy and matte sealers are available.
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