|
Post by Starbeard on Nov 16, 2015 6:15:03 GMT -6
Not strictly Chainmail, but I think most of the people who check this subforum would get a kick out of this. On Saturday my wargaming club went to Warfare, the miniature wargames show put on by the Wargames Association of Reading, and in a last-minute moment of irresponsibility I decided to tag along instead of staying home to catch up on work. In the end I was glad I did, because the Society of Ancients was there with a display of Tony Bath's flats! The man responsible for the display (Phil Steele) has spent decades building up a huge collection of flats from the Society of Ancients old guard, like Tony Bath, Phil Barker and Deryck Guyler. The flats shown here come from all three of those, with pride of place of course given to the Bath flats. He's been converting at least some of them over to modern DBA-style basing to play modern games, but fortunately (in my opinion) the majority of them still have their original basing. I was told many, and probably all, of the flats on display were used at one point or another in Tony Bath's Hyborian campaign. Anyway, they're absolutely beautiful to behold, and make me wish I could build up a collection of flats to use with Chainmail or Bath's Ancient Wargaming. Enjoy!
|
|
|
Post by kesher on Nov 16, 2015 6:59:11 GMT -6
Those are gorgeous--thanks for posting! Methinks that 3D printing may be a good tool for a flats renaissance...
|
|
|
Post by Finarvyn on Nov 16, 2015 15:18:18 GMT -6
Very nice!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2015 19:37:44 GMT -6
d**n, I'd love to get some flats!
|
|
|
Post by delverinthedark on Nov 16, 2015 20:15:45 GMT -6
Goodness, those flats are absolutely gorgeous! Thank you so much for taking the time to photograph them and then share that photography on this board!
|
|
|
Post by rsdean on Nov 16, 2015 20:58:09 GMT -6
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2015 21:27:46 GMT -6
My God, it's full of stars!
|
|
|
Post by rsdean on Nov 17, 2015 6:04:18 GMT -6
The downsides of flats are that they are pretty expensive, around two euros apiece, and that they take a different skill set to paint than round figures. I bought a bunch on a trip to Germany in the '90's, and managed to paint one three figure group. Maybe it's time to try again...one of the ones I've been hanging on to is a 40 or so piece set of Trojan War figures and accessories which could make a game in itself.
|
|
|
Post by Starbeard on Nov 17, 2015 17:05:38 GMT -6
That's what I've heard about the painting. They tell me they're not necessarily harder once you learn the tricks, but it's definitely a different skill set.
I'm surprised no one's ever made buckets of cheapo plastic flats, I'd happily use them even if they looked cruddy next to the real stuff. It's unfortunate that proper flats are so expensive, I just can't see myself forking out the dough it'd take to put an army together. Instead I'll just have to drool over some other guy's army whenever one gets brought to a show.
|
|
|
Post by ritt on Nov 18, 2015 15:40:27 GMT -6
Sexy!
|
|
|
Post by xerxez on Nov 19, 2015 12:44:43 GMT -6
Thanks so much for this post. These are absolutely beautiful and make me want to figure out a way to design some flats. I love the scale and I love the detail and color, I'm sitting here picturing a set of the D&D monsters done in this fashion.
|
|
|
Post by rsdean on Nov 19, 2015 15:02:18 GMT -6
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2017 10:51:19 GMT -6
Flats work great when you view them from the side.
Hmmm...
Flats...
3D Printers...
Hmmm...
|
|
|
Post by thorswulf on Mar 28, 2017 5:53:48 GMT -6
There are plastic flats still made in Russia. They were a common toy soldier staple during the cold wars. Mostly Russian history topics, but some nice Battle of Hastings figures were done recently. The flats look like soldiers from the Tapestry. Skull and Crown is also getting to ready to sell a Jousting game that uses wooden figures similar to flats as well. I must say I have been horribly tempted by these zinnfiguren for some time. Even more so when I saw a Youtube series of videos about a Russian collection of flats that survived since being hidden during the Russian Revolution.
|
|
|
Post by Starbeard on Mar 29, 2017 6:06:19 GMT -6
I've tried looking up 3D printed flats too, without much luck. I'd love to see that niche filled. Commission Figures in the UK make flats out of MDF, in 6mm and I think 10mm. The only ones I've seen are Napoleonic, but they may make others. Any scale larger than that would be too difficult for me to paint, since they really are just utterly flat silhouettes without any detail features. Still, I have to say the 6mm figures look really handsome all lined up in formation. If I can get 6mm MDF flats for medieval armies, I'd happily put 4 on a single base and play Chainmail with those, making the scale 1:5 instead of 1:20.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2017 15:46:00 GMT -6
That'd work.
Heck, why not buy some really nice artwork and print them up as "tent" style figures? That would work too.
|
|
jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
|
Post by jacar on Mar 30, 2017 8:11:55 GMT -6
Phil Steele acquired most of Tony's collection and has been putting them on display from time to time. He is a huge DBA enthusiast. I've spoken with him a couple of times over at The Miniatures Page. Nice fellow!
There are plenty of paper flats on the market. Some can be had from Junior General (http://www.juniorgeneral.org) with varying quality. Very basic to quite nice.
Thanks for posting the photos. Fantastic looking game!
|
|
|
Post by Starbeard on Mar 31, 2017 6:26:51 GMT -6
Paper flats, I like the way you two think. Now that I think about it, I have a whole toolbox full of Irregular Miniatures 2mm figures. The 20-man blocks fit nicely onto 20-25mm bases. I think my next two army projects will be WotR paper cutouts to scratch the flats itch, and 2mm blocks to scratch the 1:1 figure to ground scale itch. I met Phil Steele at the show. He was there sharing a table with John Curry, the brain behind the History of Wargaming Project reprint series. Both were excellent gentlemen. If anyone hasn't already, they should go browse the HoW book series, it's chock full of good stuff. Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming, Donald Featherstone's War Games, and Charles Grant's The War Game are must-haves, and any one of their books on running campaigns could easily become a sourcebook for running Chainmail or D&D.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2017 20:20:33 GMT -6
Those look amazing!
|
|