Alamo Test Model

I know I usually have a dumb pun or obscure reference for my blog post titles, but that’s really all I could think of for this - I’ve finished my test model for my Alamo Mexicans:

He’s actually been finished for a week or two now, but I kept looking at him thinking maybe I should do something else, and then got distracted building him some chums, but in the end I think he’s as done as he’s going to be.

He’s a lightly converted Warlord Napoleonic French chap that came free with a magazine at the end of last year (and I unfortunately missed out on getting a bunch more of for crazy cheap in the Warlord Sprue Sale as I emailed asking if something not in the sale would likely come back into stock soon, and in the single day it took for them to get back to me half of the things in my online basket had gone out of stock). Paint scheme involved having to nip out and buy anew pot of paint too, as I didn’t have a blue quite bright enough for what I wanted.

He’s a little scruffy, but I think I can relocate this scheme across multiple chaps, and they’ll look grand en Masse I think. Also, I gave him a Mexican colours plume, because I think it looks cool, when strictly I think he should have had a fully green Pom Pom. 

The conversion was pretty straightforward - as the Mexican troops dumped their gear before the attack on the Alamo, I carefully cut the cartridge pouch off of the models backpack, filled with green stuff the hole that the backpack would usually clip into, and then inspired by Chris Peach used masking tape hardened with superglue to make his back straps. Chris Peach approved:

So, where has my obsession with the Alamo come from when I’ve historically (pun intended) been a fantasy and zombie gamer? I’m… not sure, to be honest. Usually I can track the train of thought that ends up with me starting a new project, but this one is a bit of a mystery to me. The best I can think is that with the Silver Bayonet reminding me how much I liked Sharpe as a child and showing me how snazzy Napoleonic uniforms are, and my other random new obsession with cowboys (roll on the second part of the latest season of Yellowstone), the Alamo is basically the best of both worlds…

Or maybe I’m just approaching middle age. I’ve bought 3 Ospreys, and have been thoroughly enjoying them. My main inspirational image so far has been this one:

So if anyone knows anyone that makes heads with scarves and straw hats that scale nicely with Perry plastics, let me know! That, or if anyone knows of a UK stockist of Boot Hill Miniatures, since postage from Brigade in the States is a bit of a turnoff…

The Tally has also taken a hit in the other direction, as nipping into our local games store I noticed that they’d had a restock of D&D monsters, so I grabbed a couple of packs of mimics to potentially harangue my family with:

Side note - why is it that on the rare occasions that I find a store that stocks these minis, the always have tons of player characters, but very few monsters? Surely monsters is where the money is at, since a layer will buy one pack, but a DM needs to buy plenty… 

All in, the Tally now stands at:

24 vs 152

We’re pretty much halfway through the year, so I’m not actually that far off of keeping to my ‘average one mini a week’ Challenge. Unlikely to get it back into the black though, especially when you consider that a friend and I have gone halves on a mystery box of 40 minis, with the plan being to draft them…