Tricorne temptations and Colonial captivation

My recent interest in all things of a 'pirate' nature and its accompanying period; the Golden Age of Piracy, and a major conflict of the period, the War of Spanish Succession, had me perusing for all things of a tricorne persuasion.

I already have a great fondness of the Black Powder rules, and when I heard of the immanent release of a C18th supplement for this rule-set being released: Last Argument of Kings, I have to say I was quite thrilled.

And so the fun hunt for suitable figures began. Whilst I love Foundry miniatures, and for the small numbers required for pirate themed skirmish games, they are ideal, the idea of buying up heaps of them for Black Powder scale games was not a financial option.

With the recent release of great quality plastic sets of hard styrene miniatures, at affordable prices, this had to be the way to go... but I could only find one suitable set:

War of Spanish Succession from Wargames Factory. An affordable plastic set, but by God Sir, they looked awful!

I have rarely seen such a poor paint-job be used to advertise and attract custom to a product!

So the hunt went on, but despite emailing the Perrys and WarlordGames, neither seemed to have any plans to release their own versions.

Hmph! I thought, and let it lie.

Then I stumbled across this pic, via a link on TMP:

What a difference! I have hope again for these figures, and intend to get a set. I just now need to find how best to order them for delivery to NZ. My usual source Maelstrom games has them for about 15 quid, which includes shipping. Wargames Factory themselves have them at $20US, but their site is not the friendliest and I can't see their shipping rates quoted anywhere...

Looking further through the Wargames Factory website, I came across their Colonial wars offerings:

And they obviously got somebody who could paint this time to advertise the models themselves:

They look superb. And with the possibilities of GASLIGHT rules for fun skirmish play, and also Black Powder larger scale action, I think they will certainly fit the bill.

And of course the Zulus are available and equally appealing, and are affordable as plastics when you need "fousands of 'em":

Equally well painted up:

I always fancied re-fighting the battle of Rourke's Drift, after watching that classic piece of movie entertainment; ZULU with Michael Caine and Stanley Baxter.

cockney accent "Don't throw...bloody spears...at me!", the most famous and oft impersonated line Michael Caine NEVER said ;-).

I also loved the portrayal of Colour Seargent Bourne in the movie too. I forget the actors name, but damn fine show he did of it. The sideburns were awesome.

Ah well, more plastic temptations to pull at my purse-strings... just don't tell the missus!