Time for another entry in my Year of Pop Culture. The Outlaw Josey Wales is, of course, one of Clint Eastwood’s classic Westerns; one I have seen many times and one I return to often. It’s the story of a Confederate farmer whose family is murdered by Union troops, so he joins a militia to kill Northerners. Eventually, the militia is convinced to surrender. Josey refuses, of course, and his fellow militia men are all massacred after laying down their arms.
Josey becomes an outlaw; the target of bounty hunters and the duplicitous Union regiment known as the “Redlegs” that was responsible for the massacre of his men. He finds a woman, settles down on a ranch…but only for a little while. Eventually, the Redlegs arrive and lay siege to the ranch in a bloody climactic battle.
The Outlaw Josey Wales has some of the best lines in bad-ass movie history, from “You gonna pull those pistols, or just whistle Dixie?”, to the iconic “Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin’, boy.” It’s one of my favorite Westerns of all time, and if for some reason you haven’t seen it, you should.
Reaper does this “Jeb Lawson” miniature in their Chronoscope line, and it’s a pretty good likeness, almost as if they did that on purpose. It’s sculpted by James van Shaik.
Here’s my paint job.
And that’s one more for the Pop Culture theme of 2022.
I guess that’s a good thing, because I haven’t done shit on my Deep Space Nine model for the Season of Scenery yet…
I have decided that 2022 is going to be the year of pop culture here at Dead Dick’s Tavern. Over time, I have accumulated many miniatures, both officially licensed and not, of characters from film, video games, comics, literature and cartoons. I had a dive through my pile of shame the other night and I pulled a bunch out, and this year I’m making them a priority.
First up: Matthew Quigley from one of my favorite Westerns: Quigley Down Under (1990). For those who haven’t seen it, here’s a quick synopsis sans any major spoilers: Matthew Quigley (Tom Selleck) is an American sharpshooter of some renown, and he is hired by Marston, a British land baron (Alan Rickman, who is simply awesome in this role) for some unspecified shootin’ work on his huge ranch in the Australian Outback. Quigley packs up his Sharps Big Fifty and makes the ocean voyage all the way to Australia only to discover that Marston wants him to hunt and kill Aborigines. This does not sit well with Quigley, and the two men have what’s charitably termed a “falling out.” If you want to know the rest, watch the movie. Or just look it up on Wikipedia.
Tom Selleck is one of those actors I rarely think about; but when I see him in something, especially in a Western, I find I like him a lot. He’s outstanding as Quigley. Alan Rickman plays Marston like a British Hans Gruber, menacing but with a bit of humor. The film also features Laura San Giacomo (also great) and a very young Ben Mendelsohn. It’s really good.
This is Reaper’s “Batt Ridgeley, Sharpshooter”; from their Chronoscope line. I would say the resemblance is a bit uncanny, wouldn’t you?
Perhaps. But it’s Batt Ridgeley. Not Matt Quigley. Ahem. Wink.
Here he is, all painted up by me. I kinda like how he came out.
This miniature has once again kindled my interest in Old West gaming. I have more than enough miniatures and scenery painted and ready to go, so I really have no excuse. Just have to decide on a set of rules.
A nice shot of the Sharps Big Fifty. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, it’s well worth tracking down.
One of my 2019 Resolutions was to finally play GW’s Legends of the Old West, an out-of-print Old West skirmish game using the Warhammer engine. Despite using a variation of the IGO/UGO mechanic, it remains pretty popular among Old West gamers, as it’s easy to pick up and play, particularly if you’re familiar with Warhammer.
I’ve been wanting to play some Old West skirmish for years now, and even started making a Mexican border town, Mescalero, several years ago. Like many projects of mine, this got sidelined in favor of whatever else struck my fancy; but not before I also bought, assembled and painted some Plastcraft Western Buildings. I now have the beginnings of two towns; a traditional Mexican adobe village and a clapboard boom-town. (I also meant to make some Badlands scenery (and I still will), but, you know…sidelined.)
Recently I managed to get my hands on the holy grail of 28mm Western gaming, the OOP 1/64 scale ERTL Cow Town playset. It contains a Hotel/Saloon, a Sherriff’s Office, a Blacksmith, and an outbuilding and outhouse, along with lots of other scenic knick-knacks (like bar tables and desks). Between the Cow Town set, the Plastcraft buildings, and a couple of MDF buildings I bought from Knuckleduster, I have no excuse not to move forward with this project.
For Old West miniatures, I have a mixture from Blue Moon, Old Glory, Foundry, Knuckleduster and Reaper. Before the whole thing got sidelined, I painted up the Blue Moon cowboys that I got from Scale Creep. I really like this line a lot. The Old Glory and Foundry stuff looks a little small compared to the others (especially the Reaper Chronoscope stuff), but I’m hoping it won’t bother me too much when I actually start playing.
First up, the Blue Moon miniatures. The Earp brothers: Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan, along with Doc Holliday.
The Clantons: Ike, Billy and Johnny Ringo.
Frank and Billy McClaury; Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett.
The Daltons: Emmett, Bob and Grat. (Yes, Grat.)
A few Reaper Chronoscope miniatures: Stone (who I think is an undead gunslinger, although I didn’t paint him that way); Deadeye Slim; and a U.S. Agent (not to be confused with the guy who replaced Captain America). Both Stone and Slim are Bones miniatures. I bought the Agent because he has a pepperbox pistol, and that’s kinda cool.
Some Reaper fantasy townsfolk can serve double duty as Old West civilian miniatures, as seen here. The bartender and strumpet both work well as Old West miniatures.
Same can be said for the blacksmith (what moron parked a wagon full of hay near the forge?!)…
And this RAFM Call of Cthulhu doctor.
None of these miniatures count towards my painting queue progress, sadly; most were painted years ago. But THIS is my big project for this year; in lieu of starting a new army, I’ll get my Old West scenery and miniatures all done instead.
Production of my south-of-the-border town of Mescalero has slowed while I try to figure out some problems with the church roof. With all the amazing new Western buildings available from companies like 4Ground, Game On and Knuckleduster, to name a few, I thought I might as well start putting together a more traditional Western town. The trouble is those laser-cut MDF buildings can get pricey pretty quick.
I first saw these PlastCraft Western Buildings on Miniature Market and I figured I’d give them a try. The kits are all basically the same, although the front of each building is different, and some have awnings while some do not. Each building kit comes with a resin door and window (varies by kit). You can’t beat the price: at less than $5 each I bought all six varieties.
I posed some 28mm Blue Moon cowboys with these buildings to give you an idea of the scale. As you can see, the buildings are pretty small for 28mm and might be better suited to 15mm. The roofs are not designed to be removable, but I guess you don’t have to permanently attach them if you don’t want to. Regardless, the interiors are so small that there’s really no point in not attaching them.
I have mixed feelings about these kits. I’ll give you my personal pros and cons, as well as discuss how I assembled them. I wish I had thought to take pictures of them before assembly, but I didn’t think I’d be writing a review of them. Sorry.
PROS:
The price. For less than $5 apiece, they make perfectly good small shops and won’t break your scenery budget.
Once assembled and painted, they look nice enough.
Once primed, the material takes paint well. Inexpensive craft paint was made for projects like this!
You get a lot of extra card left over for each building, which is great for use in other projects, or to dress up these buildings (see below).
CONS:
The kits are somewhat fiddly to assemble, especially the awnings. Expect to get glue on your fingers.
The resin doors and windows do not often fit snugly into the holes. There’s usually a gap, so you need to fill it with Green Stuff or something else.
There is absolutely no texture to these buildings. Either you need to paint it to look like wood boards, or you need to score the material first. I opted for the latter. It’s easy enough to score, and it looks much better when assembled.
The signs, like the building walls, are just blank card. Which means either stenciling, painting freehand, or doing what I did; which is printing out the name of the business in Playbill font and glueing it to the sign. The downside to this is it looks bright. I guess I could have used some other paper, but for the amount of use these buildings are going to get, it wasn’t worth it.
All of the above makes assembling these buildings a more time-consuming task than you might think.
OVERALL:
The low price makes it easy to overlook the annoyances. These kits would compliment some nicer buildings by the abovementioned companies, or may provide adequate scenery for a small outdoor skirmish on their own. You may notice I used some extra card bits to make signs on a couple of buildings like the one above. It won’t win any awards, but it adds a little something extra. You get plenty of leftover card to use in any way you see fit. For example, I considered making a plank bridge from one building roof to another, but scrapped the idea.
After I painted them, I realized my Western buildings look pretty bright and clean! I’m thinking of adding some weathering pigments to them to dirty them up a bit. You could paint them with less color to give them a more hastily-constructed or ramshackle look, if you prefer.
SHOULD YOU BUY THEM?
Yeah, if you’re looking to add a little extra to a town or if you’re on a tight budget (or both). As long as you have the patience to assemble them, these kits are fine for what they are, and a steal at the price.
