Should I strip? I would really rather not…

[Sane Max]

About 15 years ago on a mad whim I bought myself some of Peter Pig’s War of the Roses stuff. When I say some, I used them to build two really overlarge armies. There are mad quantities. I sold off a lot of them unpainted as I was never going to. Given that at the time no one else at the club fancied the period it was a doubly silly purchase. The guy who runs Peter Pig at shows Eyes still light up when he sees me coming.

I was at that time still painting in the cellar…. My eyesight was failing but I hadn’t noticed I needed glasses yet… and it turned out the gloss varnish I used on them was the much sought after ‘Yellowing’ type. To sum it up I have two huge forces of really badly painted figures for a game I was never going to play. Yay!

Blessedly, some of the lads are playing ‘Never Mind the Billhooks’, and in 15mm to boot, so joyously I am rebasing enough of them for two large armies (and will still have enough left for two overlarge armies on the old bases. What WAS I thinking??)

Butttt…… as I am rebasing I cannot help but feel I should really start stripping and repainting them rather than just touching up. Some of the paintjobs are really awful.

Sadly I find painting 15mm a task, rather than a pleasure. I was intending to never buy any more, or paint any…. What do I do? What would YOU do?

[Mike]

Sell them and buy some new figures to paint that fit the bill (hook)  😐

[General Slade]

Don’t strip them.  Don’t repaint them.  Stripping and cleaning up 15mm figures is a miserable task.  Badly painted troops fight just as well as well painted ones.  And if the way they look really bothers you, don’t wear your glasses when you play.

[Sane Max]

General Slade has always come across as the voice of reason on these pages… The very last army I stripped and re-did were my 15mm Late Romans, probably less than a third as many figures, and cute little Old-style Essex which are comparatively pleasant to paint, I was hating them by the end, I only finished the last ones a few weeks ago and i started during Lockdown.

[MartinR]

I’ve never stripped a figure in my life. Either just spray them black and start again, or touch up the bits you find particularly offensive (I recently did this for several hundred of my old Napoleonic figures), or just put them on nice bases.

Once they are based, noone looks at the paint jobs on smaller scale figures anyway.

 

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Mike]

MartinR wrote:

noone looks at the paint jobs on smaller scale figures anyway.

:O heretic!!

[Jim Webster]

General Slade wrote:

Don’t strip them. Don’t repaint them. Stripping and cleaning up 15mm figures is a miserable task. Badly painted troops fight just as well as well painted ones. And if the way they look really bothers you, don’t wear your glasses when you play.

 

Listen to this man, he tells it like it is 🙂

Jim

https://jimssfnovelsandwargamerules.wordpress.com/

[OotKust]

FWIW, IMO, no!

I did this with two 25mm armies in successive ‘regimes’ [others may say fits] to build the ultimate army/ forces I have now. [Ok so the 1970s paintjobs werent perfect, but still useable…]

I do regret stripping many of the troops (ie regiments)  that I could have left in use and merely replenished with ‘true French’ that I required my army to have in the last putsch of 1990’s. .

Both these and another ‘held in trust’ bunch of foreign troops are being used now; touch up whites and golds for clarity; rebase in ‘new’ model forms and if necessary add a light pass of matt spray to tone down yellowing when looking from above.

Like you I’d rather not repaint- sold my 15s a decade ago, all best, dave_

Swinging from left to right no matter where the hobby goes!

[Guy Farrish]

I was coming in with a chorus of ‘Get ’em down you Zulu Warrior!’ but I now realise that may not have been where you were coming from and may possibly be culturally insensitive to boot.

So er, no, no stripping and I’d follow Martin’s advice.

Or if you really hate painting 15s that much, sell all the old ones and pay someone else to paint a much smaller army.

[Tony S]

I’ve never stripped a figure in my life.  Even if some of my painting isn’t my finest moment, it is still far, far better than playing with unpainted lead or plastic.

I was once given a DBA army that wasn’t very well painted.  The generous gent figured I’d strip and repaint.  Perish the thought!  I just slapped some washes over them, and added some highlights here and there.  They’re still not terribly good, but a heck of a lot better than they were.

To be honest, I’d much rather sell the whole poorly painted army and buy a whole new army with the proceeds.  Saves the whole stripping and scrubbing hassle.  And you’d make Martin a very, very happy man next time you see him at the show.

But, as if as you say, you don’t particularly like painting 15s, I’d second Guy’s advice!

[MartinR]

I was exaggerating somewhat. Even my 2mm stuff gets looked at once, but generally that is all.

What I meant to say, was that as the figures get smaller, the bases become more noticeable, so with nice bases you can stick on the most misshapen sculpts painted with my usual cack handed daubings and they end up looking OK.

A nice flag or two helps as well.

 

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Sane Max]

Guy Farrish wrote:

Or if you really hate painting 15s that much

oddly… I was short of ‘exotics’ – Pike, Hangunners, Knights – so I bought some more and scuffled out the leftovers from the original army purchase and I am painting them now… with the hot weather, and as they were going to be single-based anyway, I am painting them one at a time, rather than in batches on strips as I usually do with tiddlers. It’s actually quite good fun. weeee… another Knight. Woohoo another Crossbowman (crossbows? In England? what the heck? ah well, since I have them) 3 down -only …um… 287 to go

[Sane Max]

I have decided to compromise. I didnt have enough cavalry for 4 armies, so I am going to strip and repaint cavalry and buy some extra.

But when did Peter Pig start re-making their ranges? The Light Cavalry and the Handgunners are totally different to my originals! I dont mind them, but I am just puzzled by it

[Tony S]

Wasn’t aware of the WOTR range being redone, but I know he also redid his WW1 Russians awhile back.   So I’m guessing this might be something he does upon occasion.

[Author]

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