Unto the breach

We've had love poetry and we've had opera and I can sense some Shakespeare and some cycling are just about to appear. I must therefore, with all due apologies to those readers not interested in the subject, squeeze in some wargaming. Which is more than I have been able to do in real life. I have been to London (getting the first use out of my senior citizen's railcard) and it must be borne in mind that I have a personal life more complicated than befits someone, well someone with a senior citizen's railcard. Not only have I missed the first night of Lobositz (although I suspect that it may, as with Sidi Rezegh, come round again soon enough), but I haven't really had a chance to catch up with many other blogs. One that I'm glad to have read is Prometheus in Aspic where General Fwa has been running through a rather fine looking ECW siege at which I urge you all to take a look.

One of the issues he raises is how to model sap diggers in 20mm. Now the good general is a user of classic metal 20mm figures with the occasional resort to plastic for the odd figure he can't source in metal. I, on the other hand, generally use plastic with the odd metal figure. Strangely, this is somewhat easier for me. Plastic figures are, in general, taller than metal. When using a metal figure all I do is, if necessary, put a piece of cardboard underneath it. Short of chopping it off at the knees, one can't do the same in reverse.

Anyway, as it happens I have myself modelled some sap diggers, as part of my doomed WSS project. In fact the engineers and siege artillery are pretty much the only elements that didn't mysteriously disappear. So, and with the added bonus of helping me try out the not particularly new any more camera (about which I am suffering some serious post purchase dissonance), are a couple of not particularly good photos of them:

The chaps actually digging are Orion Pirates. Other figures suitable for conversion are available in the Imex Pilgrims and Pioneers sets or from the Accurate/Revell box of Confederate Pioneers. I also have a bit (OK, quite a lot) of siege equipment and figures for circa 1400, and have managed to utilise figures from those sets therein. Here is the Crow, with apologies for the obtrusive plastic box in the background:

I must try to get that stuff onto the table for a game sometime. I am particularly fond of the boiling oil dispenser. But they'll have to take their place in the queue, part of which is formed by the Great War trench raid project. So finally here is a very rude looking strongpoint.

Short and thick, does the trick