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Unit Variety - the Quest

“Variety is the spice of life”, or so the saying goes.  Many wargamers prefer to have this ‘spice of life’ added to their armies in order to provide a unique visual spectacle to their unit composition.  Those who desire unit variety enter into an endless quest to populate their units with figures in a variety of positions, poses, and appropriate equipment to add that look of ‘realism’ to their pride and joy.   These noble gamers are the true “Questing Knight” of the realm.

These questing knights come alive when rumors indicate a new release of figures that would complement their army.  These rumors give birth to ‘hope’ which is soon tempered by a series of haunting questions;

“What size are these figures?  I mean what size are they really?”
“Will they ‘fit in’ with my beauties?”
“Are they too big?  Too small?  Are they ‘chunky monkeys’?  ‘slim jims’?”
“Will they enhance the ‘Spectacle’?”

And then starts the flood of internet posts; you know, exchanges in dimly-lit chat rooms, on members-only gaming sites, within the comfort and privacy of ones own gaming group.   The messages all have a common theme;

“Hey, has anyone seen ….”
“Do you know if these figures mix well with ….”

Those chosen few who pay due diligence to their mission are sometimes rewarded with the ‘Holy Grail’; a set of new figure poses and positions that perfectly complement their existing units.  And for a while, all is good.  But then ….
                  the hunger sets in again, …
                                                              and the quest begins …
                                                                                                    anew!!

Unit Variety – An Alternate Solution

Fear not, oh noble knights, for your cause is both just and fair.  To provide some succor to this unquenchable appetite while searching for the ‘Holy Grail’, gamers do have an alternate solution for unit variety.  This alternate solution is figure modification/conversion, and can yield several new poses, positions and a variety of equipment.  This article presents several beginner-to-intermediate level figure conversion techniques that, when applied with some skill and patience, can yield a unit containing a variety of poses, positions and equipment with figures of the same size, proportions and design-style.

Unit Variety – The Objective of this Article

The goal of this article is to take the same 12 figures and convert them into a single unit containing 10 unique rank-and-file figures, one captain, and one standard bearer.  The period of the unit will be New Kingdom Egyptian, and the theme will be unarmored archers with the front rank firing at the enemy and the rear rank in various poses ‘getting ready’ to shoot.

Unit Variety – Selecting the Core Figure

The careful selection of the original (‘core’) figure for this task is both necessary and essential to the successful accomplishment of the goal.  The basic guidelines for figure selection are;

• Choose a figure that you already like!  Let’s face it, this same figure -  face, body style, proportions – will form the basis for the entire unit!
• Choose a figure that you can ‘bend’.  Many conversions involve moderate changes in the position of the hand, arm or whatnot.  For ease of conversion, chose a figure whose ‘metal composition’  allows you this ‘pliability’.
• Choose a figure whose pose is ‘neutral’.  Neutral as used in this article describes a figure whose arms and weapon(s) are not cast against or ‘into’ the body, but are ‘free’, allowing easy ‘chop-pin-and-reposition’ activities.

The author has selected the Hourglass Miniatures unarmored archer pose NKE0022 for the core figure, because it perfectly satisfies all of the guidelines.

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