God Bless Fernando Enterprises!!!1!!

Perhaps the title of this post is a tad overly dramatic, but I have to admit that after eight orders - many of them quite large - the good folks at Fernando Enterprises have done alright by me.

One thing that has impressed me with the last two orders is how much their communications have improved. Several times a week I'll get multiple emails with photos of work in progress for my approval. I've only asked for three corrections out of perhaps 30 samples sent so far. And when asked to correct something, they make the correction and send you a new photo for approval. Now that's professionalism!

My last two orders have consisted of a couple thousand 1/72 scale plastic figures. This has rapidly become my favorite scale for element-style wargaming (i.e. anything DBA-ish). The bulk of what I have sent has been for ancient armies, but I have also sent some WWII and Napoleonic as well. The ancient figures will be for DBA - and particularly Big Battle DBA - and the Napoleonics will be for the 1805 campaign, culminating with the Battle of Austerlitz. I'm making all the terrain, and we'll use the DBN rules as they guarantee we can complete the entire battle in an afternoon.

The WWII figures I will base for for ASL miniatures. I have taken to using the ASL rules almost exclusively for our WWII games, and they have been very well received by the CGC. It turns out that, when using miniatures, a lot of the rules minutia that tend to scare folks off go away, leaving a good, solid and graspable system that plays quite quickly. I'll devote a few posts to this topic as I have the time. Anyway, we have been using my HUGE 20mm WWII collection, which is mostly individually based, which requires sheet magnet bases and a lot of fiddling. As soon as the painted 1/72 scale figures arrive I will be basing them for ASL and the 20mm figures will be reserved for more skirmishy style wargaming, such as Screaming GI's.

Here are some samples of the photos I've been getting from Fernando Enterprises, for your perusal and enjoyment.

This first photo is of an Assyrian. Now, try not to be distracted by the floppy spear - this is one of the inherent problems with plastics of this scale, unless you want to go to the trouble of replacing them with wire. I think in the future I will do just that, but for now, at least my Assyrians can fight around corners.

I love this paint job - especially for the price!





An Egyptian chariot. I didn't have much to send them as a guide, but they did an awesome job with what I sent them.







Some Russian grenadiers for my 1805 campaign project.

Plastic soldiers are great for element-style games. I would probably shy away from using them for games where models are individually based, although I am considering using them for crews for my ancient galleys as they scale better than 28mm figures do.


Austrian light infantry. If I painted these myself, I would probably leave off some of the details, like the shiny bits near the tops of the trousers (my eyesight has become terrible over the last two years - I'm nearly blind in my left eye now).









HaT French Infantry in 1805 uniform. I need to find me one of these hats to wear during game, if for no better reason than it gets Bobby all riled up!







Austrian infantry. These painted up really well. I believe they are Imex, but don't quote me on it as I had to go to several manufacturer's for the Austrians.



WWII Japanese. I have no Pacific Theater "stuff" in my current collection, so I am going to start with these plastics.



For the price ($1.30/figure before the discount for large orders), you just can't beat these paint jobs. I have another couple thousand plastic figures waiting to go to them, followed by a lot of 28mm lead figures as money permits.

You can check out Fernando Enterprises at http://www.miniaturelovers.com/

Cheers!

- Rod