Hinchliffe v's Minifigs
With all these wonderful images of old school figures and the chat about Gilder et al I'm curious as to which of the early makes you prefer. I was introduced to 25mm metal wargames figures by various school friends, Shuke B., being one of them. Amongst the historical collections Minifigs were certainly the preferred choice over Hinchliffe. The group of friends that I played the big Napoleonic games with were really so critical of Hinchliffe and Gilders 'long arms' on his figures that none ever graced our tables. It came as a bit of shock to me to meet other gamers who couldn't bear the dumpy little Minifigs that I had been taught to love! These two makes were available in a shop about 20 minutes, on the train, from where I lived and the likes of Garrison didn't even figure on our myopic radar. Your thoughts or preferences from the past?…

being brought up on Teesside meant that i was mostly a Garrison addict. Regular visits to the G&B factory were used to top up my Greeks, Persians and then, later on, Normans (never painted any of them and the spears wouldnt glue on). I particularly liked Garrison for hoplites - at the time they always seemed to capture them quite perfectly. Minifigs were just eye candy in a catalogue (which used to be superb - rows and rows of figure photos - so far in advance of the typed lists that everyone else had)

Minifigs for me - much cheaper, better coverage of the ranges/periods I wanted, and more anatomically accurate (ok, that last one was obviously relative.....). Hinchliffe also introduced me to the concept of scale creep when their Austrian Napoleonic German infantry dwarfed their Hungarian colleagues. Oh, and all the sword arms came off their cuirassiers. And following on from goat major's comment - Minifigs had those spanking catalogues with not only illustrations, but pics of painted figures on the covers (not to mention MINIMAG magazine, which had some interesting little articles, very innovative for their time). Also, Minifigs were easier to get hold of - a rugby team-mate lived in Dibden Purlieu and worked in Southampton, and was happy to perform "drive by" purchases on a Saturday morning en route to the game. The only local Hinchliffe supplier - who only seemed to restock every decade, on the decade - was the old BMW* shop just round the corner from Wimbledon FC's original ground in Plough Lane. * No, Builders' Merchants of Wimbledon - you'd be amazed how many people used to get that wrong.

Ral Partha, back when they were a real miniatures company and not a D&D satellite.

Starting out in 1983 nothing but 15mm was affordable, so Hinchcliffe were never considered. Minifigs were the dog's dangly bits but still expensive by my standards and came in packs. The fact that Warrior Miniatures were cheaper was an attraction and Jacobite a godsend because you could buy single figures - I still have cavalry units made up of minifig trooper 2x4, minifig command 1 x3 and single Jacobite officer x1 try asking for that today and you'll get funny looks In the 90's when I had a bit more spare cash a cavalry unit would be minifigs troopers 6 packs of 4 and wait for it, wait for it.......... command pack of 3 figs x2 - The Lap of luxury :D

in the above post I'm talking about 15mm minifigs of course

Presumably these were the 2nd Generation 15mm - now extremely sought after, what with the 3rd (current) Generation having crap horses - rather than the original strips?

Yep 2nd generation Ronan and its not only the horses in the current lot that are crap!

Sure - I just thought I'd include the "moan" that helps everyone recognise which range we're talking about. Marching Nap infantry swinging their arms, charging poses you can't put into two ranks - and of course an AWI range they will never finish! That said, their gunners and command packs are usually nicely animated - almost up with ABs in some cases.

Hinchliffe over MF every time (with some Garrison, Willie and Tradition thrown in) - much better anatomically, and with real style, movement and character.

Was that "Big Nev" or the deceased Higgs brother? My experience of Neville Dickinson was quite a positive one. Asked him if he was planning French Revolution in 15mm (the only alternative at that time was Peter Laing), got told there was nobody to research it, but if I wanted to.... Did it, sent it in, and they actually made the entire lot - the range is the one currently available, including Ottomans and Egyptians. My only dealing with Dick Higgs was over their 25mm British Napoleonic range; they made some infantry in stovepipe shako, but all the officers had them as well. I pointed out that they should have bicornes, and received a short reply that they had a reference that showed stovepipes for officers (without any word as to what it was). In fairness, they must have received so many letters like ours that they probably wondered why they'd ever bothered making toy soldiers in the first place!

Started on Minifigs (there was a model shop in Newport and then found one in Cardiff) that stocked them. Then the catalogues were brilliant but then discovered the SYW and Hinchcliffe were the canines testies. Even then I mainly painted and with a decent paint job Hinchcliffe were amazing. Still have a massive softspot for Minifiogs though and came pretty close to going with them for my Napoleonic project.......I chose Perry and Foundry instead for some strange reason.

The real question of course is Minifigs or Minifigs S Range. Depends if you want fat a**ed garden gnomes or realistically proportioned figures. I remember being devastated when they changed over just when I started being able to afford the odd metal figure (though i suppose the new Minifigs were very odd figures). And then of course the Minifigs 20mms were better than S Range... I was never find of Hinchliffe Napoleonics but bought a lot of Hinchliffe ECW and their AWI were great - prompted by the pictures in Curt Johnson's book. The Authenticards for Napoleonics were great, though Never bought Hinton Hunt at the time (those were the days when mail order was a bit of an innovation and if you weren't old enough for a cheque book you had to mess around with postal orders). Plug here for my figure blogs: Hinton Hunter (Hinton Hunt) http://findthatfigure.blogspot.com/ Lone S Ranger (Minifigs S Range) http://minifigssrange.blogspot.com/ The Old Metal Detector (other manufacturers) http://theoldmetaldetector.blogspot.com/

Hinchliffe/Foremost every time never liked Minifigs at all, we still use Hinchliffe Austrians and Russians with the survivors of the cull of the French forces mixed in with the new Front Rank recruits :)