Hinchliffe Outlaws

In my last post I showed off my old collection Hinchliffe Mexican Banditos, which I had rebased and touched up their paintwork. At the same time, I did the same to my smaller group of Hinchliffe Outlaws and here they are.

At the far left is outlaw leader, Clay Allinson. I am aware that there was a real life Old West gunfighter called Clay Allison but it is pure coincidence that they share similar names. When I ran my Outlaw Campaign in the 1980's using my 54mm scale figures, Clay was my player character and leader of a gang of brutal and sadistic killers. My players really enjoyed playing bad guys and getting away with murder and mayhem. The campaign ended abruptly when the gang decided to rob a Mexican bank and just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Most of the gang were killed. Some were arrested after being wounded including Clay. He was imprisoned for a long time. Others who were arrested faced the hangman's noose. I guess it was a fitting end as it proved crime does not pay. This figure is an almost exact copy of the Airfix Cowboy figure that I used to portray Clay. Clay is armed with two Colt .45 Peacemaker Pistols.
Clay's best friend for many a year was "Mad Jack" Duncan, a crazed psychopath who did some unspeakable things in my campaign. In my campaign that I mentioned above he suffered numerous wounds in the final battle, was easily arrested and swiftly hung. He is armed with a Colt .45 Peacemaker Pistol, a 12 Gauge Scattergun and a Bowie Knife. Note this figure is not produced by Hinchliffe. He is a plastic toy that I got from a Christmas cracker and he is a perfect 28mm scale copy of the Airfix Cowboy that was used by one of my players in the campaign. I made two alterations to both 54mm and 28mm scale figures of "Mad Jack" and that was to convert his Winchester Rifle into a Double-Barrelled Scattergun and to add his Bowie Knife to the back of his belt.

Next in line is Frank Harlan, who did not take part in my old Outlaws campaign. However, he is going to be part of Clay's new gang when I introduce them to my Six Gun Sound campaign. Frank is 42 years old and looking for one big score so that he can retire and settle down. He is a reliable ally with nerves of steel. He is armed with a Colt .44 Army Pistol.
Last up, is new recruit, Adam "Rustler" Madden, who at 23 years of age is the youngest member of the gang. He is an expert rider and very good with horses. "Rustler" is armed with a Colt .44 army Pistol and a Knife.
I'm looking forward to using this gang in Six Gun Sound, especially as I know Clay and "Mad Jack" so well. It'll be interesting to see how they fare this time around.

Assorted Wild West Children 01

As I mentioned in a reply to one of the comments made last time, finding figures of Wild West female townsfolk is hard but finding figures of children for this genre is even harder. Fortunately, I do have some. Here's a sample of some of them.

All of these are plastic figures, with the four to the left coming from an old boxed set of Airfix 1/72nd scale (20mm scale) Cowboys. I got these as a child during the 1960's, and I still have the figures from that boxed set. Seeing as I was after figures of children, their lack of height compared to 28mm scale figures actually worked to my advantage. The small girl and boy at the far left were designed as children for that set. Now they fit in as young children, in the 4 to 7 age bracket.

The next two figures in line were adults from that set but work well as older children in 28mm scale. I have to admit that the detail on them is muted, especially on their faces, which are very featureless. But, no matter. They suffice for my needs as crowd fillers. The figure at the far right was given to me by my dad. He used to collect Lledo vintage cars and vehicles and this figure came with an old newspaper delivery van. He is true 28mm scale and although he is meant to be from the 1930's I thought he'd fit in with my Wild West figures. He is also the only one of these children whom I have named. I called him Joey Black, after an NPC of the same name who appeared in an old TSR Boot Hill scenario called Mad Mesa. Joey was a paperboy working for the Mad Mesa Gazette, so it seemed appropriate to use this figure for him.
I'm currently painting a couple of child heroes for the Shadows of Brimstone game - male and female orphans, and they are superb sculpts. Not all children need be innocent bystanders. I strongly approve of Flying Frog's decision to include children as hero characters in their Weird West game. I'm planning on buying the two Wild West children figures from Reaper's excellent Chronoscope range next month, so expect to see some armed children here soon.