Wednesday 13 June 2018

Reaper Old West Figures 01

One of my favourite companies for 32mm scale Old West figures is Reaper, specifically their Chronoscope range. Whilst the Chronoscope range is huge, the amount of Old West figures in it is rather small. However, what they lack in quantity, they more than make up in quality. Yes, their figures are expensive but I still think they are worth it as there are some real gems amongst them. In this post I'm going to showcase ten characters (five female and five male), most of whom are named. They feature an assortment of character types - cowboys, gunfighters, outlaws and civilians. So let's get started.
At the far left is 50282 Cowgirl Janey Blenkinship. I have big plans for Janey for my Six Gun Sound campaign. She'll be a main character, riding with her husband, gunfighter Johnny West (I'll show him in another post) in a series of adventures. She is armed with a .44 Winchester Rifle and a pair of Colt .45 Peacemaker Pistols and more than likely I'll make her a gunfighter as well.
Next up is 50003 Cowgirl Ellen Stone. I love this figure but not her name. I can see that Reaper have based her on the character of Ellen, as played by Sharon Stone in the film, The Quick and the Dead, and whilst it is a close match, Ellen never used a Double-Barrelled Scattergun in the film. So, I gave her black hair instead of blonde, and renamed her Helen Hunter. Helen is close to Ellen and I chose Hunter for her surname because I'll be using her a bounty hunter. Regarding Ellen Stone, I have chosen a Black Scorpion figure to represent her and best of all, I have foot and mounted versions of her. Ellen is far too good a character not to appear in my campaign.
In the centre of this group is 50244 Cowgirl Victoria Jacobs. I see nothing wrong with her name so I'm keeping it but she sure won't be a cowgirl. At the moment I'm undecided whether to make her a bounty hunter, a gunfighter or an outlaw. I'm favouring a gunfighter most of all, but I might change that in time. She is armed with a pair of Colt .45 Peacemaker Pistols.
The lady in the long red dress is 50057 Madame Scarlet. I gave her the Christian name of Cynthia. I'll most likely be using her as the owner of a brothel in my campaign. This feisty woman is armed with a Winchester .44 Rifle.
Last up is the female half of set 50334 Old West Kids. I haven't decided on a name for her yet - that will depend on who her parents are. The fact that she is carrying a revolver in her right hand shows she knows how to take care of herself. Whether she's any good with it remains to be seen.
Moving on to the male characters, at the far left is 50050 Mexican Bandido Lobo Sanchez. I said there were some gems amongst this lot and Lobo is certainly one of them. With a pistol in one hand and a whisky bottle in the other, he'd be a good figure, but what elevates him to greatness is that the sculptor has added a chameleon resting on his back and left shoulder. That is just genius and is something I never expected to see. I chose this colour scheme for the chameleon from Google Images, but blimey, there sure is a lot of variety of colour schemes.
Next to Lobo is 50251 Gunslinger Hank Callahan. A good solid sculpt who'd work just as well as an outlaw, although I fancy using him as a Pinkerton Detective. He is armed with a pair of Colt .45 Peacemaker Pistols (one in his left hand and the other in a holster on his right hip). In his right hand is a severely cut-down Scattergun, which could be mistaken for a pistol at first glance.
I'll skip over the next figure in line for the time being and move on to the chap second from the right - 50119 Prospector "Crazy Pete" whom I gave the surname of Kaufman to. This is another outstanding sculpt, so full of life and animation as he jumps for joy having found a nugget of gold which he holds aloft. They may have thought he was crazy but who's laughing now? Yep, old Pete! Most of these figures are one-piece metal castings but Pete came in two parts with his left hand and pick being a separate component.
Finally, is the brother of the young girl from set 50334 Old West Kids. Again, for the same reason, I haven't named him yet. Like his sister, he is also armed, but this time with a Double-Barrelled Scattergun. Now with a Scattergun, you don't have to be too accurate to hit, especially at close range. A kid with a scattergun is a dangerous combination. I was delighted to see that the sculptor had decided to give both kids firearms.
Returning to the guy in the centre of the group of males, he is sold as 50076 Outlaw Jeb Lawson - yeah, right! He is quite clearly the Outlaw Josey Wales as played by Clint Eastwood in the film, The Outlaw Josey Wales. Compare his pose and sculpt to this picture to the left and you can see the sculptor must have copied it. Josey is armed with four Colt .44 Navy Pistols to save time on having to reload one. This was a common tactic in the American Civil War, where Josey took part as a Confederate rebel. Now I mentioned last time that The Outlaw Josey Wales is my favourite Western film of all time and in the comments of that post, John reminded me that the film is chock full of memorable quotes. Here's just a few of my favourites.
Josey - "Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?"

Josey - "When I get to likin' someone, they ain't around long."
Lone Watie - "I notice when you get to dislikin' someone, they ain't around for long neither."

Fletcher - "Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining."

Josey - "Dying ain't much of a living, boy."

Terrill - "Not a hard man to track. Leaves dead men wherever he goes."

Jamie - "Ain't we gonna bury 'em?"
Josey - "To hell with those fellas. Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms."

Josey - "I reckon so." 

If you'd like to buy any of these figures and you live in the UK, I'd recommend ordering from the Miniature Heroes webstore, see here - http://miniature-heroes.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=487_501 
You'll save a fortune on post and packing over ordering direct from the USA, plus, you don't have to worry about the dreaded customs charges. If any figure isn't in stock, it will be ordered for you. You may have to wait a while but you will get it. So, lets take a look at prices. All of the figures shown above cost £5.22 each except for the kids who are £5.38 for the pair.

32 comments:

  1. Nice collection of old west figures, great painting very atmospheric

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  2. Great assortment of minis, Bryan. Good to see you praising one of Eastwood’s western’s too as your tip top fave; albeit I’m a “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” fan myself. I’m especially impressed with your lizard-wearing Mexican - what a great sculpt! But they all, once again, have their own merits, and your Josey is spot on, imho. Terrific posting :-)

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    1. Hi, Simon, and thanks for the kind words. Absolutely nothing wrong with "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" as it is one of my favourite Westerns, as well. That Mexican Bandido certainly caught my eye as well. I never noticed his pet chameleon until I received the figure and got a closer look at him.

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  3. There's some cracking figures here, I've not seen the Mexican before, does he scale well with the Col Bill's Female Banditta with the bottle, looks as though he should do.
    I didn't get the lass in the red dress because she is very similar to the Black Scorpion ones, but I do think she looks good, might have to change my mind on that.
    The Ellen Stone is one of my all time favourites although she's not leaving much to the imagination but she just looks as if she means business. The only one I'm not too keen on is the Janey character, the Winchester looks to be very difficult to hold and fire in that position, if I had your sculpting skills I would have been inclined to remove the rifle and drop her arm a little so she is poised to draw.
    A nice set of quotes from the film, they always make me smile, the lone Watie one especially, although he gets most of the good lines. "I ain't as old as I thought" in bed with the Indian girl "I could have missed" after the firefight with the 4 soldiers and "I could have killed her if you hadn't stopped me" after the Indian girl had beaten him in a fight. Although I'm not sure that last one is correct word for word.
    Excellent stuff, look forward to more. :)

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    1. As always, I greatly appreciate your comments, John. First up, Lobo scales up very well alongside Colonel Bill's Maria. They could almost be a couple!

      I agree that the Madame is not that original, but even so, I still like her a lot. She looks like she can take care of herself.

      The figure of Ellen is a great figure but I might just persuade you that Black Scorpion makes an even better version.

      I always thought that Janey was just holding her rifle, maybe pointing it at someone, as if covering them. You're right, it would be difficult to fire in that position. I like her precisely because she has the rifle.

      Again, you're right about Lone Watie getting so many of the best lines. I very nearly included the "I could have missed" quote because it always makes me laugh, plus his timing on the delivery of the line is perfect.

      There will be lots more to come.

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  4. Great review, pardner! I think Reaper western figures are just awesome and full of character, and in that matter your painting brings up the best of them, well done! :O)

    I've been using the metal Ellen Stone mini as the Sheriff Nottingham of my Enchanted Forest setting since I can remember, and she not only survived several encounters with dreadful things that bump in the dark, but did so with class and style! ;O)

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    1. Many thanks, my friend. As I said, I'm a huge fan of this range, so expect to see more of them in future posts.

      Your take on Ellen Stone sounds wonderful and I'm not at all surprised that she survived with class and style. Sounds very much like my kinda gal! ;-)

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  5. Another great set of minis,excellently painted up into their characters Bryan - you and John are making my foray into the Wild West somewhat inevitable once I need a break from the Exotic East ;-)
    I think you need more copies of Lobo Sanchez, painted identically but with the chameleon in different colours - the reptile indicating the bandido's mood! (only joking of course, but how cool a comic book character would thet be??) :-)

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    1. Thanks and sorry in equal order, Greg. Thanks for the kind words and sorry for battering your resolve to resist the lure of the Wild West. It can't help that John and I are so much fun with it. I started playing my first "High Moon" scenario today and I can't wait to show you what vampires can do. They're tough and scary!

      Lobo and his pet chameleon would make such a great superhero/supervillain duo. Your suggestion of buying separate figures of Lobo so that the chameleon can change colour to match his moods immediately made me think of the Disney/Pixar film "Inside Out". So, we could have Anger, Disgust, Fear, Joy and Sadness. It's a wacky idea but it could work! :-)

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  6. Nice painting! Cool minis with lots of character. I like a lot of Reaper's minis (although there is variable quality due to the variety of sculptors). I'm not fond of their metal minis that come with things like a separate hand/arm. Those are often too fiddly for me, with little surface area for glue to grip. And you never know if a given figure will have parts like that. Of course, it's not just Reaper who do that.

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    1. Cheers, FB. I must admit that I'm not a fan of metal minis that come with fiddly components that have to be glued to a miniscule area, like hands to wrists. However, in the case of "Crazy Pete" I was able to glue his hand and pick to his wrist AND support it by gluing the pick's shaft to his bedroll, giving me two points of contact.

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  7. A wonderful set of models & a fab paint job, your right about Josey its just to much him for it not to be :) as a western movie Josey would he high on my list but my favorite would be another Clint movie :)

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    1. Thanks, Frank. It would seem that most folk rate "The Outlaw Josey Wales" very highly.

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  8. A very good review of some really nice miniatures. The paint jobs enhance the experience as well. Do you play them along side 28mm or are they a scale unto their own Bryan?

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    1. Many thanks for the nice comment. I'm not bothered by figure scale and happily mix 32mm figures with 28mm figures. I'm of the view that in real life people come in all shapes and sizes so why not with miniatures?

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    2. Exactly! ;O)

      Just be sure not to use the old Foundry horses alongside the Knuckleduster ones, because they'll look like Quarter Ponies! :O)

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    3. Thanks for that tip, Edu. I'll bear it in mind. I do have a few Knuckleduster horses and Black Scorpion horses but no Foundry horses.

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  9. You mean you have proper horses and no ponies! :O)

    The West Wind Cowboy Wars horses are also much smaller than KD or BS ones; their figures look much better mounted on bigger horses... or better yet, on Velociraptors: https://farm5.static.flickr.com/4012/4480276897_e6b51585f6_b.jpg

    :O)

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    1. It's true, Edu. I have horses but no ponies. Cowboys on Velociraptors? That is such a cool idea! Hell, yeah! Why not? :-)

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    2. Many years ago I'seen somewhere on the net an amazing set of pictures from a 28mm Deadlands game, in which a Western train was being chased by outlaws mounted on Velociraptors... and the outlaw posse also had a huge Triceraptos with a howdah and an oversized harpoon gun meant to derail the train! It was really AWESOME, but I've never found the pictures again... :O(

      Great idea for a multiplayer game, isn't it? ;O)

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    3. Oh, man, that sounds like such a cool game. It would be a great idea for a solo player like myself but as you say, probably even better for a multi-player game. Somehow, dinosaurs and cowboys are just meant to go together.

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  10. Pardner, I totally agree with you!

    https://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2011/3/30/203882-Cowgirl%2C%20Dinosaur%2C%20Sexy%2C%20Studio%20Mcvey.jpg

    ;O)

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    1. That is a totally awesome and beautiful mini. Thanks for sharing, mate.

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  11. Yep, and the girl riding it is also very pretty! ;O)

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  12. Cracking work on the dangerous damsels of the West!

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