Re the Polly Oliver ACW line (NOT the AWI line): The ACW figures were sculpted by Tony Barton for the original Battle Honours. However, Tony B was never paid for them (as was the way of Danny Boreham) and when Battle Honours went bust, Tony B passed the rights on to Polly Oliver, who were also owed considerable sums by Danny Boreham. Tony B then added more figures to the range while it was at Polly Oliver. However, when Battle Honours were resurrected, they also produced the (unlicenced) Tony Barton ACW figures (and still do), but this line lacks the extra figures that were added later. When Polly Oliver closed up shop, the ACW moulds went to AB Figures, who manufactured them until the business was split. Fighting 15s and Eureka now manufacture them, along with the Napoleonics and Ancients lines.

Being in the process of sculpting a (10mm) line of figures for the AWI I can attest that its a good subject to tackle superficially, a difficult one to do comprehensively! If you look at the breadth of the Perry line (which is what I aspire to, but won't be matching), its apparent that when you begin to cover the more unique units, and uniform evolutions in the more common ones, that you could potentially be adopting a project as big as a couple of substantial Napoleonic armies. I agree that there is no single line in 15/18mm that covers the war in quantity and quality; its interesting to consider the possibilities if things had gone differently. An AB AWI range would have been great! If you guys manage to pester a manufacturer into doing a new range, please keep me in mind as a potential sculptor :wink:

clib, I came this close (ok, you can't see that, but it's a very VERY small gap) to talking Tony Barton into doing an AWI range. He'd just done his 1806 Prussians and was into "folding hats", plus he'd just worked with the 47th Foot AWI re-enactment group and been very impressed by how soldierly they looked (ie they weren't all far too old and fat). The advice I would give anyone doing an AWI range in any size is to forget about specific figures and base your range on clothing combinations, as the real variations are in hats and legwear - in the vast majority of cases, the main garment is either coat, sleeved waistcoat or hunting shirt, and in smaller figure sizes the first two can be fudged into one (especially once coats were shortened). The Mollo/McGregor book is good for that, but it's not too different from how you might approach a "generic" ACW range. Within that framework, look at producing a complete set of figures for one campaign - eg Saratoga, or GCH - so that people can buy both armies from you in one go, and will then have the basis for expanding into other campaigns, as there will always be units with similar uniforms (ok, Saratoga is more of a one-off for the British, although most of the units left in Canada did retain the uniforms for the rest of the war).

Ooo, that sounds tantalisingly close with Anthony Barton. One of those big "what ifs". You are right about the approach to an AWI range. I did a set of dollies in coats with turnbacks. This provided the basis for most troops. To get figures in cut down coats, I did just that; cut the tails off the dollies. I had to do another set in waistcoats to cover the likes of men in roundabouts, which served then as useful dollies to put hunting shirts over. That covers nearly all the coat types one would come across. Its still a lot of work though!

To that list I would add long and short single-breasted coats, and waistcoat and shirtsleeves. Whilst it's far less than what you would have to do for, say, an SYW or Napoleonic range (especially as many figures would be common), obviously there's a lower payback in terms of potential sales, especially in terms of some of the cavalry figures. And of course, everyone will moan like crazy if you don't do them! :roll: Unless you become a "Perry-standard" type of range that is everyone's first choice, of course. :)