PaperBoys - an Adventure in Paper Soldiers

Hi folks,

I have been toying with the idea of either Paper Soldiers or the WoFun plexi-glass soldiers to fill out certain periods I'd like to play, but don't want to invest loads of time and money into the project.

Since I finished writing Vauban's Wars I thought it would be fun to create 15mm armies for the WSS and specifically make them for siege warfare. This means single rank of figures on a small thin base. So, paper soldiers should fit the bill and I never had WSS armies before! I don't even need flags for this project (however, I love flags). I can also skip the cavalry for the siege games, which means far fewer figures to cut out and base.

I decided to use the War of the Spanish Succession "PaperBoys" created  by the talented artist, Peter Dennis, and sold by Helion.

Materials

I used the following to assemble the armies, and I'm only showing the first units that I have made.

100 sheets x Epson Premium Presentation Paper Matte (link) ($14 USD)

200 x Litko's 1" x .5" bases (3mm thick) (link) ($29 USD) This will allow me to make 50 units with four stands per unit. This should be more than enough for Dutch, British, French, and Bavarian regiments for WSS.

PaperBoys WSS PDF (link) ($17 USD)

Tacky Glue (Michael's) ($2.50 USD) already had this. Link

Cutting blade ($6.99 USD) already had this. Link

Scissors (not used that much as the scale is too small)

Cold Grey color pen from Faber-Castell. (link)

62% scale from the PDF to get the right size. (Tried 64% but the overlap between the bases was too great). This puts the figure at about 17mm in size, which works great with my existing miniatures and terrain\buildings.

The Project

So, originally I was collecting the books from Peter, but then realized it would be better to have the PDFs as I could scale them at will and it is just a better format than a book. With the book you would have to disassemble the book, put it in the scanner (mine is not very good), the save the image and resize from there. The PDF has the miniatures on A10 paper and 28mm figures. I just did the math and tried different figures scales. 18mm = 64%, but this was too large for the 1" bases and the figures overlapped, which looks pretty cool, but then you can't align the bases that well. 

Here is an example of 18mm (64%) Bavarian Grenadiers and you can see the overlap:

Next, I tried 62% (17.4mm) and that came out just a bit too large with very little overlap. These are the Dutch Guard and I will keep the figures as they just look taller than their counterpart. Very "Guard-like"! I have decided to go with 62% scaling for this project as in the trenches and fortress walls the figures don't need to align perfectly. I like this look and will allow me to make a WSS project for Vauban's Wars on a budget. Storage should be easy too. I may use Mod Podge to seal and protect them. I'm also working on different edging techniques. Below I have used blue, yellow, and black to edge the coats. (Note: still need to flock or paint the bases)

I will complete the Dutch before moving on to the French. British will be more challenging as there is only one British Line infantry page and the cuffs are white, so I will have to print several of these and color in the cuffs to suit my needs. Could be tedious, but I'm not sure. It is sure faster than painting figures.

Future Projects with PaperBoys

Jacobite Rebellion in 15mm (62% scale). Two ranks deep on 1" x 1" stands. Here is a sample at 64% and you can see the figures hanging over the 1" bases. Looks great though. Note that PaperBoy figures come in three ranks by default, but since they are paper I just cut them the way I want to make two ranks per stand.

Irish Piquets and Jacobite skirmishers:

Casualty figures, "walking wounded", on round bases.

Punic Wars (62% scale). Two ranks deep, but larger bases for easier movement. I may go with WoFun's plex-glass figures here as this is a lot of work to cut out the figures. That is an expensive choice, but both my thumbs have arthritis so cutting out these PaperBoys is a painful challenge.

WSS full on armies. Double ranks. This will be far down the road.

On the Reading Table

Over the last month I have finished the following books:

Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montazum ... by Buddy Levy (This was OUTSTANDING!!!)

Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last...: aa: AmazonSmile: Books

Now I purchased some PaperBoy Aztecs and Spaniards! :-)

Huitzilopochtli: The History of the Aztec God of War and Human Sacrifice

Good book, more like a research paper in quality. 

The Great Martian War: The Gathering Storm by Scott Washburn of PaperTerrain fame. Thoroughly enjoyed this novel and the battle between the Martians and Prey Creatures (humanity).