Saga Normans - Take 2 - Perry - Cleaning Phase 2

I finished cleaning the mold lines and flash from the remaining cavalry. I have also started buffing them with steel wool. So why did I do that? Ordinarily if these were going to just be gaming miniatures I would have skipped this step. Since my intent is for these to be a painting competition army first they need this extra step. During the cleaning process, whether you are using files or knives or other implements of destruction you are indeed removing mold lines and other excess bits of metal. However, all of these various implements leave their own mark on the miniature, typically tiny scratches from files (especially diamond files) or gouges from knives. Buffing the miniature afterwards with steel wool will reduce and in a lot of cases (especially if you have a light touch with the file) completely remove the marks. You must exercise caution since you can  completely eradicate detail with a really vigorous buffing. So here are some before and after shots of the buffing step. Its usually not needed for gaming figures because we can depend on our primer coat to cover the vast majority of these marks. I only use this process on competition figures that are going to be picked up and closely examined. I don't want any stray marks that a judge might see and mark me down for.

And while I'm up and close and personal to all of these Perry Miniatures I have a few thoughts to throw out there. First up, I love the detail on these guys. There are six miniatures in an infantry box and they are in six different poses with different faces. The same is true for the cavalry although there are only three different horses overall, but the riders are all different. So 9/10 for poses and detail! Love it.

The cleanup though was tough. Mold lines aren't bad but a fair number of them go right across the left side of the face, so it took it little extra work to not totally obliterate that side of the face with the file. The one part that really started to get to me though was found on the crossbow and spearmen. A number of them (probably 4 out of 6) in each box are striding forward with the point of the scabbard from the left side coming back almost all the way to the right foot. The space in between had a huge chunk of metal in it. That just took a lot of extra time with a knife to clean up. A number of the spearmen had a quite a bit of very thin flashing between the head and the right arm (which was raised up to at least the top of the head if not higher). The archers are really good and cleaned up very quickly as did the knights. The horses are going to take a little work to get back into the proper position as a fair number of their bases are bent. So extra work on the prep step is probably 6/10.

I spent a lot more time cleaning these up than the ones from Gripping Beast. However, the level of detail is so much better. Granted I spent extra time cleaning up (not including the buffing) but overall I consider that time well spent, I really like these castings.

In the meantime I pulled out the existing Gripping Beast Norman army. I'll get started fixing them up and trying to find a buyer. And no I won't sell the Perry army, I have already bled all over those several times now. They should do well in the competition since they have drawn blood.

For SAGA, I should be able to put together a pretty flexible force. There are 8 points worth of troops here.
12 Archers - 1pt
8 Crossbows (x2) - 1pt each
8 Spearmen (x2) - 1 pt each
4 Hearthguard (x3) - 1 pt each
Add the Warlord into that and I have 9 points worth of troops to experiment with.

I have enough command and left over figures to put together some pretty nice display bases for the Warlord both mounted and dis-mounted. I may even be able to do a couple of different Warlords. I'm looking forward to that.

I'm not really sure you can see the differences in the pictures from one to another, you forget how small those scratches really are. So I'll take my best shot here:

These are the Knights from the CU-1 pack. All the mold lines have been removed either with a knife or a file. I'm afraid you can't really see the marks though.

These are the same knights and horses after I have buffed them.

 I think the buffing is more obvious on this one, the shield is smoother and shinier