Can they be saved? Rescuing minis.

At our local games club, we've recently been playing medieval games, namely Lion Rampant and Barons' War. I have been going through my collection of 12th-century miniatures, collating and dusting off what I have. These include a mix of old Foundry, Crusader and Footsore in metal, and Fireforge. We plan to run a campaign for Barons' War set locally in Devon. To encourage more participation in the campaign, I have been giving potential players miniatures to help start their own factions.

About two and a half years ago, I grabbed a bargain off the bring-and-buy at Attack 2022. There was a box of unloved Fireforge models; they had been assembled but only spray-painted. The total number of figures amounted to three or four boxes, and they were going very cheap. I found out when I took them home why they were so cheap!

The miniatures were mostly fine, but several had been assembled poorly, with heads at odd angles or arms not quite fitting the arm joints correctly. To add insult to injury, they had been sprayed with a thick black undercoat, which drowned the detail in places.

The better half of the miniatures went to a friend for a Lion Rampant army. My costs were covered. He still got a bargain, and I was not out of pocket. The rest of the horde sat in a box until very recently.

Readers may recall that I recently posted a blog about some hybrids of Fireforge and Atlantic that I made. These conversions made me think; I had plenty of additional arms and heads from the recent releases from the new Atlantic plastic Baron's War sets. Maybe, I could go through these models and convert them into something worthwhile. Could they be saved with a little makeover and a few extra parts?

To be fair to the original owner, I have picked some of the worst examples to photograph. Other models simply didn't have the right weapons; the Fireforge lances are very long and tend to look ungainly unless they are modelled correctly, close to the body. The flail and dane-axe sized battleaxe used from horseback are just too ahistorical. They just had to go! The lance pose makes it look like the model is about to tip out of his saddle. 

The first task was to strip off the weapon arms. Riders were removed from their horses if they weren't straight. Thankfully, they were assembled with superglue and were relatively easy to separate from the body. Some parts just fell off!

I was tempted to use some form of paint stripper to remove the black, but decided not to, as I know some react badly to plastic. Once the arms and head had been cleared off, I simply added new bits from the spares box. Easy! 

One torso and legs set wasn't salvageable, so I cut it in half, threw away the damaged torso and used a spare one from the Serjeants set. I have saved several of the models from conversion, awaiting the arrival of the Atlantic Mounted Knights and Mounted Serjeants sets to see what other conversions I can do.

I'm pretty pleased with the finished models. The new parts have given life to otherwise unwanted miniatures. I will try further experiments, including head swaps on metal miniatures. Now for some painting...

Have you repainted and rescued unloved miniatures? Please do tell me of your experiences.