Hybrid Roses?

As even the most casual visitor to GHQ must surely be aware I am no devotee of plaaaaastic figures in any shape or form. When selecting the ranges and figures for this new project though it was pretty hard to avoid at least looking at the plastic box sets offered by Perry Miniatures. I had noticed though that Steel Fist Miniatures offered metal bodies which could be used with heads, arms, weapons and such from those plastic frames. So, the greater variety offered by plastic teamed with the obvious heft of metal miniatures, surely worth a punt I thought? I sourced three single frames of Perry Miniatures ~ Command, Men at Arms and Bill & Bow ~ and ordered up the packs of metal bodies on offer. After consulting with Matt and Phil about how to glue the different materials together firmly I set to with craft knife, file, UHU, Superglue and my (very) limited hobby skill set! The result is this further Retinue of hybrid Bill & Bow figures ~

Those three pictures will I hope give a good idea of what the composition of the finished Retinue should turn out like. Those of you with sharp eyes will have noticed that there are two metal Eureka Miniatures archers there as well as a couple of wholly plastic figures! To my eye they will do once painted and based for the tabletop battlefield here in GHQ. 

A few observations are in order I think to finish. Firstly the Steel Fist Miniatures bodies are scaled nicely to fit with the Perry Miniatures arms, those that is where the two arms and weapon are moulded as one or are completely independent, the latter as in the firing archer poses. Where they have to be fitted together from two pieces it is far more difficult when the frames you choose from were as limited as mine. This was especially true of the Men at Arms frame and, to a lesser degree, the Billmen. Of course if you had the complete box set to work with it might prove less of an issue. Another small issue for me was one figure pose which I wanted to use but could manage no obviously useful pose other than as a musician. I reassured myself by remembering something the late Rob Baker once said to me, that every range can have one duff figure pose which gamers will tolerate! At any rate, in the cut and thrust of the game across the tabletop battlefield here in GHQ which of us will notice, or care?