Cowboys and Indians

Last year at Enfilade I bought a pocketful of 25/28mm Old West Gunfighters from Monday Knight productions.  I added two packs of RAFM Plains warriors that have been sitting in the closet for a few years and painted them all up together, creating a decent little group for Skirmish games.

I also made up some cactus patch terrain using stuff I found at Hobby Lobby so they would have something to fight over.

Both the RAFMs and the Monday Knight minis are simple and old school castings but I like them and they were fun to paint.

I will probably revisit the Monday Knight stand this year and pick up some of their nice Old WEst townsfolk models to round out this little group.

Painting them brought back a lot of childhood memories of playing with my MARX Fort Apache set on the living room floor, as well as those bags of colorful plastic Cowboys and Indians which were so popular decades ago but which have since vanished from the cultural landscape.

                                                          High Noon on Main Street....

Armed citizens stand to to repel night raiders...

I really enjoyed working on the warriors.

My Dad and I always enjoyed the painting of Charles Russell, Frederick Remington and Charles Schreyvogel, and I used some of their paintings as reference for the warpaint on the warriors' ponies...except for the Einsturnzende Neubauten symbol on the black pony, here...
 

Advancing throught the cacti...More southwest than Great Plains but I may buy some Apaches soon who may be better suited for this terrain...

A shot of both packs of Indians together... 3 mounted and six on foot.  It's really too bad that RAFM didn't expand their Indians line because I really like the figures.  They only produced 4 packs, 1 set of warriors on foot with 3 poses, two packs of mounted warriors, and 1 pack of chiefs.  1 pack of the mounted warriors comes with interchangeable weapons, which gives you a little more variety, but not much.  I will have to find another manufacturer  whose stuff meshes nicely with these.  I like Dixon, but I feel like their figures would look a bit large and chunky next to these.

A chief and a brave advance on somebody...maybe Colonel Custer...

Two of the gunfighters pose in front of my  Miniature Building Authority "Texas Ranch House".

I've always had an interest in the Plains Wars and had fun with the indians, especially the details on the shileds and moccassins.

Rooster Cogburn and Wild Bill Hickock stand back to back, ready to fend off the bad guys...