Commission Figurines 6mm MDF Cavalry

I finally get round to painting up the Commission Figurines 6mm Light Cavalry figures I was sent over a year ago. The biggest advantage at least from my point of view these figures have is the speed and ease of painting.

If your aim is to paint up a large force quickly, or your on a tight budget these figures could be the ones for you. At wargaming distance they will look rather good, especially if you go a few shades brighter. I swapped some Adler Poles for some more Commission figures last night so will be doing a few more at some point (infantry and artillery) but not in the next few months.

So I painted the first two as Polish Hussars, the 10th and 13th to be exact. These are now part of Lee's collection as he is building up the Poles so it did not seem worthwhile for me to paint them up as well. Being Hussar figures they were perfect subjects.

Where MDF fall down for me is the flatness of the figures, somewhat 2D in a 3D world. BUT if I was painting a whole army this way then it would be less of a issue. Having seen a whole battle fought with these models I know just how good they look.

The other two bases are Chasseur Regiments for my French army and by painting over the Pellese it simply disappears. 

I have been given the idea of painting up stands of these figures to be used with Command & Colours Napoleonic's that I play with my son. Given the speed of painting and cost involved I think I just have got to have a play with it. Not sure how I will store them though...........

Commission Miniatures Italian Napoleonic Artillery.

I have had these for ages and note quite got round to them, same goes for the cavalry but I have yet to get these into the painting queue.

Commission Figures make MDF buildings in 6, 10, 15 20 and 28mm but also make some very interesting 6mm MDF figures for the Napoleonic's and a new range of Marian Romans with plans to extend the Roman range and add ACW.

The guns need a little work in that you need to trim the width of the wheels. I was quite nervous to start with but it's fairly simple to do. Indeed I practised on the spares and cut those so fine they were well under 1mm thick. The wheels then need gluing in place, a lot less trouble than the old Baccus and present day Adler.

Four guns each with a crew of four, two six horse limbers and two mounted officers will set you back just £1.50 so very much lower price than their metal counterparts.

These are French figures painted up as Italians for our Project Russia 1812 game. These finish off my foot artillery and the one unit of horse artillery. In fact it finishes off my Italian part so I will be moving onto my Polish next. It took me less than an hour to paint up the guns and crews so you really can crack on with these.

The limbers are nice, like the guns and infantry they fit in well enough with the metals if you wish to do so. No they do not hold up to close inspection when compared to metals but why would you want to? You can build up an army quickly and at low cost or like me you can just add some nice reinforcements. 

French Line Infantry by Commission Figurines from MDF

I actually painted this Commission Figurines Battalion before The Joy of Six but never quite got round to posting them. The BIG difference between these figures and other 6mm producers is that they are made of MDF. Yes MDF and they are rather nice.

I had this battalion on the table all game and only one person spotted them all day! Not that they actually look the same when closely looked at but at game distance they work perfectly well. They are sold as a cheap option to metal figures 96 figures set you back £2.00 opposed to just over three times for the same from Adler or Baccus. However that is not the best selling point, it's the speed you can paint these figures up in. I painted the 48 figures above in about 2/3rds the time it would take me to do the 28 figures I would of a Baccus battalion. So they win on both speed and cost but how well do they measure up across the board?

Well they obviously do not have the detail of the metal figures and the limitations of working with MDF and cutting via laser means it would be a big ask to get them to be more detailed than have been done so far. That said you can also get drummers and skirmishers now which would make these fit in with my other battalions much better.

It's also something of a learning curve, next time I will take a scalpel to the plumes and pompoms which I missed on this lot. I also need to put them slightly offset and weather them a little to get away from the chocolate box look. I sprayed them Army Painter Ultramarine Blue and was surprised with the amount of detail that showed through post spraying. Indeed I lost no detail what's so ever. At this point it just needed a dry brush of a lighter blue to give a little depth and help create the illusion of cloth rather than a straight forward painting (i.e. less old school look).

They do get backpacks, blanket rolls and ammo pouches though. As stand alone they work well and I would be happy to make a whole army out of these wooden wonders. The range remains fairly limited with many generic types of units though 21 codes is not a bad start at all and these include extra codes released since Joy of Six so is expanding.

They do sit reasonably well with Baccus and as they are slightly larger than Baccus sit well with Adler from a scale point of view. I still yet have to paint up the cavalry and artillery but will be doing this sometime in the near(ish) future as well as painting up the rest of this pack.

So I think you can start with one supplier be that metal or MDF and add in the other at a later date. Indeed the ones I have been given to paint up will find their way into my armies and I will be picking up a few more bits at Donnington in October. However I remain a big fan of both Adler and Baccus so they will remain my main go to guys for my Napoleonic needs but I can see Commission Miniatures getting a growing following and look forward to seeing more display games that use these figures in the future.

I have a game tonight and hopefully tomorrow night as well and with another already booked for next week I am finally getting back to the swing of gaming, can you tell the Holiday season has finally come to an end?