Cut 'n' shut

Another thing I noticed with the pack was that there was no figure that could be easily identified as the general. The pack containd a chariot figure with a spearman driver, which I guess under v.1 would have been the general's element. For the Etruscan League army, however the general is a cavalry element, so the chariot driver was surplus to requirements. The pack contains 9 cavalry figures, which is more than enough for my purposes, but they are all the same casting, which is an unarmoured rider with a wide brimmed sun hat. Emboldened by my drilling and sticking with the spearmen, I decided that a conversion would be in order to make a general.


The picture shows how I went about the (admittedly quite basic) conversion. Picture 1 shows the original cavalryman figure with his Greek cowboy hat. I simply cut his head off with a sharp knife (picture 2), then did the same with the chariot driver, making sure the cut edges were flat and clean. I then drilled a hole in the rider's neck stump, and a corresponding hole up the middle of the charioteer's disembodied head. Next I clipped a small lenth of wire (using an off-cut from one of the Xyston spears). The wire was long enough to fit into the hole on the rider, protuding far enough for the new head to slip over the exposed end. Once I was happy with the fit, it was a simple enough job to superglue the wire into the hole and the head onto the wire, as shown in picture 3. The general is now resplendent in his new crested Etrusco-Corinthian helmet, no doubt the envy of all his mates!