Building John Stone

I realized the other night that many of my friends don't know much about this little hobby of mine.  They've seen photos of painted minis, and maybe some AARs of games, but not much of the behind the scenes.  Below, I'll outline the steps for building one of these little figures that I'm so addicted to.

For the Pequot Indian War project, I've decided to use the scenario book from First Command Wargames, written specifically for the Song of Drums and Tomahawks ruleset.

The first scenario in the book represents the battle between the crew of John Stone, an English privateer, and a band of native Indians in 1634.  From my reading, this encounter seems to be the generally accepted start of the Pequot War.

Basically, John Stone and his crew were killed by natives.  There's some fuzziness about which tribe actually carried out the attack.  In fact, there's some fuzziness in who started the attack, Stone, or the Indians.  The fact, however, is that Stone was killed, and the English used that as a catalyst to attack the Pequot.

It didn't really start there though.

Apparently, in the early 1630s, the Pequots were on good trading terms with Dutch colonists around what is now called the Thames River in Connecticut.  Things went sour, however, when other local tribes also began trading with the Dutch.  Sometime around 1633, in a bid to gain back their trading power, a band of Pequot warriors killed some Narragansett Indians.  The Dutch, in response, took the Pequot Sachem, Tatobem, hostage.  The Pequot, to get their Sachem back, paid the demands of the Dutch, however the Dutch killed Tatobem, returning just his body to their trade partners.

Back to John Stone.  In 1634, John Stone, an English colonist/pirate from Massachusetts is killed, along with his crew.  Stone, to put it mildly, wasn't very well liked by the English.  In fact, he had been banished from their colony.  The English, though, seeing an opportunity, blame the Pequot for his death, though some sources think the killers may actually have been Niantic.  The English demand retribution from the Pequot, who state that, if the killers had been Pequot, the killing was revenge for the death of Tatobem.  The English point out that the Dutch killed Tatobem.  The Pequot say that they don't recognize the difference between the Dutch and the English.  And so, a series of back and forth revenge attacks starts.  The Pequot War.

To kick off my Pequot War project, I ordered a set of Warlord Games Pike & Shotte Infantry, designed for the Thirty Years War.  I also ordered a command sprue of four fancier figures, one figure on horseback, and some casualty figures.  These should give me everything I need for the campaign, though I'll probably have to do some customization.

The first figure I built is the hero/villian of Scenario 1, "Death of Stone."  John Stone's game stats show him to be carrying a matchlock musket, a pistol, and a sword.  Almost everything I needed was on the command sprue.

John Stone, in the Raw

In the upper left corner of the sprue was a suitable body in a dynamic pose, with a pistol arm, open arm, and sword.  The sprue also contained a number of floppy hats.  I'd have to do a bit of customization to have Stone carrying a musket and a pistol.

Parts removed from sprue. Body, left and right
arms, hat, and sword.  Base and musket arm from
my spare parts bin.

Step 1: Remove any mold lines or sprue bits

Steps 2 thru 4: Cut of molded base, glue to round
base, glue on sword.

 

Oops!  I grabbed the wrong arm!
There's a left, and a right.  Now I have a spare.

Steps 5 & 6 - Glue on hat and left arm.
All the standard bits are now in place.

With all the standard pieces from the command sprue in place, it was time to do a little customization.  As molded, the figures are set up to carry a single weapon.  Due to his stats, my version of John Stone needed to be carrying both a pistol and a matchlock.  With no suitable arms on the sprue, I went through my bits box and found an arm from a militia figure from the American Revolutionary War.  It's molded to be used on a figure with their musket propped against the shoulder of their left arm, but I could fix that.  Some people don't like plastic figures, preferring the heft of metal, but I really like plastic, exactly because it's easier to do things like this.

Steps 7 thru 9 - Customization.

First, the arm was cut from the musket.  The piece was a bit brittle, so it broke at the wrist of the musket, but that is what glue is for.  Next, the hand was carved away, leaving just the weapon.  Finally, the musket was glued into the open right hand of my John Stone figure.

John Stone, fully assembled

Now, time to work on the rest of his crew.