Jolly Jack Tars

As you are doubtless aware, the Willie Ranges include a few artillery pieces.

Among them are a Gatling gun with an army crew.

I wanted a navy crew and there are a couple of sailors in the "Farewell Dolly Gray" range - an Officer and a marching rating. I hoped the rating might be a fairly versatile figure I could animate into a few different attitudes with the odd arm bend and turn of the head. Well, the figures arrived in the post this week. I was pretty happy with the rating - he marches, open handed. His rifle could equally be at the trail or in the slope arms pose. So, plenty of potential there. His sennett hat is not really attached to anything other than the crown of his head, so it's quite easy to snip away the brim and drop a blob of greenstuff on top to make a sailor hat. That same lack of attachment makes it easy to gently twist his head gently left or right.

Among the gunners that come with the Gatlings is a nice officer with field glasses who is getting a head transplant so that he may wear a peaked cap instead of a sun helmet.

The army crew will not be wasted. The "gunners" are infantry castings that are intended to be judiciously posed about a gun - yes there is one specialised figure in terms of a seated gunner, but I have plans for him and a 4Ground Wagon. His mates will either join the infantry or be used to crew some Connoisseur Field Guns.

I am organising this force for TSatF and will need three guns and a dozen gunners per battery. Gun 1 gets an Officer and three ratings, Gun 2 a Petty Officer and three ratings and Gun 3 gets four ratings.

One down, two to go.

PS - of course I am now buzzing with possibility. How about a crew for a Boer War 4.7"? I have the guns already... Or a couple of gunners for a light piece mounted hastily in a steamer? Officers to fit the wheelhouse of the HMS Implausible?  A handful of deck-hands. A small Naval Brigade?