15 mm ACW Old Glory vs Warrior

In this somewhat long post I'm going to tackle the thorny issue of figure compatibility.  But I'm going to start with a true wargamer's tale (read as "shaggy dog story") that ends with me owning and painting these figures:

Old Glory 15s Confederate infantry.

Once Upon A Time ...
Having finished my first ACW unit using solely Warrior Miniatures I realised that the units could use a little more variety.

I'd done as much as I could with colour and "uniform" variations based on the Warrior advancing figures.  The only other options involved using figures with packs, marching or shooting.  I needed one, if not two or three, different advancing poses otherwise the units would be very boring to paint.

My immediate thought was Peter Pig. I own some 8th Army figures from Peter Pig and it looked like they'd be a good size match. I looked at the Peter Pig web site and created a small order.  I only needed three packs to provide all the extra variety I would ever need for this project. However I didn't place the order.

The order came to £13.00 including and postage so it wasn't the price that stopped me ordering.  I wanted to be certain of the size match before I placed the order.  After a bit I thought I'd post on a couple of message boards and see if anyone had any spare figures lying around, or left over from a finished project, which I could get for the cost of a stamp.

Sure enough within ten days or so, a couple of kind souls had sent me two or three ACW figures by Peter Pig confirming the almost perfect size match with Warrior Miniatures infantry.  As it turns the cavalry is very slightly smaller plus the horses are a touch more solid.

Curious & Curiouser ...
One of the donations came with an "opportunity".  The gent was happy to swap a large amount of Peter Pig ACW packs for two boxes of 15 mm PSC Sherman tanks.  I wasn't sure initially as there was far more on offer than I really wanted but when he offered to throw in a bag of primed Old Glory ACW figures I decided the deal was too good to turn down.

The net result is that I now own more Peter Pig 15 mm Confederates that I'll ever need.  I still plan to use the Warrior Miniatures range as they are easier, and quicker, to paint.  The half dozen packs of Peter Pig Federal troops went on eBay and most have sold; there's one lot left.

The heavy parcel contained loose and unopened packs.  The former were easy to identify thanks to the photos on the Peter Pig site.  I'd forgotten how much fun it is to sort through a large pile of lead.  It was worth doing the swap for this alone.

After sorting the Peter Pig packs I had a cup of tea and started on the Old Glory figures: there were dozens of them.  In the end I spent a pleasant 90 minutes sorting through over 100 figures.  A task made more interesting by the immense variety of poses and equipment!

What To Do ...
The Old Glory 15s were a problem.  The sculpting varied from characterful, through interesting to below par.  Surprisingly only two of the bayonets had broken off; they do look very vulnerable.

Anyway I grouped them by pose and equipment into eight eBay lots.  I was surprised when they all sold within the first week!

I found out why when I checked the Old Glory15s web site: I'd priced them well below retail.  Nonetheless I was pleased to get some cash back and some lead out of the house.

Painting Review
I was curious to see how easy it would be to paint some of these Old Glory so I held back, and stripped, a few figures that didn't fit easily into the eBay lots and some which had very dynamic poses.  It's the latter that you see painted at the top of the page. I have to say they look every bit as interesting as I hoped they'd be but they were a bugger to paint.

The faces were badly defined at the edges so I ended up shaping the face with paint; never a fast process.  In some instances I couldn't distinguish the coat tails from some random piece of equipment slung about the figure.  The dynamic sculpting meant it was that bit harder to get a paint brush into the undercuts.  All in all it felt like too much hard work.

Size Comparison
I only painted five figures so I made a standard base with three and used the other two to make a marker (which I may never use) on a small round base.  The former allows me to post the following comparison photos of the Old Glory & Warrior figures:

Old Glory (left) & Warrior (right)

Warrior (left) & Old Glory (right)

Looking at these photos, and in real life, the size match is quite good.  Not ideal but good.  I wouldn't mix them on the same base but I would mix bases in a unit. I have to say I'm surprised by this as the match isn't obvious when looking at the bare metal.   Perhaps I just chose the right figure to match with Warrior?  Leave a comment if you've experience of mixing these manufacturers.