The figures are (from right to left) are: Hadendowah charging (sword & rifle), African warrior charging (spear & shield), Egyptian Army (of the Sudan), officer and African Champion. Greg Blake of CFM is one of the most prolific figure makers in the country. He and Gerry Webb of Castaway are among the very few who actually do the whole thing. That is sculpting the master, making the mould and casting - quite a long and laborious process - which makes the rather large range and variety of figures produced even more remarkable. Also like many locally made figures, they are of a very high standard. RANGE: CFM have expanded their range from that previously mentioned (issue #6, October '99) to include more figures for both the African Jungle, Cape Wars & Sudan Campaign ranges. In addition Greg has added a new 20mm Vietnam War series starting with Main Force VC figures with AK47, SMG & Self Propelled Rocket Launcher and last but no least a magnificent new series: "The Troubles" - representing the Anglo-Irish Conflict in the 1920's. DESIGN/QUALITY: Again as mentioned previously, these figures are of a uniformly high standard and, at least in this reviewer's opinion, the new 'Troubles' series are CFM's finest figures to date. They are all well animated and each has his own 'personality' ie. facial expression. Perfect examples of this can be seen in the new gun crews for the Sudan ranges. A Mahdist slave gun crew with Muslim overseer. One of the figures is gripping his shoulder and is sporting some fresh lacerations across the back. He has an expression, a scowl that could be a mixture of pain and pure hatred - one can readily imagine what he'd like to do to that Simon Legree - like overseer with the whip! To the right is another Xhosa warrior who is either foolhardy or strong enough to be attempting to fire a musket at arms length. Next to him are the 4 figure Egyptian army gun crew, having the Egyptian Negro figure with the ramrod stripped to the waist is a nice touch - hot work servicing those guns! Once again all these figures are nicely animated with crisp detail and well caste requiring little or no clean-up. This brings me to what I consider to be the 'piece d' resistance' of the latest releases: the 'Troubles' figures covering that turbulent period in Irish history from the Easter Uprising in 1916 to the Anglo-Irish War, 1919-21 and the Irish Civil War, 1921-22. The figures above represent the widely loathed "Black & Tans'. The figures depicted have suitably scowling expressions. I'm particularly fond of the standing figure with the Lewis gun and the fag hanging out of his mouth. Below these are the IRA figures - personalities such as (above, left to right) James Doherty, Tom O'Connell , Emmett Keogh & (below, left to right) "Big Pat" O'Brien, Sean Bolger and Timothy O'Leary. Also available are weapons packs consisting of SMLE .303 with & without bayonet, and a Lewis LMG that comes with separate folded or open bipod stands. These figures are the start of a great new range from CFM and future releases will include more IRA, both uniformed and civilian dress, as well as Free State soldiers, Royal Irish Constabulary, Auxiliaries, Special Branch and more Black & Tans. All figures and weapons packs are available exclusively from CFM. For some nice colour shots of "Th' Lads" above painted by Greg himself, see Bill Armintrout's great website 'The Miniatures Page' at: www.miniatures.com Back to Table of Contents -- Kriegspieler #8 To Kriegspieler List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Kriegspieler Publications. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com