American Revolution Swoppet conversions at the Plastic Warrior Show 2025

 Dennis Donovan brought along more of his conversions for the American War of Independence, or as some would term it the American Revolutionary War, either way they are stunning figures and he has garnered a well earned reputation for them over the years.

When Dennis first started making his cavalry conversions he used bodies and heads from original Britains Swoppet figures with legs and horses from Helmet kits.  

Over time the Swoppet parts became harder to source so he had a mould made to produce the basic torso in plastic while continuing to use Helmet parts and heads, the result is a range of mounted figures that perfectly compliment the original Britains foot models.

 Britains Swoppet figures inevitably lose their hats and weapons so these ones above have had their missing original parts replaced or remodelled with Miliput.

  Early on I bought several units of Dennis' cavalry conversions when I was building up wargame armies for the period, and some are shown in earlier posts on here, just wish I had the space to get some more!

New Replicants English Civil War figures at the Plastic Warrior Show 2025

 Each year, Peter Cole of Replicants uses the Plastic Warrior Show to launch his latest range of figures, this year he had eight new mounted English Civil War troopers to tempt us, and this is what they look like:

Sold unpainted in packs of two figures and two horses, there are four in floppy hats and four in lobster pot helmets.  Armed with a mixture of swords and firearms, there is also a rather nice trumpeter, they can all be painted up to represent either side in the conflict. 

There are three different horse models, two of them are existing designs (standing, based on the Sacul guards officer horse and the smaller charging mount originally made for the Napoleonic Cossack) the new third one is a striding pose reminiscent of a first version Britains Deetail horse.  Peter told me the reason for the resemblance is that the mould he made for the new horse incorporates the underbelly core from the original Deetail mould and he built the rest of the horse around it, finishing it off with a textured base attached to a front and back hoof.  All three of the horses have an overmoulded saddle.

There was one other new figure (I forgot to take a picture of) which Peter made to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Plastic Warrior.  It is a WW2 merchant seaman using a radio set and Peter told me he chose the subject as an homage to Roy Selwyn-Smith who was a signaller in the Merchant Navy, and also to his own father  who was a signaller in the Royal Navy.