The production line

Today, I'm assembling Wargames Factory horses. 72 of the little <deleted>s, (Ok, fair enough, 48, since I did the first two dozen a couple of weeks ago.)

By about the third box, I'd got the process sorted.

And that's just the sprues for
12 horses!

• Unpack box, remove 2 sets of 6 horse sprues, 6 sets of harness (2 x saddle blanket, 2 x girth, 2 x chest strap) sprue. Ignore sprues with 3 heads with reins unless you want your horses with reins.
• Stack horse sprues in order, There are 4 different sets of halves, but half of them have the pins on the left hand side base, half on the right, so you can only mix and match a bit.
• Open EMA Plastic Weld, find brush. Put bottle somewhere where it's in easy reach and you can't knock it over even though it's superglued to a beer mat.
• Grab a horse sprue, clip out head, tail, two halves, clean up if needed.
• Hold entire assembly together (tail and head both have locating pins that are held in place by the body).
• Run a line of Plastic Weld around the neck joint, then down the back, round the tail. Squeeze together. (Capillary action is wonderful - the glue will work its way into the join.)
• Run a second line between the two halves of the base, squeeze. Set aside.
• Repeat with the other 11 horses, doing a bit of mix and match of horse halves where you can.
• Grab one saddle sprue, clip out the bits, clean up. Drop grey plastic chest strap on grey carpet. Swear. Spend five minutes finding it (there are NO spares for the harness (or for that matter the bows), and I need all 72 horses).
• Grab two horses (I find this bit easiest working on pairs),
• Take one horse, run a spot of Plastic Weld on its underside, use to attach girth.
• Dab Plastic Weld on neck under mane, rump, top ends of girth. Slot front end of saddle blanket under mane, over ends of girth.
• Brush Plastic Weld on horse's front, affix chest strap.
• Bluetak horse to length of 2"x1" for undercoating.
• Repeat with next horse of pair.
• Repeat with other 5 saddle sprues.

That's 72 Wargames Factory Persians,
20 Old Glory cataphracts (a mix of
Parthian and Palmyran, 'cause, heck,
 they're damn close), and 3
A&A Palmyran command

And there you go. 95 undercoated horses. I have to say, the set of Army Painter clippers I picked up from Warlord at Hammerhead are a real boon for making close cuts to remove parts from sprues that then need minimal cleanup.

Tomorrow, the rest of the riders!