My next challenge – how to turn four old round pounds into four hundred more of these figures before Halloween …
Off to Poundland on an important mission today.
A mission that has been overdue for about two weeks, ever since the now redundant old round poin coins became no longer accepted on the UK High Street on 16 October 2017. Another minor historic moment.
Poundland is one of the last shops to take them and only until October 31st. (Good business move, Poundland, and smart PR.)
Four days left to achieve my aim.
If all goes well, I should be able to exchange my last four old round pounds for four tubs of fabulous Poundland tiny toy soldiers. I kept one shiny round pound for the tiny family coin collection.
If the mission goes awry, it is because I will be have been distracted by cheap plastic Halloween tat, useful conversion items from the Charlie Dimmock £1 gardening range or Poundland’s new Luxury OMG £2! range of stuff.
Four round pounds will buy me four hundred “penny dreadfuls” as Ross Macfarlane (Battle Game of the Month blog) suggested in his recent comments that these figures should be called!
Ross: “These are some of the crudest cheap plastic toy soldiers that I’ve ever seen but you have managed to rescue them and transform them into brave warriors! Well done!”
For the record, I have found far worse figures recently but that is for another blog post.
Just think of all the amazing conversions I can attempt with these four hundred extra figures, which are around 36mm high.
Just think how many hundreds of pounds these would cost if they were some metal 30 to 40mm figures.
Left to Right – pound store Space Marine, unpainted figure, desert native warrior, desert camouflage WW2 or modern figure (unfinished).
Look through the recent blog entries on my Pound Store Plastic Warriors sister blog on how to easily turn these penny dreadful figures into desert native warriors, Space Marines and colonial Redcoats.
Arguably, these four hundred tiny plastic figures will effectively be a free gift, compared to how even more useless these four old coins will be in four days time.
Mission accepted and off we go.
Wish me luck as we wave the old round pound coins goodbye!
Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN, on a Mission, 27 October 2017.
Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog, part 1 of work in progress on converting some of the stranger Poundland penny toy soldier figures (£1 for a bag or tub of 100).
These were inspired by the hill tribe warriors pictured in Donald Featherstone’s Solo Wargaming book.
Photographs from Donald Featherstone’s Solo Wargaming
I also want to do another set painted black robes instead of white, more Generican tribesmen or warriors, perfect for my future Bronte fiction-al campaigns.
To oppose the desert or hill tribes, I will need some paint conversions of these handy cheap Poundland / poundstore figures into a set of blue coated or red coated Colonial infantry created from these modern troops. Paint, a scalpel and some Fimo additions such as backpacks should help here.
Multiple conversions from a restricted set of figures is an interesting challenge inspired by a photo of one plastic cavalry figure converted ten different ways (Are these Spencer Smith cavalry?) in a different early Featherstone book, Tackle Model Soldiers This Way (1963). This was his second book, produced just after his first book War Games(1962), also for Stanley Paul. It has a lovely little chapter (almost a summary of War Games) on “Fighting War Games with Model Soldiers” too, to match his short “War Games” chapter in Henry Harris’ How To Go Collecting Model Soldiers (1969).
Ten conversions from one plastic cavalryman figure in Donald Featherstone’s Tackle Model Soldiers This Way (1963) – some looking very much like Spencer Smith American Civil War cavalry?
The full restricted range of these pound store penny figure poses to play around with are shown here:
Flip through the Poundland Crafty Beggars video to number 3 of 5 where you will find …
Sacriledge! Melting Poundland’s finest pound store plastic warriors in the oven to make a Fathers Day Gift toy soldier bowl.
NOOOO!!!! Don’t do this!
Just give your gaffer, your father or other male relative the box or bag of unmelted toy soldiers instead! Paint them up a bit for him. Offer him a game with them. He will be much happier with this.
Peter Laing 15mm British Colonial or WW1 infantry with comms team ancient and modern – a bugler and a heliograph operator.
Interesting WW1 signalling and comms innovation blogpost with archive photographs and many interesting articles.
In some game scenarios, failure of interception in comms and orders may have a big or random effect on the game scenario outcome.
Your carrier pigeon or messenger dog is killed, your telephone lines are broken by shellfire, your advance orders are read by the opposing player, no signal to reinforce or retire is received so your troops fight on in the same position through counter attack after counter attack. All these are interesting random events that might affect a scenario outcome. All these were likely or real problems in WW1 communications such as at Passchendaele.
At last a use for all those wiring party troops, carrier pigeon troops and flag signallers in Airfix WW1 OO/HO infantry boxes.
A subject explored more in John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle Earth, 2005. Historical events and historical figure gaming meets Fantasy!
Naval Raiding Party Gaming Scenario
An exciting WW1 naval raiding party scenario could be formed out of this interesting piece on Wireless Interception in WW1 based around coastal listening stations such as Hippisley Hut in Hunstanton Norfolk. Just what Marines are for!
A scenario with a chance to use my recently scrap built desert or coastal telegraph station or in fact any lighthouse model that you happen to have lying around:
An improvised coastal setting for my wireless telegraph station with 54mm lead or hollowcast Royal Navy crew. The old unclimbable ‘felt cloth over books’ cliffs may be a slight gaming problem …
Anyway an interesting WWI website to read and ponder.
Man of Tin blog 