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.
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.
Lots more conversion ideas to come.
https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/10/24/poundland-space-marine-pilot/
https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/10/22/poundland-desert-warriors-finished/
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.
Man of Tin blog 
I have a bunch of these too. The only problem I see though is what if I want to do cavalry?
LikeLike
Stephen
Yes, This ‘no cavalry’ problem is something Tony Kitchen and Jon Meech raised in comments a couple of days ago. It stops these “penny dreadful” figures being the new plastic Spencer Smith style basic figures range for conversions.
Cavalry options? I have some old gold coronation cavalry roughly 30mm, some old cast Prince August cavalry or horses (with guns, limbers etc) at 40mm and Spencer Smith 30mm Union cavalry. Somewhere between these sit these pound store Infantry figures at an odd 36mm size.
One of these or a mixture might work.
In my reply, I mentioned that at the moment I rarely field cavalry in my skirmish games but this obviously limits the type of game played and the time period / era for any figure conversions.
Maybe they are all dismounted cavalry who have just left their mounts with horse holders just off the board 🙂
Artillery figureconversions are possible using Suitable near scale guns
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/16/desert-warrior-pound-store-plastic-warrior-conversions-inspired-by-featherstone/#comments
Best wishes Mark, Man of TIN
LikeLike
I regret to inform you that these have skyrocketed in price-per-figure to the Games Workshoppian heights of 80 figures per £1 bucket.
On the plus side, I paid £1 for a pack of three tragically cheap and nasty police cars – one more usual car and two pickups, perhaps slightly oversized but happily fitting a machine gunner and loader in the rear, so I may be doing some Poundland Wargaming soon. What makes it Poundland beyond the figures? Couple of packs of dominoes for scatter terrain, walls and rubble, each pack coming with 5d6 as well for some reason, and using the boxes as additional terrain. It’s more authentic if literally everything used to play comes from there, isn’t it?
LikeLike
Bik, I knew my source of penny dreadful figures wouldn’t stay so cheap for ever. I don’t think Poundland will threaten the fortunes of Games Workshop or the many Nottingham manufacturers any time soon.
What makes it Poundland or pound store gaming beyond the figures? Good question.
Pound Store or dollar store gaming has its own adherents, especially in America with the “green and tan army men”. Look up Thor Sheil and his various sandpit rules for whatever figures you can find. I think it’s a straight harking back to uncomplicated childhood games on the floor or in the garden. It’s abandoning the expensive metal and the complex rules. The playset / stuff (admittedly more than a pound) does have walls, flags, ruins, tanks etc and you can add / pick up cheap vehicles for a repaint as you have done. I like the domino walls and terrain idea, maybe matched by cheap aquarium scenery, fake plants, pound store gardening section sources of terrain. It has a strange kind of improvised H. G. Wells’ Floor Games / Little Wars (on a budget) feel. (Tiger.com UK stores even do lots of dice for £1). After all, it’s playing toy soldiers … it’s a make your own Pound Store play set.
LikeLike