54mm Repurposed Space Figures

Defenders of the Launch  Pad

Attack of the Abutilons! Very odd poundstore thin tall plastic clone figure makes a good space invader (40 to 54mm)

I was lucky enough earlier this week to catch up in person with Alan The Tradgardmastre of the noble Duchy of Tradgardland on his Ducal travels. We met for a cup of coffee in a beer and coffee tavern  which is also a bookshop full of fashionable and political reading material. This sounds suitably Eighteenth Century for the Duke and the Duchy! Sadly it was too hot to wear a tricorne.

The Duke is a jolly nice chap, as you would expect from his blog (we were discussing A Very British Civil War at the time). We chatted variously about gaming, Toy Soldiers, interwar History, Scout Wide Games,  the events overlap of gaming and  re-enactors, the joy of simple rules and finished off talking about blogging and its many positive aspects such as the unusual openness about men’s mental health.

Unfortunately due to heavy traffic (too many stage coaches, ox waggons and sedan chairs on the road) I didn’t get a chance to make it home en route to pick up any ‘minis’ to show Alan such tiny delights as my new Phoenix 43  Scout trek cart or these space rangers to see if he recognised them. At least without ‘minis’ on the table, we were spared the curious, pitying  or withering looks of onlooking drinkers and customers.

Once Upon A Time in a Garden-axy Far Far Away …

In return for home-casting some metal Scout figures, Alan the Tradgardmastre of the Duchy of Tradgardland blog sent me via the Duchy Post Office last month some American Tim Mee plastic space figures and some odd homecast and lead figures.

Looking at the post war GI or paratroop  figures, I thought the unusual rifle and round helmet might make for some good space figures.

In a garden-axy far far away … Strange slaty granite planet with alien plant forms and breathable atmosphere.

Just the ticket for a 1970s Airfix boy derailed by Star Wars and American 1970s Star Wars spin off sci-fi series …

A bit of a stylish Flash Gordon / Dan Dare 1930s / 1950s Sci Fi thing going on here.

Tim Mee Galaxy Laser Quest Space Officer and three metal troopers.

The heads on the kneeling metal figures look like they have possibly been swapped or repaired.

A grey painted tuppenny 2p base gives the kneeling or plastic figures some stability; grey I thought is more spaceship like, metallic and neutral than the traditional sap green or bright emerald green of many old toy soldiers. I wanted to keep that shiny gloss 1950s Dan Dare space figure / toy soldier look though.

Equally an army of these could be expendable minions for one of those James Bond style  private armies  guarding the inevitable secret base. I can see a link to the blue uniformed Polish Airfix Para clones featured from Etsy in my Christmas 2018 posts. https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/03/man-of-tin-advent-calendar-day-3-vintage-1980s-polish-toy-soldier-airfix-clones-on-etsy/

I can see an influence of the late Thor Sheil’s Homecast army men ‘Toy Soldier Art’: Berlin Greys and Air Police.

http://www.thortrains.net/toysoldierart/colors3.htm

Anyway these three one-off 54mm figures  from Alan might give me the colour scheme for my ongoing 54mm space figure project, one that has worked in smaller Pound Store Plastic 32mm scale:

Two of my 32mm space conversions of a Pound Store Plastic figure.

You can have too much of Khaki Grunge.  I like the chance to use some unusual bright colours from my collection of gloss acrylics – orange, sky blue, purple, gold, silver, red. I’m sure the Flash Gordon 1980 movie with the Queen soundtrack might have something to do with my space uniform bolder colour schemes.

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/poundland-space-marines-platoon-on-parade/

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/little-green-men-pound-store-plastic-space-warriors/

More of my blue colour uniform scheme space figure 32mm Pound Store Plastic Figures. Haven’t we seen that pose before and bigger?

You can see the 32mm Pound Store Plastic basis of the 40-50mm Pound Store pirate clone figure above:

Kev Robertson over in Australia, a long term sci-fi fan, has used his his past engineering skills to great effect on his latest blog post. As well as his own new series of 35mm space figures with a retro feel, he has been busy with scratch built sci-fi vehicles, walkers and mechs. Pure Pound Store Plastic Warrior blog scrap
build material this! Always an interesting blog to browse,  Kev has blogged on various projects from sci-fi figures to railways.

Kev Robertson’s space creations … 35mm Eureka space figures

https://dwarfenrealm.blogspot.com/2019/06/spaceguard-new-35mm-scratch-models.html

At the moment I can’t comment on many people’s blog posts (obviously a settings thing) so I thought I would mention  Kev’s whole blog site.

Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN on 29 June 2019

Homecast Scout Patrol Figures completed

A patrol of eight wearing the blue scarves of Owl Patrol and a spare scout. I’m sure I intended the spare to be transformed into a Girl Scout. Too late …

In good weather a week or two ago I finished casting a few more 60mm semi round / semi flat home cast Scout figures for Alan Gruber, Tradgardmastre of the Duchy of Tradgardland blog.

Like me, he also is working on some Scout game rules for Wide Games. http://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2019/05/scouts-for-wide-games.html

Once Alan’s two patrols were cast and complete, I knocked out a spare patrol for future use of these strange  crude blocky 60mm home cast figures. It’s taken a while to get them painted in my usual gloss toy soldier style. They now need varnishing for garden or tabletop use.

Half a patrol of Alan’s Scouts out in the garden – red was the colour of Bull patrol.

The original metal moulds 60mm figures

My first painted Scout 60mm figure, a red scarved patrol bugler.

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 1970s Cub Scout (Bronze Arrow, Retired) June 2019.

 

 

Boy Scouts from Airfix WW1 American Infantry

Scout Figures converted from Airfix WW1 American Infantry

Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors Blog https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2019/06/22/pound-store-scout-figures-from-airfix-ww1-americans/

Blog posted  by Mark Man of TIN 1970s Cub Scout (Bronze Arrow, retired)

Martial Pride Restored at Circa Games USA

Three of the bashed original vintage figures  from a bag for $6, money well spent by Scott.

Scott Larson of the Circa Games blog USA dropped me an email (via the Man of TIN blog comments page) to say that he had finished stripping and repainting his chance find of some hollowcast lead figures in a US junk shop. http://www.circagames.com/wordpress/this-doesnt-usually-happen-to-me/

The finished figures here: http://www.circagames.com/wordpress/toy-soldier-update/

They look as smart and shiny as the day they were first painted and would have proved a joy to a small boy or girl somewhere  when the box was opened and they were seen strung into the card liner, ready for action!

Battle damaged and with playworn paint, who knows where and what heroic adventures these lead figures have had in the past with their original owners and down through the generations to Scott?

Scott’s website or blog header is a colourful VSF scene with some great steampunk tanks.

Scott’s blog Circa Games is a varied and interesting read ranging from westerns to VSF, wooden figures … oh, and designing and building your own games shack out the back. A games shed that has to deal with both snow and termites, as casually mentioned in http://www.circagames.com/wordpress/onward-and-backward/

and more fully shown at

http://www.circagames.com/wordpress/a-room-of-ones-own/

Designing his Games Shack – screenshot from Scott’s Circa Games website.

As a man who struggles to make even model buildings of plastic, card and balsa wood, I have “to take off my wargames hat” to Scott for this amazing bit of carpentry.  (P.S. Before anyone asks, sadly I do not own or wear a special wargames hat.)

There are more of these old lead figures on Scott’s painting table to look forward to.

Add to that the VSF resource pages and the Triggernometry (Old West) one, there is lots to read and refer too here!

Blog posted by Mark, hatless Man of TIN, 17 June 2019.

All images are screenshots from Scott’s Circa Games website and he retains copyright © of his images.

Father’s Day 2019

Usually on Father’s Day (UK) I post a link to a toy soldier figure that has some strong link back to my late Dad and the love of Toy Soldiers and History that he passed on to me.

2016: https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/20/fathers-day-raf-firefighter/

2017: https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/18/national-service-days-1/

2018: https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/16/zulus-or-ashantees-rearmed/

2019?

Although the last few months of blogging have been Scout Wide Games based, I think my Dad would have approved of this year’s family gifts.

This year the wonderful addition to my toy armoury was two handmade warships which I saw and liked in a vintage shop months ago, a small hollow-cast raiding force (a complete surprise, as a raiding force should be!) and an ACW book that I had put aside in case my family weren’t sure what to get.

Father’s Day 2019: Two wooden ships, a book and a small raiding force

Mannie Gentile recently posted a blogpost on the Golden Book of the American Civil War

http://toysoldiersforever.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-book-that-launched-thousand-careers.html

So Mannie is responsible for me buying a cheap secondhand paperback of this interesting book that launched the hobbies and careers of hundreds of Civil War enthusiasts and historians.

A book I never saw as a child growing up in Britain …

This book is richly illustrated and includes some fabulous battlefield “bird’s eye view” maps whose detail I would have found fascinating as a child.

This is what my childhood Airfix ACW games aspired to, without knowing this book. (First Bull Run, detail)

The toy hollowcast soldiers are a  treat – a surprise gift from my family found all together in a local vintage shop that they “hoped were all right”.

Crescent figures metal American infantry in 54mm and smaller 50mm range with the round backpack flamethrowers. All postwar issues.

Any vintage lead soldiers are all right in my eyes!

Curious Cherilea figures c. 1954 – designed to carry a firing mortar or bazooka?

Similar figures by Cherilea in Norman Joplin’s The Great Book Of Hollow-Cast Figures.

At first sight I thought these Cherilea bazooka or mortar  teams might be gimmicky paratroopers with parachutes or engineers with carrying arms.

Two fine Crescent Khaki Infantry with green helmets, figures issued postwar. I like the lively animation of the grenade thrower.  John Hill (Johillco) Bren Gunner?

American troops by Crescent 1940s – 1950s. Paratroop type helmets

I was interested to see the kneeling American infantryman  as he appears quite similar in style  to a trio of (solid lead home cast?) soldiers sent to me by Alan as reservists from his Duchy of Tradgardland forces. The kneeling green Crescent trooper has a knee ‘flange’ to give him more stability.

The three Duchy of Tradgardland reservists have acquired new blue uniforms for a mission in a galaxy far far away. They have an odd space look to them with their helmet and rifle. They are now acquiring blue uniforms and white or silver boots, helmets and weapons to come.  They should soon have a 30s /  50s space ‘thing’ going on to match some of the Tim Mee Galaxy Laser Team and Airfix Space Warriors.

The lady in the vintage shop thought that all these four items belonged together, so maybe the photo and  1940s / 1950s Royal Navy trade certificate of AB Able Seaman Thomas C. Owen are of the man who made  the two fine warships?

The two fine handmade boats have some battle damage that needs sympathetic repair. They deserve a blog post of their own as they are repaired and researched, along with their paperwork. They came from what can be a “grey port” at times of naval vessels in for refit.

Are they accurate handmade models or spirited imaginative examples of “modern warships” with guns and rockets? It will be interesting to find out.

Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN, Father’s Day 16 June 2019.

 

Close Little Wars Raging Across The Duchy of Tradgardland

Screenshot. Image copyright: Alan Gruber / Duchy of Tradgardaland

Huzzah! Good looking Wellsian game by Alan the Tradgardmastre on a small gridded games board using Replica 54mm figures and accessories of old style hollow-cast Soldiers.

Because of some setting thing I can’t comment on Alan’s Tradgardland blog at the moment. Worth visiting as its good fun stuff.

Replica Model Soldiers can be found at  https://www.replicametalsoldiers.co.uk

Close Little Wars Rules https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/close-little-wars-featherstones-simplest-rules/

Huzzah for the Duchy of Tradgardland, Huzzah for H.G. Wells’ Little Wars and Huzzah for Donald Featherstone, writer of the Close Wars rules!

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, Close Wars enthusiast, 16 June 2019

Stealth’s Take on Close Little Wars

.

Following up my post about Jen B’s version of Featherstone’s Close Wars Rules, fellow games blogger Stealth contacted me to say that he had been playing around with his own variant of Donald Featherstone’s simple Close Wars rules.

These were first published in Don’s appendix to War Games (1962) and Stealth had been looking at my variants Close Little Wars.

Here is Stealth’s variant are in detail for you to peruse: https://stealthswargaming.blogspot.com/2019/05/stealths-close-little-wars-variant-rules.html

and his classic first wargames minis are first version 1960s tiny Airfix figure conversions, always a charming joy to see

https://stealthswargaming.blogspot.com/2019/06/i-emerge-from-painting-cave-to-give-you.html

Stealth’s rules have a slight D & D influence or feel (see his other blogs) in that carrying or capturing crates forms part of the victory conditions, scoring and scenarios. Interesting idea for ambushing a supply column etc.

I hope you find something of rules variants interest here. I enjoy seeing how people adapt and tinker, go back to basics and then elaborate a bit more.

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN on 16 June 2019.

Close Wars Simplified

Jen’s Normandy 75th Anniversary Game in her library. (Image: Jen B.)

I wish my local Library had looked a bit more like this photo by Jen when I was a child. (What was going on in the inside of my head looked like this!) My lovely local library was a busy but quiet place, a great free source of classic wargames titles, uniform references and history books but not a relaxed place to try out games or crafts.

American gaming librarian Jen B has been literally playing around with the very simple Featherstone Close Wars rules that I often use.

These were first printed as a two page appendix to Donald Featherstone’s War Games, 1962.

Jen has been experimenting with them for a range of historical periods, encouraging young gamers into (historical) figure gaming in her library workplace.

Classic 54mm Airborne versus Panzer Grenadiers? The figures pictured are those much pirated or cloned (therefore easily affordable) Matchbox American Infantry and a mix of Airfix and Matchbox Germans often found for sale in Pound Store, dollar store or bargain buckets. Perfect pocket money stuff!

Simplicity of terrain and affordable budget store figures are important in trying to welcome more youngsters, male and female, into the fantasy and historical sides of figure gaming. This affordable point is explored amongst others blog sites on my own Pound Store Plastic Warriors Blog, the Cheap Fantasy Minis Blog or the Wargaming Pastor’s DeathZap website

The original Featherstone Close Wars Rules posts can be found here:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/close-little-wars-featherstones-simplest-rules/

And reposted on an interesting free war games rules site:

https://freewargamesrules.fandom.com/wiki/Close_Little_Wars:_Featherstone’s_simplest_rules

Jen doesn’t have a blog of her own (yet) but left this comment on one of my blog posts: “I ran another WWII skirmish at work today, this time with rules influenced by Close Wars, with simpler measuring.”

Movement: One pencil length.

Firing: (Range/shots)
– Pistol: One pencil length/one shot.
– SMG: 1/3
– Rifle: 2/1
– MG: 3/3, but may not move and fire.
Shots hit on 5+, 6 if target is in cover.

Close Combat (CC): Figures roll off. If tied, both figures retreat one pencil length.

Each side rolls once at end of turn – on a 6 a reinforcement figure appears.

Jen wrote “It worked surprisingly well, and the players were cheering every die roll.”

Cheering? In a library? Not what I remember from the enforced hush of my childhood libraries. This is a great reaction to hear about though, clearly the children were highly engaged and the rules are simplicity itself in materials, terrain, figures, a pencil or two and some ordinary d6 dice. Good entry level stuff!

You could easily go home with a photo copy of these rules and create this yourself as a child or family with available figures.

Featherstone envisaged these simple Close Wars rules as solving the challenge of natives versus troops in small scale skirmish gaming in cluttered terrain such as Colonial era or the French Indian Wars.

It would be easy enough to adapt these rules for drop-in library gaming use to simple Wild West skirmish gunfights, French and Indian Wars, the Revolutionary and the Civil War, all with suitably affordable or dollar store figures.

Can’t find cheap historical figs? Try my ManofTIN Imagi-Nations conversions!

As my Pound Store Plastic Warriors strapline or motto says: Little Wars on a Budget

I hope that Jen gets to run more of these games and I’m sure every gamer wishes this venture well.

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, regular library user and 70s Airfix child, 14 June 2019

Really this Blog post could have or should have gone on my Pound Store Plastic Warriors Blog in view of its affordable plastic figure theme, so I will crosspost a link on that site.

Can you ever repeat enough pictures like these of classic plastic figures?

Blog Post Script

Mannie Gentile’s Toy Soldiers Forever blogposts on the Civil War often have the laudable focus of encouraging children to explore Civil War history and battlefields through affordable figure gaming. A website well worth a visit. http://toysoldiersforever.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-new-civil-war-enthusiast.html

Blog Update 4th July 2019

Here is Jen’s latest American War Of Independence game in the library – muskets took the place of Rifles – the spirit of 1776, except the British Redcoats won this Skirmish. See more at https://ibb.co/album/kGodmF

Waterloo Replayed June 2019

http://www.waterlooreplayed.com

The Great 28mm Game in aid of Waterloo Uncovered, the veteran focussed archaeology project.

Restored corner of the house that is my Hex Boards of Joy

For a few months I have not done much gaming to write up.

Not since a short Mountie Skirmish in late November 2018 last year https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/30/mountie-ambush-game-15mm/

For a few months my gaming area and tabletop have been covered in broken Britain’s figures awaiting repair, Peter Laing 15mm figures awaiting paint, tools and useful bits of scrap for modelling.

54mm superheroes and tiny blocky Minecraft figures

I am as happy casting, repairing and painting figures as I am gaming with them, hence the quote on Man of TIN blog from Donald Featherstone:

The largest hex game board has hung on the wall being a former picture frame – a neat storage solution tucked away in the corner of a shared living room.

As part of the Scout Wide Games research and rules writing, I am not sure if my hex boards will be too small for the 42mm range Scout figures I have painted. Maybe I should have gone smaller, say OO/HO railway or my Pound Store figure conversions? Different size figures, different scale scenarios?

15mm Peter Laing figures for a different scale

I have been playing around with scale from 54mm superheroes and tiny blocky Minecraft blind bag figures (Heroscape hexes have a 3D landscape Minecraft feel) down to 15mm Peter Laing figures, which give a bigger playing space.

Set up for 42mm range STS Little Britons Scouts (Boy and Girl) …

Having a large enough landscape for the Wide Games scenarios is obviously harder with the larger Scout figures 42mm Shiny Toy Soldiers / Little Britons range (from Spencer Smith Miniatures), so the scale and ground space available may shape the scope of future scenarios.

My couple of quick paint conversions of Pound Store figures in a smaller scale may enlarge the territory available to my Scouting games – I can cheaply and quickly knock up a couple of patrols of these to try this out.

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2019/05/19/pound-store-plastic-boy-scout-32mm-conversions/

32mm Pound Store Scout conversions & the original penny plastic figures

Part of the Wide Games appeal is that tabletop Wide Games could equally function as Garden games especially with the largest, simplest 60mm semi-flat Scouts – as pointed by Alan the Tradgardmastre of the Duchy Of Tradgardland Blog.

http://tradgardland.blogspot.com/2019/05/scouts-for-wide-games.html

If only my ageing knees and back and the weather were up to it …

The rest of the space?

A column of Really Useful Boxes divides the playing space from the crafting space. More Really Useful Boxes and Shoe Boxes are stowed away below the gaming table and the chairs.

Acquiring job lots of broken toy soldiers to repair requires storage. The Peter Laing figures, both painted and awaiting paint, require storage. Scrap modelling materials, tools and paints require storage.

For the last few months, wriggling into the old crafting chair has felt like sliding into a narrow cockpit to focus down onto the hand tools, paintbrush and figures in front of me. It’s also meant that I had no gaming space. Shifting these about and restowing boxes has helped no end.

My flap-down desk with cardboard screen keeping paper contents and books safe from paint.

I understand more fully now the points about concentration and wellbeing made in the Models for Heroes videos. There is a mental craft zone that the world shrinks down to.

I am reminded of the ominous episode in Harry Pearson’s gaming memoir Achtung Schweinhund where Harry hears from his gaming best friend about an obsessive hoarder (stereotypically male, middle aged, single). This man’s decaying house is in danger of collapse from an Aladdin’s Cave of stored vintage unboxed figures, magazines and newspapers, yet eerily the paint table is immaculate and ordered. Harry and friend see a vision of their possible lonely futures.

My Crafting “Cockpit”: Phoenix 43 Trek Cart kit & washed-out Cath Kidston pink Guards mug

The cutting board and painting space that forms my crafting area has now transferred to the right of the board onto a flap down modern bureau desk, rather than than the traditional modeller’s Roll Top type desk. It fits into the rest of the family without sitting in a room apart. It’s stuffed full of toy soldier things and research notes and books for other work-related projects, protected from paint splatters by a removable cardboard screen. Reorganising the contents means that everything should be able to fold back up out of sight.

The desk top “display” space itself could also do with a tidy up as it is currently piled with figures and books that I have worked on in the last year. Inspiration but it’s also a jumble of what has been inside my head recently.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/01/15/the-domestic-modelling-joys-of-the-roll-top-desk/

Next to this sits a small bulging cupboard stuffed full with books, hollowcast figures and hoarded Airfix figures and kits from childhood onwards, again its top piled with this year’s projects. Again all of these could do with a sort through on another grey day.

More Really Useful storage boxes live in the garage for my metal casting kit, buildings, some other temperature proof gaming stuff and metal figures, whilst the indoor storage is reserved for the more vulnerable fragile vintage and childhood plastics figures and vehicles.

The painting above the desk is a recent acquisition, a framed Illustrated London News print of the Lancashire Rifle Volunteers parading at Knowsley Park. Britain’s Victorian Home Guard against another Napoleonic French invasion, and finely dressed at that. One for Marvin at Subterranean Militarism!

The Review of Lancashire Rifle Volunteers in Knowsley Park. Illustration for The Illustrated London News, 15 September 1860.

So there you are, restored –

an experimental games lab to try out Wide Games or gaming scenarios indoors,

an encouragement to paint and base those Peter Laings stuck in the lead limbo of the ‘work in progress’ painting box,

hopefully a little more presentable part of the Living Room if we have visitors to the house!

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 9 June 2019.