What will 2022 bring?

Anyone else made any foolish unachievable resolutions for this year’s gaming?

Battling Bronte Sisters (Bad Squiddo 28mm Little Wolves Amazons) meet 25mm Prince August Homecast cavemen boggarts. As close as I will get to Silver Bayonet?

*

It’s that time of the year when New Year’s Resolutions are optimistically made … but maybe not in this house.

My New Gaming Year’s Irresolutions for 2021 were kept deliberately vague …

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2020/12/31/new-gaming-year-irresolutions-2021/

but even then my vaguest plans for New Gaming Year NGY 2021 often went awry, mostly due to COVID.

The local village Spring Flower and Craft show 2021 never happened so no #FEMBruary figures from Bad Squiddo painted as planned but I did paint some later in the year – The Battling Bronte sisters.

Thanks to Covid levels, I never made it to the Woking 2021 54mm Little Wars Revisited Games Day when it finally happened. Covid dependent of course, but hopefully I might make it in 2022 with my Boy Scouts and snowball fighters who need more gaming time https://littlewarsrevisited.boards.net/thread/847/woking-games-saturday-march-correct.

My local history research project talk on WW2 in my local area (as a fundraiser) was postponed by COVID from autumn 2021 to late May 2022.

I think the NGY Irresolutions 2020 will still stand after a year or two interrupted but who knows what might happen in 2022?

New Gaming Year’s Irresolutions 2022

In no particular order

1. Cataloguing Peter Laing 15mm figures as part of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the now out-of-production Peter Laing figures, possibly the first 15mm figures when they launched in October 1972.

https://collectingpeterlaing15mmfigures.wordpress.com

As well as cataloguing what I have over the next ten months, fellow members of the Peter Laing collectors circle on MeWe have been helping me identify figures and supplying photos of figures I don’t have. Then there’s painting and basing more of my unpainted Laing figure stash and getting in some more 15mm skirmish games?

Peter Laing 15mm Chasseurs d’Alpins (WW1 Range) complete with walking sticks!

2. England or Cornwall invaded – Variations on Operation Sealion / Leon Marino

Still playing around with skirmish ideas as part of my Look Duck and Varnish Blog ongoing Operation Sealion Home Guard games, but also found out more about the WW1 ‘Gorgeous Wrecks’ or Volunteer Training Corps, good for future VTC Wide Games and Victorian / Edwardian / WW1 era ‘what if’ games.

Arma-Dads Army! 1590s Home Guard Elizabethan Muster of conversions and ECW figures against the Spanish Fury, Chintoys Conquistadors and pound store Pirates …

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/arma-dads-army-elizabethan-home-guard-1580s-1590s-operacion-leon-marino/

3. More Close Little Wars forest skirmishes and Close Little Space Wars Games in 54mm … I didn’t get a backyard garden galaxy game in this year.

My lovely Bold Frontiers cardboard trees didn’t get enough of an outing in 2021…

Two Britain’s Ltd. broken Scots charging – a favourite pose – with part repaired rifles, two more figures from the Waifs and Strays group of figures 2021 – “Waifs and Strays” sounds like it should be a Victorian Regimental nickname.

4. I look forward to some more enjoyable tinkering with 54mm repairs of broken lead figures to add to various units. Over the years I have been stashing away battered and broken figures from various donations – cowboys, Indians, redcoats, Scots and Khaki figures – along with the odd intriguing figure bought online.

Arrived last year and put away for Christmas – some very heavy, solid lead and fairly paint distressed Terraton 54mm-ish German semiflats to repair and rebase. Indians, redcoats, trees and farm animals …

5. What else might happen?

Weather permitting maybe will even get some more home casting done outdoors?

Pound Store Plastic figures, Early War Miniatures 1940 Range (for Svenmarck invaded!) and vintage Airfix OOHO figures to restore or rebase for some skirmish games.

More time for Bronte ImagiNations?

My Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Snowball Games need attention!

My skateboarders could do with painting!

Not going to run out of fun things to do …

What are your New Gaming Year plans?

I hope that your gaming plans for 2022 go agreeably awry as well.

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, NYE 31 December 2021 / 1st January 2022

Matchbox German Infantry copies 1:76

One of the cheaper and cheerful toy soldier arrivals I unwrapped at Christmas this year with some good old fashioned ‘vintage’ colourful packaging, bearing no relation to what is inside!

Lots of Matchbox 1:76 German Infantry copies in an American Infantry box? That’s the joy of cheap plastic figure sets!

Crossposted – refreshed link

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2021/12/27/vintage-pound-store-matchbox-german-infantry-copies/

Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors Blog by Mark Man of TIN, 27 December 2021

What will 2022 bring?

Anyone else made any foolish unachievable resolutions for this year’s gaming?

Battling Bronte Sisters (Bad Squiddo 28mm Little Wolves Amazons) meet 25mm Prince August Homecast cavemen boggarts. As close as I will get to Silver Bayonet?

*

It’s that time of the year when New Year’s Resolutions are optimistically made … but maybe not in this house.

My New Gaming Year’s Irresolutions for 2021 were kept deliberately vague …

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2020/12/31/new-gaming-year-irresolutions-2021/

but even then my vaguest plans for New Gaming Year NGY 2021 often went awry, mostly due to COVID.

The local village Spring Flower and Craft show 2021 never happened so no #FEMBruary figures from Bad Squiddo painted as planned but I did paint some later in the year – The Battling Bronte sisters.

Thanks to Covid levels, I never made it to the Woking 2021 54mm Little Wars Revisited Games Day when it finally happened. Covid dependent of course, but hopefully I might make it in 2022 with my Boy Scouts and snowball fighters who need more gaming time https://littlewarsrevisited.boards.net/thread/847/woking-games-saturday-march-correct.

My local history research project talk on WW2 in my local area (as a fundraiser) was postponed by COVID from autumn 2021 to late May 2022.

I think the NGY Irresolutions 2020 will still stand after a year or two interrupted but who knows what might happen in 2022?

New Gaming Year’s Irresolutions 2022

In no particular order

1. Cataloguing Peter Laing 15mm figures as part of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the now out-of-production Peter Laing figures, possibly the first 15mm figures when they launched in October 1972.

https://collectingpeterlaing15mmfigures.wordpress.com

As well as cataloguing what I have over the next ten months, fellow members of the Peter Laing collectors circle on MeWe have been helping me identify figures and supplying photos of figures I don’t have. Then there’s painting and basing more of my unpainted Laing figure stash and getting in some more 15mm skirmish games?

Peter Laing 15mm Chasseurs d’Alpins (WW1 Range) complete with walking sticks!

2. England or Cornwall invaded – Variations on Operation Sealion / Leon Marino

Still playing around with skirmish ideas as part of my Look Duck and Varnish Blog ongoing Operation Sealion Home Guard games, but also found out more about the WW1 ‘Gorgeous Wrecks’ or Volunteer Training Corps, good for future VTC Wide Games and Victorian / Edwardian / WW1 era ‘what if’ games.

Arma-Dads Army! 1590s Home Guard Elizabethan Muster of conversions and ECW figures against the Spanish Fury, Chintoys Conquistadors and pound store Pirates …

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/arma-dads-army-elizabethan-home-guard-1580s-1590s-operacion-leon-marino/

3. More Close Little Wars forest skirmishes and Close Little Space Wars Games in 54mm … I didn’t get a backyard garden galaxy game in this year.

My lovely Bold Frontiers cardboard trees didn’t get enough of an outing in 2021…

Two Britain’s Ltd. broken Scots charging – a favourite pose – with part repaired rifles, two more figures from the Waifs and Strays group of figures 2021 – “Waifs and Strays” sounds like it should be a Victorian Regimental nickname.

4. I look forward to some more enjoyable tinkering with 54mm repairs of broken lead figures to add to various units. Over the years I have been stashing away battered and broken figures from various donations – cowboys, Indians, redcoats, Scots and Khaki figures – along with the odd intriguing figure bought online.

Arrived last year and put away for Christmas – some very heavy, solid lead and fairly paint distressed Terraton 54mm-ish German semiflats to repair and rebase. Indians, redcoats, trees and farm animals …

5. What else might happen?

Weather permitting maybe will even get some more home casting done outdoors?

Pound Store Plastic figures, Early War Miniatures 1940 Range (for Svenmarck invaded!) and vintage Airfix OOHO figures to restore or rebase for some skirmish games.

More time for Bronte ImagiNations?

My Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Snowball Games need attention!

My skateboarders could do with painting!

Not going to run out of fun things to do …

What are your New Gaming Year plans?

I hope that your gaming plans for 2022 go agreeably awry as well.

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, NYE 31 December 2021 / 1st January 2022

Happy Christmas to all my Man of TIN Blog readers

Happy Christmas to all my Man of TIN blog readers – wishing you many shiny toys!

Image: From a lovely old 1978 British Royal Mail stamp set of Christmas customs (see below), the 13p stamp postcard is in my 1580s – 1590s / 1940 “Arma-Dads Army” Elizabethan Sealion project scrapbook. New summary blog page for this project here:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/arma-dads-army-elizabethan-home-guard-1580s-1590s-operacion-leon-marino/

During my childhood, my late dad as a lifelong stamp collector used to buy me the postcard versions and sometimes the highly educational presentation packs or first day covers, which had insert pages all about the stamp topic. Stamp collecting and model railways are two of the family hobbies in the blood (in a malarial or genetic way) that I am resisting from lack of time, storage, space and money.

Happy Christmas to all my readers & fellow bloggers from Mark Man of TIN!

Happy Christmas from the whole Man of TIN family of spin off blogs:

Man of TIN blog two – all set up ready for when I fill up and run out of my free 3GB WordPress Man of TIN blog site sometime in early 2022.

Pound Store Plastic Warriors Blog – including tabletop snowball fight fun!

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2021/08/03/pound-store-snowball-fight-2021/

Scouting Wide Games for the Tabletop – also with festive snowball fight fun!

Look Duck and Varnish – my occasional Home Guard and Sealion gaming blog

Sidetracked2017 – where model railways meet toy soldiers and wargaming

Warrior and Pacific Magazine 1901 one-off handwritten children’s magazine 1901

Collecting Peter Laing 15mm figures – cataloguing my collection of these figures ahead of their 50th anniversary In October 1972

Enjoy your family and festive time.

Who knows what Christmas and the New Year will bring? Keep safe and well, here’s wishing you happiness and health, if not wealth. Whatever happens, we have our marvellous hobby to enrich our lives and deplete the coffers.

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, Christmas Eve, 24 December 2021

This set was designed in 1978 by British artist and book illustrator Faith Jacques (1923–1997) who had an interesting wartime career as a WREN (Women’s Royal Navy Service):

“She was posted to Oxford where she was stationed in the New Bodleian Library. Her duties included control of a filing department containing over a million photographs, holiday snaps included, of Germany and Occupied Europe, with particular attention given to pictures of coastlines and village approaches.” Wikipedia source.

The 13p (most expensive) stamp design was the 16th Century carollers singing the Boars Head Carol.

Charity Shop find of Airfix and Matchbox copies slowly morphing into others

The curious pleasure of watching familiar Airfix and Matchbox figures slowly change and shrink slightly over time into Generic Infantry.

Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors Blog

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2021/12/12/charity-shop-find-of-slowly-morphing-shrinking-copies-of-airfix-and-matchbox-figures/

Some old or new recruits …

Some old or new arrivals have arrived from the bottom of the wider family toybox – Herald, Britain’s Deetail and Pound Store.

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2021/12/11/a-few-old-or-new-recruits/

Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN 11 December 2021

More Press Reviews of H.G. Wells’ Little Wars of 1913 – Part 2

Crossposted from my Man ofTIN Blog Two site

https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2021/12/05/how-h-g-wells-little-wars-was-received-in-the-press-in-1913-part-2/

How H.G. Wells’ Little Wars was reviewed in 1913 part 1

Crossposted from my Man of TIN Blog Two site (set up for when ManofTIN blog 1 is full)

https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2021/12/04/how-h-g-wells-little-wars-was-reviewed-in-the-press-1913-part-1/

The Young H.G. Wells: Changing the World, a biography by Claire Tomalin 2021

Thanks to a tip off from Tony Kitchen at the always interesting Tin Soldiering On blog, I picked up a shiny hardback copy of this biography of the young H. G. Wells by Claire Tomalin, which focusses on the first four decades of his long life.

An attractive shiny steampunk and War of The Worlds cover

Over 19 chapters the book covers the first four highly productive decades of his life, followed by a final ten page ‘coda’ chapter documenting the last thirty odd years of his life, works and friendships.

The main part finishes round 1911 with the publication of The New Machiavelli (minus its toy soldier chapters). https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2021/01/15/h-g-wells-the-new-machiavelli-1911-toy-soldiers-floor-games-and-little-wars/

Floor Games is barely mentioned, Little Wars not at all, the main books mentioned being those from 1895-1911.

Part of my interest was in looking out for toy soldier references.

As mentioned in a previous blog post, the struggling young working class schoolboy played wargames in his head:

This is the closest reference to Floor Games and Little Wars that you will get.

The poorly Wells as a child often went to live with his mother, who worked as a housekeeper at the country house of Uppark, where he had access to books and other stimulating things like a telescope to see the night sky and other planets. Obviously useful for a future writer of science fiction!

I like the mention of the young boy Wells and toy theatres, as these crop up again with Wells playing at satirical toy theatres with G K Chesterton in the 1930s at Easton, mentioned on another of my blog entries.

Wells was obviously a bright lad from a difficult poor working class background who one day would be on good terms with the ‘upstairs‘ of society of aristocrats, writers and intellectuals, the socialist reformers as well as his family background ‘downstairs‘.

This biography is also useful in filling in a little more detail on his circle, including players of The Floor Game or Little Wars (published 1913) such as the invalid writer and ‘dear friend who died’ in 1903 George Gissing,

Fabian / Socialist writer Graham Wallas (Mr. W)

Charles Masterman (Mr M.), writer, politician and brother of Captain M.

Interesting biography, well worth reading, if sadly lacking in toy soldiers.

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 4 December 2021

More on H G Wells, Little Wars, Floor Games and Toy Theatres:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/h-g-wells-little-wars-floor-games-toy-theatres-and-magic-cities/