More of those curious Airfix Space Warriors:
Crossposted from Mark Man of TIN Blog Two, 31 January 2022
Airfix Space Warriors 1981 and Battlestar Galactica 1978 Cylon clone figures
Posted on by 26soldiersoftin
Published by 26soldiersoftin
Hello I'm Mark Mr MIN, Man of TIN. Based in S.W. Britain, I'm a lifelong collector of "tiny men" and old toy soldiers, whether tin, lead or childhood vintage 1960s and 1970s plastic figures. I randomly collect all scales and periods and "imagi-nations" as well as lead civilians, farm and zoo animals. I enjoy the paint possibilities of cheap poundstore plastic figures as much as the patina of vintage metal figures. Befuddled by the maths of complex boardgames and wargames, I prefer the small scale skirmish simplicity of very early Donald Featherstone rules. To relax, I usually play solo games, often using hex boards. Gaming takes second place to making or convert my own gaming figures from polymer clay (Fimo), home-cast metal figures of many scales or plastic paint conversions. I also collect and game with vintage Peter Laing 15mm metal figures, wishing like many others that I had bought more in the 1980s ... View all posts by 26soldiersoftin
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This one was a good pose and a nice figure with interesting armor/scales?
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I think the scales were probably to avoid cylon copyright issues and give a chain mail / lizard man vibe.
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The reptilian figures do look great in a nice over ten strong squad and painted to resemble Cylons.
Last year I finally signed up to ebay, specifically so I could get my hands on a set of the Airfix Space Warriors. I kind of like did not stop with just buying a second hand 14 figure set, but also bought a few incomplete set figures. This means I currently have several of the reptilian figures. I just got my first two painted over the last few weeks. Unable to decide between the bronze colour armour they have on the illustration of the packaging and cylon silver, I did both on each figure, basically blue tinged silver on one side and bronze on the other.
I have also had a go at running a battle with the figures, using Featherstone rules, except with one alteration; I had the hero and heroine figures hit on a 4+ or 3+ if firing from cover at an exposed enemy. Found it worked rather well.
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This is the way, to pick up penny packets of the figures over time rather than complete boxed sets and you can build up / add to a skirmish force more easily.
I agree Hero and heroine figures, rather than laser fodder troops, should have that extra zing or zap factor, as you don’t want to be losing Space Prince / Princess characters too often.
One reptile scaled figure had been already painted by someone else in the box colours but was a bit tatty so I stuck with / repaired that. Bronze armour was quite tempting too. Very steampunk!
My original childhood boxed one was still unpainted so ‘he’ (it?) is amongst the black and silver Cylons.
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So you have at least 12 of the reptilian/Cylon like figures. That is assuming you only had one from your childhood box set, rather than two, suggesting you had split the box with someone.
The ones I had as a kid I painted in box colours except I did the scale in flesh colour, because I did not like the colour, green. Assuming they went to a charity shop, whoever ended up with them probably wondered what I was thinking.
One of the ones I have bought off ebay has bright red boots and pale blueish turquoise scales. Apparently it had been painted by one of the daughters of the guy who sold it. He had managed to get both his daughters into modelling. All credit to him. I think where the gold paint of the armour had worn away, I’ll touch it up with silver.
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Good sometimes to keep and repair others peoples’ paintwork;
Your childhood flesh scaled cylon figures could still be out there somewhere.
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