Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year!

 Another year is just about done, and I hope you all have a safe and happy one.

Just don’t over do the punch…

Here’s a few toys I’ve done, all ancients this time.

First up some Romans, mostly Airfix with new bingo chip shields. The originals went astray and I bought these guys sans scutum. I love those old Giant officer figures.

Next up is more Marx Madness. Captain Gallant figures manning Airfix Roman chariots as Persians, and some Persian cavalry from Giant knights.

And finally, a work in progress from a quarter century ago. Spartan hoplites from Marx Captain Gallant figures with plasticene shields, helmets and cloaks. The spears are florist wire and pop off if handled too much, so I made a special box just for them to be stored in. 

Well that’s it this time. Best wishes for the New Year!

Hard Plastic Marx Miniatures: Knights and Barbarians

I've found these figures in collections of other ebay purchases. There are two types, Knights in shining armour, and various barbarians.
They are produced in brittle hard plastic and hand painted at the factory.
Size wise, they are bigger than 1/72 scalle, and a few are over 30mm tall, but most are 25-28mm tall.
Here are the barbarians:

I imagine that there are some of these figures in soft plastic somewhere. I have some soft plastic 25mm copies of Elastolin Romans and Barbarians.
There are at least 8 poses in my toys.

The knights are a more ecclectic mix of knights and supporting troops:

Some of the knights are really quite impressive:

The catapults are operational, but the rubber bands are crumbling:

I really don't know much about these toys. So like the Helen of Toy stuff, I'll just keep adding to this post as time goes on.

28mm Marx Arab Recasts

I recently purchased a couple bags of Made in China toy soldiers. I ordered them off the net.
I wasn't sure what I'd be getting scale wise, but I thought "why not?"

Turns out the figures I expected to be 45 mm - 54 mm tall are recasts of Marx's Arab figures. Here's a link to an article about them:


http://smallscaleworld.blogspot.ca/2010/05/l-is-for-la-legion-etranger-by-marx.html


These figures are cast in a harder plastic than current 1/72 scale releases. They are all between 23 to 28mm tall, most being the latter. There are 11 poses and the original mounted poses are included, albeit with their feet fixed to bases.

It takes little to clip them free. However finding recast horses might be a problem. I settled on the Thai Giant recasts. The riders require a little trimming between their legs, and the horses' saddles must be carved flat, but they do fit. I also mounted a dozen on some toy camels. These took a bit more trimming of the legs, and I found the plastic can break away under pressure, so careful carving is required.

Anyway the bag of toys has over 200 figures. Some casualties from shipping are present, broken guns, snapped off bases, but the vast majority are in acceptable condition. Also included are 4 towers in two styles, 10 trees, deciduous and palm, some of the usual dollar store accessories like fences and sandbags, a large tent, a modern building front and some simple fighter jets and inflatable rafts. Missing was the tank that was to be in the set, and two fictional plastic maps were included. The Muslim soldiers were cast in two colours, tan and olive green.


The potential for these toys is great.


Beyond mounting the riders, of whom there were over 60 in a bag, the weapons were all muskets and swords. With a little paint and imagination they would do as Pathans, Mahdists, Indian, Mamelukes or even Sikh soldiers. 

Removing the muskets and replacing them with spears could transport them back in time for armies of the middle east, the crusades, the turks or others.
As an aside, the ad that caught my eye sold me with a photo of all the soldiers set up. But the caption referred to them as "middle eastern aborigines"! I guess the company used one of those computer translators.
I mounted the three rider poses on horses, camels and made some standard bearers. I have no cognisance of what's on the flags, it's a rough copy of those in the first volume of Funcken's Le Costume et les Armes: Des Soldat de Tous les Temps. Vol. I. Des Pharaons a Louis XV. by Liliane and Fred Funcken. (1966)
Now I've seen Marx 28mm recasts of Mexican Alamo soldiers, Civil War soldiers, Captain Gallant Foreign Legion, Noah's Ark, so does that mean other sets might be in the offing? I certainly hope so, but I'm not holding my breath.  Or maybe we'll see the Revolutionary war sets of redcoats and rebels or the Charge of The Light Brigade? Or the World War 2 sets? One can only hope.

on the light side of things, I've been growing raspberries every year. what started as a single bush now produces 6 to 8 liters of berries every summer. I went for a rummage through the basement and I've got enough preserves and jams canned to make a nice batch of wine. So my lousy painting isn't likely to improve with age, but the wine will.

Still More Marx Madness

More Marx Captain Gallant conversions. These are British 19th century. Straight paint jobs with some plasticine packs. The guys on the right have a blue painted Portuguese soldier in their ranks, a militia man from the Napoleonic wars. I had hopes of making enough of these redcoats to use them in Crimea or maybe India.

Rear view of the packs, showing some of the damage plasticine is liable to over time.

My Greeks. I made 150 0f these one summer long ago. The hardest part were the spears, they just keep breaking off.

A mix of heads and hoplons. Who needs Helots when you have topless babes running the camp? These are Garrison Sword and Sorcery figures.

These are about half of what I made. I'll find the rest and post them all together someday.

Some figures, one showing the plasticine I added. I also have made skirmishers and archers and a nice mounted Pausanias figure for Platea from a mounted Marx 7th Cavalryman. He's around somewhere.

Old School Update: More Marx Madness

More Marx Captain Gallant figures.
As I said before I have a bunch of these and I have tried all sorts of simple conversions or just straight paint jobs to find a use for them.
First up is a pic of some US Civil War era figures. Union soldiers, Confederates and early war Zouaves.

Back to my 1866 Sadowa figures. This first group is a 40mm Austrian command set I picked up on ebay. They were in a sorry state of almost no paint and showing some damage. The figures are Kober (I think) and are meant to represent Austrians of the late 19th and early 20th century. The few paint flakes left were a medium gray. I decided to promote them to command my growing Austrian army. Their large size is in keeping with their stature as command figures and as grand dads of the wargaming ilk. Shades of Callan perhaps.....

The Austrian army has grown by 4 more battalions. I have done away with trying to add plasticine packs as they fall off quite readily. In fact I'm begining to think that "achoo!" is a secret Austrian order to "Drop Packs!". A lot of fiddly repairs every time I get them out.


The last grouping is an attempt to use some of the figures as a Wild Geese Regiment. I'm hoping that the addage "The bigger The Hat, The Better The Soldier" holds true on some future wargame table...

An Old School Attempt To Make Use Of Odd Figures

I literally have a few thousand of the 25-28mm plastic Marx recast of the Captain Gallant Figures. Some are fine as they are, but many are just strange and silly poses. Arms and weapons are akimbo, they don't stand up very well. So I decided to try something. I was reading "the Battle of Konnigratz" by Gordon A. Craig (C. Tinling & Co. Ltd., Great Battles of History series) and I was inspired by the images in Richard Holmes' "Epic Land Battles" (isbn 090740801x).



Waterloo miniatures makes the Austrians in 20mm plastic, but I didn't want to spend a lot. So I decided to use up those pesky Marx copies. I painted them white, with blue trousers, and made back packs from plasticene. I did the faces and guns and used a Sharpie marker to do some minor details. The only real trouble is that the poses are so odd that they do not stand well next to one another. There are too many bits sticking out for them to even stand next to each other on their bases. Oh well, I will forge on. I did 2 units of 48, the officers, drummers and flag bearers are coming. I made 1 unit of Airfix Hussars as Austrian Hussars, somewhat fanciful, and some artillery. I even threw in a supply unit from a Hong Kong toy. There is a great blog with images of the real soldiers here:
http://1815-1918.blogspot.com/2010_07_25_archive.html
Also there is a good article in Miniature Wargames #47 by Luigi Casali. Incidently, this issue also has N. Henry Hyde's first article entitled "Ficticious Wars", introducing Prunkland in a very Grand Old School Manner.