A Toy Soldier Inspection

The Verdancia Army let's out three cheers as the Emperor's carriage  approaches . 

The Emperor  is pleased at his reception.

The Emperor's carriage is escorted by the Imperial colors and a chosen band of guards.

    The Emperor  of Verdancia has ordered out his army for inspection. With colors unfurled and drums beating, the army raises a cheer for the Emperor!

Toy Soldiers Wargame

In the last few weeks I have been playing with different ideas for games. I have also spent too much time on the computer trying to get inspiration. I started thinking of why I enjoyed playing with toy soldiers as a kid. As a kid there was no tape measures, no dice and no rules. I decided to try a game where movement was between terrain, not measured moves. Using "Close Wars" terrain, the toy soldiers would advance to the next terrain feature in front of them. If it was occupied by the enemy, they would be caught in the open. There is no measuring for shooting; depending on the weapon it would be decided if the enemy was in range. When in doubt roll to decide. I still use dice to decide hits. I started a game using some Airfix Combat Infantry Group figures. It has been enjoyable game, wither I play again or not.

A Toy Soldier Battle

     The last couple of weeks I have wanted to get a wargame in using my semi round toy soldiers.  My collection has many great figures which have never been used. For the game itself I was using no special  rules.  Movement was 6" for infantry; 12" for cavalry. For combat, it was simply roll one dice for each figure. I did use Command & Colors:Tricorne dice.

The Grey Army 

The Grey Army cavalry behind the hill.

The Green Army

The Green General starts his troops forward.

The Grey Army advances. The Gross Gras Regiment makes up the main Grey force.

The Grey Army loses one soldier and four infantry runs away.

The Grey army approaches the Guards on the hill; the grey cavalry moves forward to protect the flank.

The Green jagers lose one man and 5 retreat.

The Green cavalry charges forward and hits grey's left flank.

The green cavalry starts cutting through the Gross Gras infantry and Grey cavalry.

At the top right of the picture a large number grey infantry can be seen fleeing. They  took a devastating volley  from the Guards Regiment on the hill.

The Guards drawn up on the hill.

The Green Army charges all along the line.

Some grey infantry surrender to the Guards.

At this point the battle seems lost for the Greys. However, I stopped the game at this point as it was getting late.   Perhaps  tomorrow the Grey general will decide to continue the battle.

18 Pounds

      That's the weight of the toy soldiers that I sent to several people since I started thinning out my plastic soldier collection. While it doesn't sound like much, you would be surprised how many toy soldiers there are in 6 pounds of toy soldiers.  I thought I would regret giving these figures away. However, I am keeping my earliest Airfix and Atlantic figures, my "Old Guard". I 'm also keeping select figures, such as the Revell TYW figures I have and the few Revell SYW figures I have.

IThis picture was taken before giving away many of the toy soldiers in the bin. There are still many figures still on the spruces. I am thinking of trimming the spruces so I can fit more into boxes.

The Point of Diminishing Returns

        I wasn't the best student in school. Which makes it surprising that about the only thing I remember is from an Economics class; the point of diminishing returns.  I won't try to explain it, but below is an illustration from a website that I came across when I Googled "the point of diminishing returns". This illustration will explain my thinking as it pertains to this post.

      I passed the point of diminishing returns many years ago. I have more toy soldiers than I will ever get to use. I find myself getting bored with all that I have. Figures bought for  one off project, which  never get completed.  With my lack of gaming in the last couple of months, it has given me time to reflect on my collection. I have decided to thin out my plastics collection, although what to do with the culled figures I know not. I don't want to sell them on Ebay. I would like to find a good home for them to go to, preferably to someone who could collect them in person. Last resort would be to trash them, which is something I don't want to do.

From fellowshipone.com.  This shows how I feel about my toy soldier collection.  I passed the "Happy & Grateful"  point 20 years ago! My goal is to cull my plastic collection until I'm back to the Happy & Grateful stage.

Bins full of plastics; just part of the collection.

This dresser is full of mainly plastic toy soldiers.

Still more of boxes and storage drawers full of plastic toy soldiers.

For comparison, most of my metals collection are in these storage drawers. 

   
     

Another One Day Army and New Terrain

     After casting several Peter Laing Guards and using them in a game, I was overcome with the desire to cast more, to be used strictly as "Toy Soldiers".  I cast enough for a whole army to create a "Red Army", and cast several more to round out the "Blue Army".  The Red Army received a paint job of gloss enamel paint. Once agin, the figures were cast, cleaned up, based and received their main paint job in a 24 hour period. Details, such as faces and crossed belts took extra time. At the same time I rebased my 18th century Toy Soldier armies. While painting my figures, I also painted one of my Backyard Wars figures as a member of the Irish Brigade based on the illustration in "Uniforms of the CivilWar 1861-1865" by Philip Haythornthwaite.

   Ian Dury kindly sent me some new  background scenery for my games. I think it will vastly improve the photographs of my games. Thank you Ian, I hope to put them to good use.

The new Red Toy Soldier Army marches out of town. In the background is the scenery that Ian Dury sent me.

The Backyard Wars Irish Brigade.

The Red Army lined up for their first battle.

The Sudanese advance their center.

The Red casualties start building up. The Red Army ended up losing this battle.

Repainted Tin Soldiers

      Last year I bought a lot of semi flats from Ebay. When I bought them I thought several of the figures were newly made, as the paint job on them looked new. With the last couple of posting they were examined again and now I believe that they are old figures that the previous owner repainted. This adds fuel to those who say these figures deserve a fresh coat of paint.

   The rubber I use has a short shelf life once opened, and it seems that the most recent batch is past the half way mark towards being useless. I am now in a scramble to use it up. I decided to try a semi flat figure.  I was happy with the result, although the first few casting the head was somewhat deformed, which was caused be a thin flap of rubber at the mold break that I missed.  Unfortunately I haven't taken a photo of them yet as this posting is a hasty one before going to work.

At first I thought these were the same figures, but there are several differences in the pose.

I have several highlander figures, all wearing mini kilts.

One if the big selling points of this lot was these sailors (they would also make good Confederates).

The casing I made was of the marching guardsman. However, I used a figure whose paint job was in bad shape.

I posted this picture, which currently is my favorite semi flat. What I like about it is it  looks to me to be a Prussian infantryman from the 1840's; the helmet seems to be taller than those of the Franco Prussian War and he has the blanket or overcoat roll over his shoulder.