Instant Airfix Featherstone WW2 by the Death Zap! Wargaming Pastor

Attractively improvised game and games table (I’m sure Little Wars / Floor Games author HG Wells would  approve) with Featherstone rules, scrambled together by the Death Zap!  blogger The Wargaming Pastor: 
https://thedeathzap.wordpress.com/2019/09/27/instant-ww2

These pictures recapture the spirit of the games of my youth.

Enjoy! Blog posted by Mark  Man of TIN, 28 September 2019

Hello and Farewell to the Horses

British Heart Foundation pound bags of random horses and some new reading

Too likely to rain to do any homecasting in the garden so I headed to the coast. In a nearby seaside town I found no new seaside shop plastic soldiers but two charity shop ‘pound bags’ of random plastic toy horses.

Oddly one of the newish paperbacks that caught my eye today is German author Ulrich Raulff’s history book / memoir ‘Farewell to the Horse’ (2015) about the changing relationship of horses over the last century or so. Translated into English by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp,  it was published in the U.K. by Penguin 2017/18 https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/294/294612/farewell-to-the-horse/9780141983172.html

Some of the smaller horses – 2nd and 3rd row from top are mostly Airfix OOHO horses

Bottom right some Airfix OOHO 20-25mm horse, pony and French infantry figures for scale, alongside some Pound Store 32mm-ish figures – a little too big?

Q

When making my Pound Store conversions, Doug Shand in the comments asked about horses for making these cheap figures into cavalry. I tried casting some Prince August Holger Erikkson forty millimetre scale horses. A bit too big and wide. I scoured the internet for cheap horses but it was difficult to find any I judged from pictures to be the right scale.

I think the larger horses are closer in size to 28 to 30mm figures than my Pound Store 32mm-ish conversions, unless you want big troops or natives on small ponies.

I placed several Spencer Smith metal and plastic horses and infantry on or alongside the horses to see if they were suitable. Some figures like the AWI tricorne officer might work on horseback. However Spencer Smith already do perfectly good cavalry. I have few 28mm figures but put a WW2 Russian female officer from Bad Squiddo on horseback for comparison.

As with all toy horses, many of them have no base and do not stand up on their own. The smaller ones (smaller than most of the Airfix ones) may be slender OO railway modelling horses (and the solitary cow).

The bizarre non-equine extras – a kneeling cow, a statuesque duck and random prehistoric reptile / fish. Duck cavalry anyone?

Farewell to the Horse?
The horse book (being partly based in Germany) should be interesting to read in relation to the email comments that Tony Adams at The Miniature Wood Screw Army has made to me about the Not Quite Mechanised state of the horse drawn German Army of WW2, compared to the more motorised transport of the armies of Britain, France and America. Amptly illustrated here on these online forums:

https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=132&t=152124&sid=88c88e726c705a885e3e80b76d8088a9

http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/german-horse-drawn-transport-and-other-nations.6088/

Not a bad haul for a grey mizzly day by the sea. A little money gone to charity, a little less plastic tat gone to landfill. Single use plastic? Not this stuff, as it’s at least second owner.

Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN on 21 September 2019.

New 54mm Prince August toy soldier moulds planned

 

Exciting new Prince August 54mm home cast moulds planned 

Crossposted from my Man of TIN blog – home casts are not as cheap as Pound Store Plastic Warriors but a good source of heads and arms and these should prove a different  home cast complement to cheap plastic figures?

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/14/new-prince-august-54mm-homecast-toy-soldiers-planned/

 

BMC Plastic Army Women Update No. 3 September 2019

A quick update from his most recent newsletter https://bmctoys.com/blogs/news/bmc-toys-plastic-army-women-project-update-3 on how Jeff Imel and his BMC Plastic Army Women Project is coming along, with tweaking of more realistic hairstyles under the GI style helmet and consideration of first and future poses.

It sounds like the first four female poses might be available in the US by “Christmas 2020”.

Hopefully they will be available in the U.K. without too heavy international shipping costs.

The Good Guys and The Bad Guys?
Fascinating to watch the American News Channel interviews with Jeff Imel of BMC in his workshop and the young American girl who wrote to him about “why no Plastic Army Women?”, as she shows at home off her collection of plastic figures including the “bad guys” led by a skeleton and the “good guys”.

Thinking of Mitchell and Webb in their famous “Are We The Baddies?” WW2 sketch, this is what many of our historical and fantasy games so often boil down to – the good guys versus the bad guys (if you take sides, that is).

This is some part of the spirit of simple gaming that I aim to recover in my hobby. I’m sure H.G. Wells would approve of these ground-level plastic Little Wars, which he described as “a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books”. Plastic Army Women would of course add an extra dimension to this Wellsian Floor Games mix.

Back to the figure designs:

It is fascinating to see the female figures evolving through the concept drawing into the early sculpt stage, shown here in these BMC copyright drawings (screenshots from the BMC website and email newsletters).

After showcasing the revised female officer figure, Jeff Imel says in his latest email:
“I discussed the next figure, possible other poses, and worked out some details and timelines. The next figure will be standing and firing a rifle. This is a pose that I’m always told there aren’t enough of in sets and is always in demand when setting up a living room battlefield. This next figure will likely be a little less of an hourglass figure than the prototype. We’re going to try to have some different body types, faces and hair in the set instead of all the figures being identical characters. Speaking of weapons, I’m leaning towards an M14 for the rifles. I’m not aiming for 100% historical accuracy with this set, but I think the M14 will look good, and matches the uniform period well. The next figure will likely be prone firing a rifle, and I’m thinking of adding a scope and bipod to the M14 make her more of a sniper.”

I like the level he is approaching this as the best poses for the “living room battlefield” unlike some of the weird and useless poses from Airfix, Timpo and other plastic Army Men manufacturers.

Jeff says on his newsletter / email:

“Please continue to let me know your thoughts. I am behind on answering messages and comments, but I’ve read, and appreciate, all of them. I’ve heard all the requests for pre-orders and suggestions for specialty poses like radio operator and medic loud and clear (over). I’m considering a crowdfunding campaign in November as a way to take pre-orders and expand the figure selection.”

Here’s a link to the full update on the BMC Toys blog that is full of photos and recent news stories: https://bmctoys.com/blogs/news/bmc-toys-plastic-army-women-project-update-3

Sign up for the newsletter via the BMC website to keep informed of what is happening with this interesting BMC Plastic Army Women project. It adds more figures to the “believable female Miniatures” debates over #FEMbruary, Annie at Bad Squiddo’s quest for believable female gaming miniatures.

All screenshot images copyrighted from the BMC website.

Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN, September 2019.