About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Saturday, July 21, 2018

"Walmart Exclusive" is for Smyths!

Back at Christmas we had some shelfies of this set sent in by Terranova, to which I muttered 'Lucky buggers across the pond, Walmart Exclsive, fussa-russa....&etc.' and vowed to look out for them at Asda, then, still Walmart's subsidiary over here (I believe they've announced plans to off-load it?), but then the week before May's show (for which I should have been saving my pennies) I found this on clearance in Smyths for a tenner - it hadn't been there at all a few weeks earlier?

So not an 'Walmart Exclusive' at all, and while I thank Brian again for the earlier shelfies, we can now tick the close-up box!

1 Galoob X-panders Lanard The Corps Elite Fantasy G.I's Plastic Toy Soldiers - Lid Cap Base Sniper 104 Pieces; 3 Armies; Attack Helicopter; Attack Walker; Challenger I; Challenger II; Fantasy Figures; Galoob GI's; Giant Sets; Helicopter; Lanard Toys; M1 Abrams; Made in China; Plastic Figurines; Sci Fi Figurines; Science Fiction Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Smyths Toys; Vehicles; Walker Bot; Walmart;
The "Bonus" base is also the lid, so if there was no 'bonus' the contents would presumably fly everywhere, thus we see the 'fake-news' hype of highfalutin' sales-talk in action! I also said at Christmas that I liked the sniper, cable-tied to the lid, but not enough to hang-on to him [with the lid], so the lid went to charity with the tub, half-full of the duplicate poses.

2 Galoob X-panders Lanard The Corps Elite Fantasy G.I's Plastic Toy Soldiers - Toob Tub Container 1 104 Pieces; 3 Armies; Attack Helicopter; Attack Walker; Challenger I; Challenger II; Fantasy Figures; Galoob GI's; Giant Sets; Helicopter; Lanard Toys; M1 Abrams; Made in China; Plastic Figurines; Sci Fi Figurines; Science Fiction Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Smyths Toys; Vehicles; Walker Bot; Walmart;
Before sorting; the box has a tall wedge of card running-up inside, through the centre, but it's not that wide at the bottom, and to be fair to Lanard, seems to have less to do with 'padding-out' falsely and more to do with ensuring that the numerous contents are displayed in a tall, slim container, by keeping them pressed against the sides.

3 Galoob X-panders Lanard The Corps Elite Fantasy G.I's Plastic Toy Soldiers - Figures 3x8 Poses Red Sand Green 001 104 Pieces; 3 Armies; Attack Helicopter; Attack Walker; Challenger I; Challenger II; Fantasy Figures; Galoob GI's; Giant Sets; Helicopter; Lanard Toys; M1 Abrams; Made in China; Plastic Figurines; Sci Fi Figurines; Science Fiction Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Smyths Toys; Vehicles; Walker Bot; Walmart;
The figures, mostly based on the old Galoob X-panders figures as previously stated. The prone figure has a soft jungle-hat and would seem to be a more recent addition, and all of them have been 'de-spaced' and brought back to planet earth with a 'Fritz' helmet and an urban-warfare, light belt-order make-over! Weapons are still quite spacey though.

4 Galoob X-panders Lanard The Corps Elite Fantasy G.I's Plastic Toy Soldiers - Accessories Bunkers Sangers MG Posts 2 104 Pieces; 3 Armies; Attack Helicopter; Attack Walker; Challenger I; Challenger II; Fantasy Figures; Galoob GI's; Giant Sets; Helicopter; Lanard Toys; M1 Abrams; Made in China; Plastic Figurines; Sci Fi Figurines; Science Fiction Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Smyths Toys; Vehicles; Walker Bot; Walmart;
Two machine-guns are supplied loose (you need four!) in the set, they fit into two holes on the lid, and both a sandbag position and a small stand found among the contents, the latter is supposed to sit behind a rather lame 'sanger' made of three pieces, these are the colour-matched accessories 'sand' force get!

5 Galoob X-panders Lanard The Corps Elite Fantasy G.I's Plastic Toy Soldiers - Instructions Ephemera Paperwork Art Work 104 Pieces; 3 Armies; Attack Helicopter; Attack Walker; Challenger I; Challenger II; Fantasy Figures; Galoob GI's; Giant Sets; Helicopter; Lanard Toys; M1 Abrams; Made in China; Plastic Figurines; Sci Fi Figurines; Science Fiction Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Smyths Toys; Vehicles; Walker Bot; Walmart;
Bit's of artwork you may be interested-in; the figures in the artwork are a sort of fantasy/post-apocalyptic mix of cyber-punk ner'do wells bearing no relationship with the figures included whatsoever!

6 Galoob X-panders Lanard The Corps Elite Fantasy G.I's Plastic Toy Soldiers - AFV Tank Jet Fighter Accessories 4 104 Pieces; 3 Armies; Attack Helicopter; Attack Walker; Challenger I; Challenger II; Fantasy Figures; Galoob GI's; Giant Sets; Helicopter; Lanard Toys; M1 Abrams; Made in China; Plastic Figurines; Sci Fi Figurines; Science Fiction Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Smyths Toys; Vehicles; Walker Bot; Walmart;
The other contents, the barbed-wire 'entanglements' went to charity along with the two sandbag barricades, but I kept the security fences, they are quite useful, as are the angle-iron beach obstacles/tank traps.

The tank supplied to red-force is a generic M1-Abrahms/Challenger-I type thing and was kept for it's similarity to other simple 'readymades', from the green-force armory; the plane went, but I hung-on to the helicopter.
Again - while a lot of this is typical 'padding' it hasn't been enhanced with a bunch of crappy farm fence, trees, cactuses or palms, which is another point in Lanard's favour? It's war you want - it's war you get!

7 Galoob X-panders Lanard The Corps Elite Fantasy G.I's Plastic Toy Soldiers - Attack Walker Bot Autobot 3 104 Pieces; 3 Armies; Attack Helicopter; Challenger I; Challenger II; Fantasy Figures; Galoob GI's; Giant Sets; Helicopter; Lanard Toys; M1 Abrams; Made in China; Plastic Figurines; Sci Fi Figurines; Science Fiction Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Smyths Toys; Vehicles; Walmart;
The 'walker' is lovely - from the front! But from the back reveals it's cheapness, as a hollowed-out single moulding, likewise the revolving 'head' looks fine from above, but at least it's hollow is hidden while in situ. One day I will fill it in with two-part epoxy, add a few greeblies and paint it, before posing it with 28mm fig's!

8 Galoob X-panders Lanard The Corps Elite Fantasy G.I's Plastic Toy Soldiers - Tank Jet Fighter Helicopter AFV's 5 104 Pieces; 3 Armies; Attack Helicopter; Attack Walker; Challenger I; Challenger II; Fantasy Figures; Galoob GI's; Giant Sets; Lanard Toys; M1 Abrams; Made in China; Plastic Figurines; Sci Fi Figurines; Science Fiction Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Smyths Toys; Vehicles; Walker Bot; Walmart;
The three part helicopter is a bit sci-fi but equally, similar machines are coming into service or are under development, so it's gone in the Heli-zone, the 'plane went - for obvious reasons - and you can see that the tank is simpler that Airfix's venerable old mouldings.

Trying to photograph - one-handed - a tank-hunter on a thread creeping-up on a robot killing-machine (when the thread is in the other hand) proved a bit of a tall order, so it's a tad fuzzy!

2 comments:

Mark, Man of TIN said...

I have one of these sets from Smyths toy store at Easter this year. Not posted about them or painted them yet. Useful to join the Star Wars 54mm plastic Britain's Star Fleet and Airfix Space Warriors in my Planet Yarden outdoor Close Little Star Wars games. This plastic set with bizarre accessories made my inner (1979s Star Wars generation) child very happy ...

Hugh Walter said...

The helicopter is growing on me, it looks like something in the Western papers about 30-years ago, predicting future Soviet designs!!

What actually arrived (Havok and Hokum) were boringly predictable and much like others in their class!

H