S is for Standard

Some of my favourite toy soldiers are the card flats I've picked up over the years, and these are some of the nicer ones. Standard Games and Publications first advertised these in the late 1970's/early '80's. There were three ranges; ACW, Norman invasion of Britain and Fantasy.

This is the whole range of ACW and one of the fantasy sheets, the other being F1 Dungeon Adventure. Also missing are the sheets of Normans and Saxons.

[If anyone has the missing sheets to spare in good condition I have most of the ACW as mint spares for a strait one-for-one swap]

Close-up of the Confederate cavalry sheet, note how the same poses are used for Union and Confederate with a change of paint and also for foot and dismounted cavalry figures with the foot officer reused for the Artillery Officer, in other words, the original artist only had to come up with a small range of poses, yet the finished article still works...

...as can be seen here, there are at least one of everything on the baseboards illustrated. Each sheet came with a base sheet which vaguely matches the bases of the figures.

Comparison between various other modern card flats, left to right; Horse rider from cut-out race game in Christmas edition of Country Life magazine a few years ago; Usborne Publishing medieval peasant from the cut-out and assemble castle; Standard Union standing firer; Steve Jackson Games Half-Orc, this series of cards was recently re-issued as a single spiral-bound book, so if you're taken with them - check Amazon; Finally one of the rarest figures in my whole collection, this is a cut-out and stick figure - in 28mm - of the 54mm Atlantic space series, taken from the collectors cards that were issued with late production Atlantic 54mm WWII figures. I stuck him to a sheet of heavier card before cutting him tight to the artwork, hence the wierd base!