F is for Faceplant

Very hard for a thoughtful person to post frivolity while a war is going on where he has friends.

Although it's starting to look as if Putin has - like all dictators in the end - miscalculated badly, and on many levels, but if the Russian people don't get rid of him in the next 48/72 (?) hours, we may all be in a nuclear-war, as he's not pissing-about, he's losing his temper and his rationality with it.

On the plus side, it looks like the Ukrainians have blunted his invasion and smashed the forward elements of his army, some military annalists are saying up to a quarter of the force he assembled has been neutralised, and while he's only committed a third - and those awful fascists from Chechnya are on the way - of the force available, the units behind are having to advance through the falling-back mauled elements, so there's now a level of chaos in the advance.

Here's a sobering thought which the media seem to have missed picking-up on: Putin's forces have mobile crematoria in their rear-echelons, he [Putin] never had any intention of returning body-bags to mothers, he's burning his dead in the field - I don't know what that does to moral, but I guess it's not good; I don't think any army ever went to war with body-ovens before.

So, in a sombre mood, I though a few images from Faceplant I've re-posted in the last few days were in order;

The Ukrainians are calling him Vladimir Vladimirovic Putler!

Don't forget the pets!

On the left, born with a Nazi-sympathiser's silver spoon up his arse, 

on the right, actor and comedian, 

elected against the propaganda, not with it.

Against the myth of Putin's that Ukraine is 'Only' Mother Russia,

it's probably regretting helping give birth to the Bear?

On the subject of Mother Russia . . . remember Putin's ex-wife

 is in internal exile in the 'Turd' (Kaliningrad).

From the New Elephant, original caption reads "Dumbest man in universe hails another man as a 'genius' and also praises doorjambs and those little plastic tables you get with takeaway Pizzas"

 

And on the subject of the Republicans, those who are supporting Putin disgust me, I don't know where this is (somewhere in or near Florida!), but I believe it's genuine?

 

More conservatives with all that lovely lucre from Putin's cronies! This was on the NHS Newsday wesite and is from the Independent's website, you can donate to medical charities here, and the money is transfered straight to Ukraine (this is a 21st Century war being fought in a developed democracy), so thay can literally pay for stuff over the counter while supplies can still reach them from the West.

Donate.

[A wounded woman is seen after an airstrike damaged an apartment complex in city of Chuhuiv, Kharkiv. Photo by Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images]

News, Views Etc . . . Hot off the Wibby Wobbly Way!

The team at PW have firmed-up the date for the London Plastic Toy Soldier Show at The Harlequin Suite, for Saturday the 14th May, in a confirmatory post on the Friends of Plastic Warrior Facebook page;

"Left a Bit, three rounds for effect!"

There'll be more to come nearer the date, but for those not familiar; I know there have been a lot of new people join the hobby during the covid lock-downs, details are on the poster or;

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PlasticWarrior?fref=ts

Blogger - http://plasticwarrioreditor.blogspot.co.uk/

eMail  - mailto:pw.editor@ntlworld.com

Tel: 01483 722 778

Address; The Editor, 65 Walton Court, Woking, Surrey, GU21 5EE, UK

And they are on Paypal

 

It'll be the 37th actual show, but should be the 39th, and it is the 39th year . . . I think!

 

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 And don't forget it's Sandown park tomorrow, I'm going to risk it (three jabs and a mask on my wagon!), last one was a bit quiet, so try to make it down, the stuff's all there! And staying home listening to the news is bloody depressing, so have a day out and buy some old toys!

H is for How They Come In - Two Months Three Parcels!

When I started catching-up with these in the Autumn, we were over a year behind, but with this post we get closer to only six-months behind, and with the ongoing Historex stuff and a couple of other things, I'll try to get fully up-to-date soon . . . ish!

This lovely little lot was sent to the Blog by Peter Evans last August, and you can see the forth colour of robot/transformer - in a cereal premium style - which I mentioned when we looked at Peter's latest donation a few weeks ago, the bags include the Chinese Army-funded Jeunow-Vi!Kondo stuff who've had their own post already (October, they missed RTM!), Russians and medievals from Hing Fat; white with bases, silver - stand on their own two feet! The orangy bag has the Hing Fat Egyptian stuff, which I will compare with the K&S/Safari sets when they come back out of storage.

Peter sent another parcel in September of which the main sample was also added to that Jeunow and Vi!Kondo post linked to above, while various other bits and pieces were included, both vintage (Monogram copies, mini's) and modern - 70mm 'armymen' and vehicle/ships.

Brian also sent a donation to the blog in September*, a couple of the main pieces from the lot having been removed for the canoe project before this shot was taken, but still very useful stuff including a set of the TSR 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' board game character figures, I know I've got them because we've seen them here before, but these will get a decent painting once I'm settled at the other end - wherever and whenever that is! And because I have plenty of the 'counter' figures, I'll paint-up a few of them at the same time.

* Err . . . email conversation says August, and in time for RTM, where we saw the missing items . . . I'll leave it like this as it gives you some idea of the chaos at SSW Towers, this is the chronological order of the photographs, I must have put Brians to one side for a few weeks before sorting/shooting them?!!

There's also some nice knock-off's of the Mattel MUSCLE figurines, and Wild West from US makers including the earlier Tim-Mee stuff, which I was meaning to do a bigger post on, but managed to forget to take the pictures before they all went to storage, but there are some 'sorting Wild West' shots somewhere! I also got a Mickey Mouse firefighter to share with you!

Also and under the 'seen elsewhere' banner were these delightful Laurel and Hardy cartoon/caricature erasers, who went on the Friend of PW Faceplant group at the time!

Cheers Brain, cheers Peter, all good stuff; gratefully received, shared here and/or otherwise made use of!

F is for Follow-up - Glow in the Dark Bug-eyed Aliens

Very much a follow-up to this post, which does itself link to the previous sighting here, so a third outing tonight! And far from just ID'ing them, I've managed to find and ID three lots under four monikers which is a pretty satisfying state of affairs, I can tell you!

They weren't capsule toys (I'm sure I've seen something similar on gum-ball machine insert-cards, so I'll keep an eye out for more on these!), they were Cosmo Explorer Glow in Dark Alien aliens, and imported or 'jobbed' into the 'States by Way Out Toys Inc., of New York (left hand card), however, under the Way Out sticker is the unmistakable Soma logo printed on the backing card!

So the ones we looked at last time were Soma, and in this pack we have a new three-finger pose (pink, right) and a new four-finger pose (greenish, left), and a colour variant - in the middle - of the pair I already had, with plastic-colour, pose and paint variations; who knows how many you can find? Soma pose-counts are often in sixes or twelve's, so it should be dozens, as a minimum . . .  oh goodie!

Meanwhile the card on the right shows what seems to be all four poses (some sources state six poses, but the blister say four - two pairs, two singles) of the Imperial Toys (another importer/jobber, but also a contracting one) Glow in the Dark Alien Invaders, in what seems to be all three colours.

Well, once you know what you're looking for, finding them (and inaccurate information about them! I'm talkin' to yooh - Pinterest and Wortpoint!) becomes easy, so I bought some . . . so you don't have to! But why wouldn't you want a glowing army of human-knapping cattle-botherers!

The Imperial ones are slightly less sophisticated in that they all [and only] have black eyes, with no other decoration and a lower pose-frequency count on the two with weapons, but then the Soma planet sends it's emissaries out with no weapons at all, so on that score these guys are better-off!

Close-ups; because I can, and because the Soma ones are good-enough in the link and now in storage, so I couldn't shoot them for this post and I didn't want to de-card the three newies. I would imagine Imperial commissioned theirs after they'd seen Soma's, but the factories in China may have spied on each other; bringing them out at roughly the same time - around 1992-94'ish, I believe?

But I got a half-decent image through the blister and shone a torch on them for the de rigueur glowing in the dark shot! On the eight I have now we can see gold, blue, green and orange paint with a distinct four polymer colours. And while Imperial have gone with one 'species', Soma's are - so far - all different.

They are all a nice 54/60mm with the Imperial Toys set having a constant, slightly cone-headed physiology (for people who follow all that 'greys', 'nordics', 'talls' and 'midgets' LGM stuff), with the cone/bulge at the rear. They are also all marked 'Imperial-[over]-CHINA' faintly, across their shoulders.

All the searching which resulted from knowing what they all were actually threw-up a third lot, another novelty importer; Amscan, their's sold as an eight in North America and a twelve here (but the spelling suggests they were both available for order in all sales-territories?), but only one pose/colour-way, with orange eyes. I haven't got any yet (they are findable), but in those multiples, too-many, so I'll wait until I see one or two in a loose/mixed lot.

I can't work out if the picture bottom-right is a mock-up or an artist-enhanced photograph, nor is it clear whether they have been and gone or are yet to arrive, but the image comes up when Googling them, so it (the picture) has been released somewhere (might have been the Amscan website), for some reason . . . something to look for!

I kept forgetting to turn the light off and/or turn-off the flash (the cat thought I was mad!), and so several similar shots resulted in an obvious .gif presenting itself!

It's like a 1970's disco' floor . . . "OOOOoooooo'Ifeellove-Ifeellove-Ifeellove-Ifeellove . . . Iyyyyy Feeel Luuuurve . . . I FEEL Luuurve, Luuurve, Luuurve Luuurve . . . I feel luuurve . . . piew-piew-dugaduga-whang-whang piew-piew-dugaduga-whang-whang Phessheewwww! Cheers Donna; the ultimate bangin' choon - and a nice spacey soundtrack for little rubber aliens!

And many thanks to 'Patti' in the US-of-A who sent me extra figures!

G is for Gribeauval System - Sausage Wagon - Historex No's 676a, 676b & 30304

The 'Wurst' wagon ('chariot à saucisses', sûrement!)*. Take the caisson and add a padded roof for riding on and you can condemn your medical staff to the ride from hell! I'm guessing it was not a happy experience over more than a few hundred yards, and then only slowly!

* No, it was a 'wurst wagon' and please stop calling me Shirley!

Previously 676b (to the bare 676a kit), the vignette set with four figures and horses was re-numbered at some point, and the original black & white sketch was coloured at the same time.

The blurb in the middle image says it all; I know nothing, and I'm not even from Barcelona!

G is for Gribeauval System - Caisson - Historex No 676

Yep, it's a caisson! And it's limbered! I was - years ago - going to do a big rant on this, but someone did a far politer one on Treefrog - than I would ever have managed; and the Wikipedia page makes it all quite clear. But it would be nice if we could get the few remaining dullards to stop calling (usually) ACW (usually) limbers 'caissons'! They are the same people who put heavy towers on their war-elephants, machine-guns on shoulders and burnable stores on tank's engine louvres!

You can even have a caisson behind a British/ACW style limber, but that's half the point, it's as much about the position as the design- the limber is the pivot between the horse team/towing tractor and the towed piece.

And this was where the French kept most of their ammunition - before adapting the British system later in the century.

The Aeros SA on some of the sheets is the original company name, created in 1955 to promote model aircraft, it faltered against the likes of Revell, Airfix and - domestically - Heller, leading to the specialisation in figures and the eventual Historex brand-mark.

News, Views Etc . . . Herald Toys & Models Press

An update from Barney yesterday was sent to the Spam folder by an overzealous Hotmail bot and I've only just found it so apologies if you missed anything which has already sold, but you can sign-up to the eMail updates yourself, rather than waiting for me to pull my finger out!

" . . . this week we are pleased to offer for sale the Thetford collection of plastic toy soldiers, chiefly Britains and Herald, but also Timpo solids, comprising a good section of American Civil War figures and Swoppet 15th Century Knights. We also have for sale a good collection of 2nd Series Swoppet Wild West models (some with our superb limited edition reproduction boxes) and our usual selection of farm and riding models. We are also pleased to announce the milestone of 2,000 items in our archive, which we hope you will find a useful reference tool."

 Barney; as always, can be found here.

G is for Gribeauval System - Limber - Historex No 651

You got guns, you need limbers (NOT CAISSONS!), and Gribeauval's limber is the subject of these sheets, there will be a caisson along in a while! Obviously while British limbers carried 'ready rounds', the French didn't, but I believe the box on the guns managed the wherewithal for a few rounds while the separate ammunition caisson could be brought up and distribute more? In he end, the French discarded the Gribeauval system (after Napoleon had his Waterloo) and adopted ours with full ammunition-locker limbers, which they gave to the Americans in time for their [un]civil war.

With a full team of four horses - see final sheet below.

It should be noted that this limber was also used on the French caisson and other drawn vehicles like the field-forge (both available from Historex), spare-wheel wagons etc.

 

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Thought for the day

If near-side (left) and off-side (right) were correct for French and American horse teams, and we Brit's still have the near-side closest the curb (and furthest from the driver) on the left, are the rest of the world 'actually, really' driving on the wrong side? I think the evidence of vehicular nomenclature says they are!!! Go lefties!

G is for Gribeauval System - Guns - Historex No's 643, 677, 8209 & 30301

Well, I definitely started this project in a hurry, and it will make me pay! No matter, the doing of it in numerical order will pop-out of the window for this section as I'm doing all the wheeled stuff, some with uniformed soldiers (medics/vets) some without like this one, and then we'll get get back to the numbering. Also I said there were no colour plates in this section, but there will be a few.

Overall, developments vis-à-vis the paperwork means the linking page will take a while longer, but will be almost complete, and with what I've got in the last 24-hours, and what Tony and I had originally, I don't think there are many plates missing, nor many instruction-sheets or painting guides lost either. Also there being no real order to the numbering - Brit's in three placeings, more cavalry to come - it will make better sense once the linking page is up.

Numbering starts with part 1 (Hussar style dolman body/torso) and goes (as you can see above) through several basic single-figure kit and larger multiple-figure sets or 'diorama kit'  types to over 30300, but with large gaps, as each type starts again at a higher point. Some things seem to have never got a number, while a few non-Napoleonic items were in the range, Lady Godiva for instance, both medieval and unnumbered!

This post is for the gun, which came as a kit with two barrels, 12lbr or Howitzer, and two diorama sets, one with the cannon-barrels only.

12 Pounder

Battle of Friedland Diorama

This was a larger boxed set which seems to have contained one-each of the gun with 12lbr barrel and a limber, three horses, two sets of horse furniture for towing, two mounted figures, seven foot and whatever accessories were needed to finish them as illustrated, to which might have been added the runners of letters, numbers and ciphers to add unit-designators to their water bottles, saddlecloths etc?

Mont St. Barnard Diorama Set

Again, a set, with two 12lbr barrels, two log-sleds and up to seven figures, presumably with parts for depicting artillery personnel and engineers/pioneers?

Howitzer

It's only the barrel which is different (the beauty of the Gribeauval designed artillery train, was its inter-operability), but whether this meant you could (or had to) order, say, the trunion bands (covering plates/brackets) as 643-26 or 677-26 I don't know, but ordering plain '26' would have got you a human, male, left arm, posed for supporting a musket!

H is for How They Come In - Cheap Deals

This post deals with stuff I picked-up while out and about last April-May, or at least that's when I shot the photographs, sometimes things get shot same the day sometimes they don't, nor do they always get photographed in the order they came in, so March may be the start-date of this little lot, but it hardly matters!

This must have been a previous (2020) Christmas range, on clearance, from the same Hobbycraft decoration line we've looked at here recently from the year just gone (2021), which are themselves now on clearance! Not the best sculpt, it seems to be channeling at least two species, but what do I know, the cake-decoration deer have their own box (there's so many of them) and he'll add to that 'archive'!

Erasersaurs, we may have seen them before as another iteration; I haven't checked, but, even if we have, they may be new colours. There is a post on Dinorasers in the long-queue, but these aren't in it?!! Asda supermarkets, and close-enough to the now ended Walmart ownership for them to possibly be findable over the pond in that establishment, but probably not now?

This was 20p in Paperchase! They had a table with tons of stuff, most of it one-offs, some of it quite dusty and had obviously had a serious five- or ten-year stock take and cleared out the forgotten corners, and 'behind the shelves' areas of the storeroom? You can see from the chunky pen that it's a largish beast and had a lovely metallic decoration. 'Bronty' the Biro!

This was in the same Paperchase pile, and also the only one, missing it's cap and not something I would normally give house room to, but A) it's cats! B) I had, only a few days earlier, split the cats, dogs and elephants into their own tubs, and C) 20p!! Soft-foam calico cats with a Biro up their arses!

Flying Tiger gave up this for a quid, the same day I think? It was my first trip to Basingrad since before lockdown (a year or so?) and is just for the archive, to ID in the future, to box-tick the brand and items, fun, silicon 'rubber jigglers' in the old-school style.

These were on clearance at TKMaxx, and you know by know I really like these, the . . . start again; We are about to look at three of these sets of Nano-Metal's from Jada, two of which (probably these two) were on clearance at TKMaxx, the other - I think - came in a few days later, either from eBay or Asda stores? But . . . it may have been a donation and because the amount of stuff which has joined the long-queue in the last 14-odd months is vast, I'm not 100% sure on the history of these now! So I'll thank the two obvious candidates - Brian Berke or Peter Evans - for everything they do for the Blog, and carry on as if they were three similar retail/clearance purchases a few days apart, nearly a year ago!

The first set (above) was a straight tie-in with the Incredibles movie, or at least Incredibles 2 which I haven't seen, but I thought the first one was fun and they have that lovely metallic paint which makes this range so lush, while there is a duplicate pose in the second set which is a sort of Disney 'starter' set with figures ancient ('classics') and modern (Pixar joint-productions).

I don't know who Baymax is (actually I've just Goggled him! Big Hero 6, which had totally escaped me?), but there are characters here from seven franchises, with pairs from Monsters Inc., and The Muppets.

The one I'm not so sure about, I think it was reduced in Asda, but . . . which definitely came in a week or two after the other two sets and, again, another 'starter' set to get you wanting more Disney "100% diecast" Nano Metal's, with a lovely pair from Alice in Wonderland, two Scrooge McDuck characters and little Lilo.

R es para Romanos A Caballo

Literally translates as Romans on Horseback, means Roman cavalry! More box-ticking and we have seen one of them before here, as a late-Reamsa/re-issue moulding in unpainted silver, who commands my definitely Co-Ma, not RP (. . . or Basa!) squad of ring-hand Romans.

Having failed to get the frames square on the images in the infantry post, I got these dead square without thinking about it and didn't even think of scanning them! Also they did have the clear plastic sheet (but no film), so have stayed in their box for now.

Five mounted cavalry on two horse sculpts, there are two officer types - if you measure such things by plume size/type - but with such an eclectic set of shields and an un-armed 'trooper' doing a Caesar impersonation, in gold armour, I think they are too toy-like to get excited about on that level and are best called 'auxiliary' cavalry, late Empire!

The two horse designs are a bit chunky, and are reverse poses of each other - apart from the tails! That's it another couple of boxes-ticked, Reamsa-Gormasa Romans from the Soldis-Históricos 'big box' line.

H es para Históricos!

And so to Spain, not actually, but by way of subject matter for another box-ticker! Looking at a set of vintage Reamsa moulds which have seen some mileage now and I think these - by Gormasa - are the last major issue?

How mine came, the cellophane was ripped beyond repair but I managed to get it to behave for the scanner, which did quite a good job, possibly because of the pale backgrounds? If I try to scan say, a kit runner, flush against the black pad, all I get is fuzzy, but these did quite well?

However I needn't have bothered as there was a better, commercial image on the back of the box, alongside the cavalry set! I don't know if these had a 'Soldis' iteration, I suspect Históricos were the older (by era) version of the same Soldis line; the boxes are certainly the same?

I tried to be clever with the photography, but it's impossible to get the frame perfectly square with a hand-held pocket-camera, so it is what it is - a collage of lop-sided frames! But the figures are lovely and it's nice to have them in the stash.

The tool is unchanged from original owner and the painting on these is good enough to conjure-up the originals if not pass for them after a bit of playwear! But the material is a bit of a giveaway; the Reamsa figures were polyethylene, these are a substitute-PVC with the same rubbery qualities of other elastomers.

My sample's box was missing the ridged, clear plastic sheet which should tuck into the corners of the window, so with the wrap gone as well it was going to be a nightmare to keep it all together, thus, it went the way of all flesh, but not before I'd scanned all the useful bits for the archive! the troops have got a [clean] takeaway-tub in the main Romans box!