A is for Aggressive Afghans Again!

This is the contents of the last of the tubs I shot quickly the other day, and consists of more legionnaires and some very colourful Arabian types, with the look of Afghans (which they were sold as - despite little interactivity with the FFL, until the 21^st Century!) or Northern Indo-Asians (now Pakistan) with the loose, soft trousers under the shawl blankets worn in that region. But wearing rather hybrid turbans which are more Tuareg with a hint of Sikh!

But first the colonial overlords! Bayonets are a bit short, and some poses are shared with Lone Star's ACW, indeed we saw one of these when I looked at them, and he happensn to be the eighth pose (missing here) standing firing, so I have them all . . . somewhere!

And I believe some say these were sold as confederates, but I'm not so sure, there are red-trousered versions which I don't have, but equally you occasionally see a white trousered version, and given the variation in painting of the knights, Wild West and the Arabs - we are about to look at - I just think Lone Star changed the painting to 'freshen' them on the retailers' shelves?

Not really among Lone Star's better output, they're a bit flat (some of them almost semi-flat!), and bit grey (very grey actually!), well, you know what I mean, 'uninspiring' is probably the word I'm looking for? But they have the charm of early toy soldiers and both the marching guy and the officer are worth a second look.

I have got all eight of these, not only from the 'big purchase' but because they can tend to brittleness (especially those still in shop stock box ones you see from time to time), and I tend to buy them whenever I see them in good (or reasonable) condition.

You find them in various plastic colours, mostly grey or grey-greens, but white and occasionally red (see below), previously believed to be test-shots, they do seem to have got out to retailers in red.

What I like about these is whenever you find them they seem to be new, new paint scheme, or new plastic colour, I know they were done in batches and a Google image search reveals that, but the number of variations makes them fun to collect

As you might have noticed already, the flesh colour also varies greatly from sunburnt ginger northerner holidaying in Torremolinos without sunscreen, to sub-Saharan African dark-brown, or the unpained, sun-bleached zombie seen here; bottom-left! And that sword!

An old, near-dead Picclic image of an evilBay shot, sharpened and enlarged to show both the rare red one and a size comparison with Charbens (et al) on the left and Cherilea on the right, they're big boys for 54mm, heading toward 60mm.