I is for Incongruous Infantry!

There is a trend these days, a minor one fortunately, but a trend nevertheless, to do 'medieval' sets with a few Romano-Greek types thrown in for good measure, I think the fault lies with Supreme/SP Toys, who managed it in several scales with two lots of sculpts, much copied and the trend has since been seen in another unpainted polyethylene set, but today we're looking at a current set which I found as a generic in the UK but which has been branded in the 'States.

No stickers, no labels = no title! There was no wraparound either and I suspect it was mailed direct from China in a plain brown wrapper! So we'll call it 'Castle with Figures'! The way it's packed in the tub is the only way it'll fit, if you don’t put all the small pieces up one end first and then the long wall; corner-to-corner, you can't get the lid on!

If the set was/is commercially available over here it would/will likely be through Tiger Hobbies, their sometime customer Strawberry Group or the rival HTI? While European sets might be Simba-Dicke and Toy Major could be handling them too; anyone got a set with a title?

The castle is more of a gilded Mile-Fort, which, given some of the figures included, is pretty apt, but it's very basic and went to charity some time ago, seven pieces with the gate pre-fitted.

The figures! They are all quite passable, but three Romans and five medievals of a 1000-years later . . . plus! The archer is more Gladiator than legionary, what with the heavy greaves and toy-bow but the rest are passable, the King is very good and has a nicely scaled, integral sword, while he also has a gripping-hand, as do six of the others.

I wouldn't be surprised if they turn out to be copies of larger (ELC/Papo/Schleich) types?

While this is - I believe - if not a direct copy, harking-back to a Planet of the Apes play-set accessory? Pretty sure something like this was issued in the 1970's by someone like Mego or AHI for human prisoners, fun piece for kids anyway - mobile gaol!

The fort is manufactured in polystyrene, the accessories mostly a nylon or polypropylene while the figures are a substitute PVC polymer.

The accessories and separate weapons, the former being a bunch of naff-shite make-weights, the latter being mostly a bit oversized, in the style of Lego or Playmobil type stuff, and while the set lacks instructions among it's non-existent paperwork, they are pretty figure-specific. Note the difference between jousting lance, lance/spears and distinctive Roman pilum, likewise the obvious Roman shield against the two smaller heraldic lozenges!

You can swap the two spear/lances, but the rest are pretty much the best fit, you could give the casual green guy the King's jousting lance, but a King shouldn't really have a pole-arm which is a melee weapon for the lower orders!

And really, the yellow Roman needs a more 'Roman' weapon, but the green Roman would look wrong with anything other than the pilum? Meanwhile the red 'Noble' needs the shield which matches his surcoat so the blue guy has to have the screaming emergency-orange one as he's the only other medieval with a spare arm!

In the USA, this set is being handled by Creative Kids through Liberty Imports who are one - of the many - people linked to the [originally] Supreme Wild West Airfix copies with similar play-set accessories, so some symmetry there, just not clear what/how/why!

I think a loyal reader sent me this but I can't find an attribution - my bad (leave something in the comments) sorry. They were marked up "SUPREME (China) Crusaders and Knights", but seem to have some non-standard/set weapons; it's improved them!

If these softish-to-medium density, PVC figures are Supreme, that would make them their fifth or six set after the large 'Silver Knights', the Esci copies (medievals and Crusaders), the common sets (Halsall-HTI/Simba/Toy Major), the Simba/Strawberry/Tiger Hobbies/Toy Major set (Deetail style bases) and possibly the strange 'construction worker' set with the spangel helms (also Simba) . . . etc! Two of which lines ('Silver' and common) also contain Greco-Roman sculpts!