S is for Silver Knight

Except, they are blue, red and black knights, with a higher or equal likelihood of gold paint than silver paint! But Silver Knight they were dubbed and Silver Knight they remain! The largest of the many Supreme / SP-Toys medieval sets/lines, and my least favourite, for mostly unfair reasons, but we all have our prejudices!

Empirical evidence! Taken from the Silver Knight Deluxe Play Set we are going to be looking at in the bulk of this post, we have seen the odd figure in the past, indeed, in past Supreme posts, but they were overdue for their own post!

Smaller sets were available, under the parent branding, here from Amazon or Alibarba? The Greco-Roman archer being a obvious incongruity, and a common trope with Supreme's medieval lines. Possibly discontinued now, you can still find brand-new examples on both platforms and in the odd, smaller, independent toy shop . . . if you still have one!

As I recently did with this set, going for a song (£9.99 I think, 12-something maybe?), the Silver Knight Deluxe Play Set, a small fort with outlying tower, siege equipment and two handfuls of stuff; figures in the one hand and smaller accessories in the other.

I would imagine these came separately in different sized sets, or were so available from Supreme or Toy Major's catalogues for the likes of Boley, Halsall (HTI) or Simba, if they wanted something in a smaller price-bracket/packaging?

The fort is a standard toy fort with two gates and a footprint about the same 8/10-inches as the old Airfix, Atlantic or Giant forts, the other a rather neat 'folly' with crenellated-tower, steep stairs (easily defended) and lower walkway.

Full contents on the left, pre-bagging of different elements also helps the factory packers add them to other, different sized sets, whether branded-up Supreme, Toy Major or someone else.

To the right we have the weapon-rack and a rather odd cannon above, and some of the other accessories below which includes the shields (one of the reasons I don't like this set - ridiculously over-sized and clumsy shields, breaking several of the rules of heraldry to add to their crimes!), reasonable weapons, a ladder and a pair of flick-a-pults (my word) for the battlements.

The siege tower, a pretty good model for its type and not directly copying anyone else's, it has more luck with the battlements than the towers though, but one of the points of towers was to remain out of reach! Like all toy seige towers a scale compromise (also seen in most toy forts/castles) means it's perfect for HO/OO-guage 1:76/:72 or 20/25mm figures.

'Flick-a-pult' in situ, and the ladder positioned as both defenders and attackers might use it. As there is only one, the assumption is it for the defenders to man their own battlements, the attacks having their siege-tower!

Other accessories include a guillotine and archery butts, the cannon/flick-a-pult ammo is in a bright, international emergency-orange, but I guess it helps find them and prevents them disappearing up vacuum cleaners!

The weapons can all (not at once, but after the figures have been armed) be kept in the rack, a rather fanciful item, but plenty of play-value for kids, while the lances have safety-points, which leaves them better suited to jousting than war-fighting! The cannon works as weird as it looks!

The figures. They aren't as awful as I think of them, the mounted figures and one foot figure have moving arms which makes them action-figures, or semi-action figures (one or two points of articulation is no more than Galoob gave their Action Fleet 30-mils!), and they are biggish, solid lumps of PVC or its modern equivalent. And - as you can see - 'silver' is not the stand-out feature!

Got arty with the arches! If you place the small tower in front of the castle, as a gatehouse, you create a tunnel for the attackers to negotiate, with fire and sword! On the left open and closed gates, just because!

An unbranded generic on feebleBay a while ago, same knights, different fort (simple one-piece relief sculpt) and a new siege weapon, a catapult of the scorpion type, other sets have an arm-over ballista or double A-frame battering-ram. Missing a few bits including a horse, it only came with four figures and would have been quite cheap and probably well within rack-toy parameters; £5.99 or thereabouts? Although probably popping-up to 12-quid odd near Christmas!