News, Views Etc . . . U is for Update - Giant or What?

Quick look at the Giant Mongol Cannon has gone-up over on that Blog.

F is for From the Sublime to the Ridiculous!

Just a quickie in case I don't get anything else up in time for Monday!

The figure in the center is that crappy China-via-Russia-to-Germany thing I bought at Plastic Warrior's show back in May (hey, I'm nothing if not an esoteric completist!), either side of him is a probably Japanese-made (from one of those scallop-shell, mini-diorama, touristy things) South Asian warrior of the contemporaneous era (depicted), but ten times nicer!

He's also interesting in being a solid, rather than the usual hollow vac-form or blow-mould, despite being the same celluloid or cellulose acetate.

As to the red one; when I said back in June/July "We won't see them again here very soon or very often!" I clearly lied! Issued/packed by Smart Toys Creative of Yiwu, China, imported into Russia by Trading House Mirika.

That's it, something for Monday morning!

S is for Supreme Strategic Surgeon - Sun Tzu

So, I was heading up to the Library and thought I'd drop into The Works and pick up a black Robot (which I did!) with a pound I happened to have on me, and found this. Looked around for the stack and couldn't find any more, asked at the counter and was told they'd been in a week or so, well; it was the last one, so I had the chap put it behind the counter and rushed-off to beg a tenner from someone I knew round the corner!

Gorgeous artwork on the 'cover' or top of the box (credited to Rolland Barthélémy, who seems to have done all the playing cards and paraphernalia as well) and nice black-line artwork round the sides (Stéphane Poinsot) which reminded me of the old World of Wonder or Look & Learn articles, or the better graphic novels of France and Spain (Catalan Communications) in the 1980's.

The figures are marked on the base True Art, the game - credited to Alan M. Newman - and designed for two players and to last around 30 minutes, is published by a company called Matagot from France as one of their Duo Collection.

The 44 figures would set you back seven squids on their own these days, so a whole game for a tenner is a bit of a steal! There are two character (command) figures and seven-each of three man-at-arms poses, in each of two colours for a count of 22 each side. A very brief read of the rules suggests no pose differential as far as play goes; they are just 21 counters.

If you have the MB Games figures from Shogun, these would make an excellent set of opponents, or peasant-levy but you would need to find a couple of sets, as there were a lot of figures in Shogun! They will also complement the Caesar figures, which they resemble in rubberyness and heavy-base style; hell - the same factory might have made them!

Sun Tzu, War Minister for the province of Wu who I think is the silver figure and the King of Chu, who as befitting a monarch of the time is a tad better fed! All the figures are really nice sculpts and - from the detail seen under an eye-glass - were probably mastered in a much larger size.

Not set-up for the rules, just an excuse for me to play with toy soldiers for five minutes! You can see how some of the soft, thin-shafted weapons could do with a bit of hot-water treatment and it's a supriseingly small board.

If I found one, there must be a few left out there, so if you like the look of these: get down to your local 'Works' or try their website.

H is for Hong Kong Mongol Hoard...or Herd of Huns

This set is 100% Giant, yet 100% not Giant! We know it's Giant because every single foot figure is marked Made In Hong Kong Giant (P), yet we know it's not Giant, because Giant were never that generous with their figures! Obviously there is the secondary evidence of no 'Giant Plastics Corp. NY' anywhere on the packaging and/or the presence of the retail price in s/d (two-shillings and eleven'punce).

This was the UK (and elsewhere?...it's quite common as these sets go) version of Giant's Mongols, probably let out of the back of the same factory supplying Giant, and consists of about 15 each of red and yellow foot 'Huns' and the same of silver and black [final 'type'] knights, with 6-7 each of the same force's riders.

Loose examples, I don't have all the mounted knights here, but you get the picture and when I get the rest out of storage we can come back to them and look at the forts and stuff. The missing yellow one turned-up and is below!

The knights tended to reuse the bulk of the pose (lifted from old British 54mm figure poses - Crescent and Britains Swoppets) which I've tried to highlight in the silver row - although the pose second from the right is the same as the pose fifth from the right.

I should add that when I did these in One Inch Warrior magazine all those short years ago...I photographed them with siege equipment which was actually from the Marx medieval/Viking fort sets!

Not sure what I was playing at in the top image...trouble with photographing 'off the hoof' without taking notes, but I think the top row are standard, while the under-row show a colour variant (obviously!) and a couple of 'usable' miss-moulds?

Middle shots compares the Giant-marked figures to the real piracies...small HO-sized blobs with unmarked bases.

The final image (a bit washed-out by flash as these images often are - red and yellow...always!) shows darker versions of some of the figures. In the case of the - missing above - yellow one it seems to be down to batch, while the red ones have some black flecks in them and I suspect the plastic was cooked-off.

When I was (briefly) a plastic extrusion operator, I used to get the problem of a brown, darkening line appearing in my extrusions, I'd have to speed the conveyor up a bit (which normally thinned the extrusion to gash quality) and run it as waste until the head cooled down and the mark disappeared. If the mark didn't disappear, I'd have to strip the thing down and clean an - often quite small - burnt speck off the injector head. That's cooking-off...a nightmare!