As a sort of [pretty tenuous] follow-up to the last post, and the mention of Crong, I'm posting something which was already in the queue, but isn't coming in the order I'd like it to, and doesn't tell all the story, but hopefully still of some use to some Loyal Readers!
Donated by a friend of the blog who prefers not to be named, but occasionally comes up with little treasures,
Battle Knights by
Feva UK, is one of the more recent iterations of a carpet 'wargame', commonly known as
Crossbows and Catapults (
Tomy,
Base Toys,
Action GT,
Zatu,
et al), but also having iterations as
Weapons & Warriors (
Pressman), and
Battground (
Moose), which has been around since the 1980's.
The originals have produced several generations of two figures, a small squat fantasy figure (Doomlords of Gulch) in a putty-coloured polymer, and a sort of Hollywood Viking/Barbarian type (the Impalers of the Clannic Shelf), in various shades of brown or ginger, which we have seen, in various mixed/plunder/donation posts over the years, but which I haven't posted-on, formally, yet as my main sample has always been in storage.
The
Pressman version changed the dynamic slightly, with press-pads instead of loose walls, and other innovations have tried to make it more fun or keep it relevant to new generations of electronically-distracted kids, here it's spring-loading.
Pressman also changed the figures, to medieval types (Castle Storm), along with a pirate version (
Pirate Clash), both also seen here, in past mixed-lots/shots.
This
Feva version adds mounted figures, and they are the unknown figures
from the Crong post (the tentative link being used here!), although this set has green bases. The foot figures are scale-downs of the Pressman set, and I now think they are all
Games Workshop knock-offs?
Other useful bits!
A couple of banner-flags (or pennants?) missing
Could be useful, but would need work to hide the nature of the balls or discs all these sets fire at each other, the oversized culverin for instance has quite an
Elastolin look to it . . . fill in the hole and give it an antiquing, with washes and dry-brushing?
These turn-up in every junk-lot on evilBay, the Supreme medieval knock-off's from several brands have versions of them, and there have been large bow-like ballistas and larger cannon, but they'd all need a lot of effort to get realistic-looking.
As a Brucey Bonus, these are the
Moose Toys figures from the other more recent iteration,
Battleground Crossbows & Catapults, and were also a donation, I think from Graham Apperley, but hidden in a
PW plunder-post a few years ago.
Smaller at around 25mm (the Feva are 30'ish, the older sets closer to 35 (C&C) or 40mm (W&W)) and a soft PVC, against Crossbows' polyethylene/propylenes and Weapons' polystyrene. It's quite a franchise, with many US and foreign-language/foreign-market sets, and worth a proper study, which will appear here one day!
