W is for Wedge-Hand Warriors

I've been after a set of these for ages, I have one or two somewhere without weapons, or with the wrong weapons, but I knew what they were as they seem to have been common about 15/20 years ago - around the time 'The Wall' came down, and there had been several dealers; one in Ireland, one in the US and one in the West County (I think) selling the boxed sets, usually for a reasonable amount, but at the time I wasn't really buying online.

And while more recently I have bid and lost on a couple of boxed sets (or dropped out 'cos they went too-high for my wallet!), I spotted a lose but complete set a while ago and got it for a reasonable price (can't remember if it was bid or BIN?), so while a box is always nice, and makes for a longer Blog Post, it's really all about the figures, so -  with all the accessories - let's have a look at them!

Progress again, they seem to have been one of the more prolific of the Russian figure producers, surviving for some time after the end of the Soviet Bloc and with factories/licensees in some of the satellite countries, these Alexander Nevsky Knights are notable for having slot/wedge hands like the 1st version Cherilea combat infantry. I've also seen them described as Progress Medieval Retinue, but don't know if that was an/the official title or a Western translation?

Also like their British counterparts, these are not rubbery or 'grippy' hands, but quite rigid polyethylene hands you have to force the accessory into only for it to pop-out in play! The archer gets two plug-ins which are a bit more successful, while the chap in the middle of the upper row has a more conventional ring-hand for his sword.

The accessories they come with (and the ease with which they are parted from the figures is/was the driver for trying to find a boxed set!), some can be swapped between figures, but they aren't terribly good swaps - visually - and with differing thicknesses of shaft or handle; are really figure-pose specific?

These all ended-up with rather busy backgrounds, so I will revisit them at some point with a plainer setting, but for now you get the idea, the Soviet equivalent of rack toys gets shoehorned into RTM again!

I suspect they are the same sculptor as the set of WWII Infantry with the plug-in red-flag we've seen here (with Chris's help), and are reported to have first appeared in 1976, but with only the five poses in this set, possibly because of the extra effort and second mould-cost required by the accessories?

I ended-up with a couple of images which cropped so similar again, they make for a nice .gif, which gives the impression of 3D without faffing-about on making a short video which is often more effort than it's worth.

Progress Russian Alexander Nevsky/Medieval Retinue knights' set - box ticked! I'm now searching for a complete set of the MIR copies; cruder sculpts, also silver PE, but with plug-in heliotrope pink/red bases, making them even more 'swoppet'-like!

L is for Livonians Laid-out on the Lake

Just as the Americans obsess about the Alamo, Custer's last stand, Pearl Harbour and Iwo Jima, the French;  Jena, Camarón, Bir Hakeim and Diên Biên Phu, the British; Agincourt, Crecy, Trafalgar, Waterloo, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Rourke's Drift, Gallipoli, Dunkirk, Dieppe, D-Day, Arnhem, the Falklands (we obsess a lot don't we!) et al. The Russians have their favourite bits of history for making toys of...

We looked at the Revolution and Chapi's chaps the other day, here is another recurring theme in toy soldiers of the Soviet Era: The Battle of Lake Peipus, and the hero of the hour Alexander Nevsky.

Hero if you are an Eastern-orthodox Russian that is; I look to the Crusader types (silver/green below) as the 'good guys' but to a patriotic Russian, the figures in the pointed ('turkic') helmets (gold/red below) are the good guys!

Before anyone bursts a blood-vessel: they're toys, I'm generalising, and I don't care who celebrates what, or why! Except...Custer got his, well and truly!

10-piece mould tools - one for each side, both with three mounted 'knights' and seven foot soldiery - with the figures joined together by short sections of runner or frame ('sprue'), the actual sprue entering from one end. These came in  polythene bags that were missing their header cards and in such a state they went the way of all flesh a long time ago.

However; I believe it represents a later issue, as there's a certain laziness involved in leaving the separating to the customer, and modern commercialism (in all its forms) seems to be about a gradual reduction in quality/service over time!

Close-ups of both sides of each row of both sets...that's it really, nothing I can add here...if you've followed the link you know as much about the battle as I do, if you're a student of uniforms you know more about Teuton/Livonian and Turkic/Slavic armour than I do, so, just pictures of the frames!

I also have a few loose ones, the green are a part set of the Northern Crusaders, the red being a set of Nevsky's Novgorod forces. The box seems to be correct, it has a standard Soviet-era checkers/QA-label stuck on the back, but it came with incomplete forces from both sides, so I've made-up a full set with a loose figure (the archer is a pinkish batch) assuming the greens had been stuffed in there (the lid sat high) when their own box ceased to be? I'm assuming this is the earlier issue?