D is for Dragonology!

We had Pirateology back on International Talk Like a Pirate Day, last September, and heaven forfend that I now influence people who used to influence me, but I've put another 'ology on the back-burner and pulled this out of the queue sharpish!

Dragonology, like the preveous Piratology, a pretty-standard board-game under the trope of the dragon theme - gotta' have a hook to hang it on! Nice graphics, although I forgot to shoot the board, but there are two views of it in the post and you can see it's a journey-round the board doing/collecting stuff, with card forfeits/jeopardies.

 

Still carried here by Paul Lamond for Sababa, but also crediting Templar Publishing who hold the 'ology series, there are other games, based on other titles in the book series, with two for Wizardology (heehee!), but not yet an Egyptology one, which is the one I'm waiting/hoping for, although if they do make one, it may not have figures! While the newer books haven't had the momentum yet, to generate the desire/need for games?

 

Obviously the figures are the all-important bit, and this set actually carries more than the Pirate set, with six figures, rather than five, several of whom bear more than a passing resemblance to the characters from Cludo!

 

 

They all have names, as do the dragons (have identities), but I was a little disappointed to see, or not see . . . a Welsh one, but I think Switzerland is doing the heavy-lifting for both Cymru and the Vikings! The right-hand human images seem to be taken from much-larger, highly detailed master-sculpts, rather than than the eventual 35/40mm'ish production figures, which have lost a lot of that detail.

 

You can see how Beatrice Cook could double for Miss Peacock, Dragon Man Dan for Colonel Mustard, Phineas Feek for Professor Plum, one of the others could be repainted for Mr. Green, and while one of the missing women could be covered by the Oriental girl, Miss Ta, either Emery or Drake (best for Mr. Green) would have to re-identify, which would excite the Trumpy Broflakes, wouldn't it!

The nine dragons are all equally well-done, and as per the B&W sheet, display some of the different physiognomies or traits of various dragons from myths and legends around the world, although scale is a little-off, I feel, the Chinese dragon should be one of the bigger ones

The other/another angle for eight of them, not much I can add, they'd go better up against 1:76/72 figures, than anything larger, perhaps with all the fantasy stuff coming from Caesar and Dark Alliance - EY, I'm thinking of you - and you can pick them up for cheapness on feeBay!

 

While the little Knucker (closest to a Viking Wyrm, or the great Earth Worm), has a nice metallic belly which is totally lost when it's on the board!

P is for Pirateology!

Having mentioned the possibility that the two smaller figures in the round-up might be from a board-game, I can tell you only that it isn't Pirateology, because that's here, right now, and it has different figures!

I thought we'd had the Dragonology set, posted up here, but looking for it just now, quickly realised it's still in the long-queue! Nevertheless, this is a sister game, Pirateology (presumably 'the study and understanding of pirates and piratey things!), from Sababa Toys (via Esdevium Games (Paul Lamond)), and it's a game . . . with pirates!

 

Based on a series of books by Dugald Steer and Nghiem Ta, it followed the Dragonology, Egyptology and Wizardology books, and has since been joined by Oceanology and Monstrology! I'm not going to pretend to know anything about them beyond the fact that clearly a franchise has been born!

 

Skull dice and coins which have gone in the spares pile for future . . . God knows what? But the little PVC-effect micro-pirate ships are rather lovely and will join the Galoob vessels in the relevant drawer of the little cabinet, we looked at a while ago.

 

The rest then went to recycling, I just haven't got the space, and would likely never have played the game, the capitalist, consumption-driven system produces mountains of this stuff, and I just waited for one going cheap (£5.99'ish), to get the figures.

 

And this is they; the meat & four veg'! About 35/40mm, quite well painted and a couple of obvious specifics; a China Sea pirate and a Berber/Barbary/Ottoman Corsair, they are really nice for board-game figures, but you'd have to be careful, as it's all in the base-colour as to who's 'marker' is who's! They seem to tie-in to the coloured banners and flags/pennants on the ships.

S is for Substitutes!

Continuing with both Subbuteo and football, this was an interesting happen-stance, or 'curio' I picked-up the other day . . . well, the end of April . . . another Charity shop purchase, it appeared to be one of the new sets and was only a few quid, I de-labelled it; shot the box . . .

. . . and opened it to find the teams were all hard plastic! Someone had bought the set for the new players, chucked two old teams (of the newer variety) in the blister tray and sent it off to charity - otherwise 'mint'!

No matter, it gives us a chance to look at a whole set in close-up, and - as a collector - has given me two teams and the new-style/designs of pitch- matt and goals.

As you can see it's not that it's an older pre-flexible figure set, it's definitely meant to be the newer type, although it's dated 2012 so they've been out for a while without my noticing.

The players are also interesting in that while the older versions (all generations) were basically one chap, there are now variations with long hair and short hair in black brown and blond.

The new nets are a bit chunkier than the old ones (and harder to store!), but there's not much in it and there's probably a reason for the two 'ears'. While the raised bar between the ears helps get the ball out of the back of the net without moving everything around!

A little vignette with red having a shot on an open goal! "Cum'on Everton; what are you playing at? Mark your man!" Straight out of the box - hours of fun!

News, Views Etc . . . Subbuteo in the National Daily's

You probably caught this news item a couple of three weeks ago or so, it made several papers and the broadcast media, but as we had Subbuteo earlier today; now's the time to box-tick the press-release here!

You can read the story - as original - by clicking on the image, but I've converted it into text below for ease:-

Net gains: first

all- ­female

Subbuteo set

By Josie Clarke

The first all-female Subbuteo set

has been launched to reflect the

rapid growth of women’s football

in the-UK.

   The FA and the game’s maker,

Hasbro, revealed the limited

edition version of the table football

game ahead of the SSE Women’s

FA Cup final at Wembley on

Saturday with the figures in

the colours of finalists Arsenal

and Chelsea.

  The FA said the new version

supported its objective to

tackle barriers in the women’s

game. The set includes 22 players

plus substitutes, with their

own characteristics.

  It is not available to buy but it

can be won via FA social channels

in the coming months.

  Hasbro and the FA said that

they were “exploring future

opportunities” to bring out a

commercially available women’s

football set.

Unless you're some sexist old dinosaur it's gott'a be a good-news story, and it'll be twice the number of teams to collect for the Subbuteo completists, and then there's the possibility of fielding a women's team against a men's team and beating them - heh-heh! Or converting them to face-off against Nottingham's Space Marines; Ripley style auto-loaders anyone?!

It should be pointed out that I can't find the competition (to link to) on the FA site, anyone know where it is?

O is for Officials

F is for Follow-up - Subbuteo, but it was so long ago I did the Subbuteo 'round-up' posts it might as well have its own title.

Today we're looking primarily at the new set of match officials from the resurrected Hasbro Subbuteo (carried in the UK by Paul Lamond Games), actually called Official Referees Set, you get four completely new sculpts and a spare ball (you can't have too many spare balls; they tend to leave the table easily and don't support the weight of a human in shoes terribly well!), firmly embedded in a vac-form tray and further ensconced in a window-box - so you can see what you're getting.

Compared to the older (Charles Stadden) sculpts, these new ones are slightly smoother, and although not the soft, pliable polymer of the new players, are in what seems to be a pretty survivable hard plastic like polypropylene? Also where the older sets gave you two identical linesmen, this new set has opposite flags, so whichever side you place them, the 'wind' will be true across, or on both sides of the pitch!

The digital substitution board is a nice touch and as far as I know the first time he's been seen on the Subbuteo sidelines? I see a market for a set of stickers . . . or it'll be continual bad luck for Number 2!

While the cultural changes in football over the years are evident in the Ref ' who used to be firmly pointing to the penalty spot - no questions asked - but is now waving in the hope that whichever miscreant primadonna it is, will realise he's not getting away with it!

While I had them out I sorted a few others that have come in since the last set of posts and found that there are now three generations of policemen to join the three generations of St. John's Ambulance we looked at previously.

With the first type slotting into players bases (with all those pitch invasions in the 1970's they needed to move round the pitch quickly!), then a similarly based figure to the last set. I only have the one - so far, so don't know how many there were in the set, but it looks like the 1^st type were converted to integral-bases and all three issues seem to be by the hand of Stadden?

Buckshee shot on the right of the rest of the set, but I don't know what I was doing there or why I cut his hat off?

Finally, while I'm comparing; the old pitch versus the new pitch, I know some old-school die-hards have some harsh-words for the new pitch elsewhere online, but then the old school always hate change in any field of endevor!

The fact is - it is first and foremost a plaything for kids - it will follow industry trends and changes in technology as time passes and the new nylon pitch holds its shape better than the old felt one which would warp over time. I do think it could be a lighter green . . . and it (the new one) will be very useful for 'charging-up' balloons and sticking them to the ceiling at parties . . . every cloud!

T is for Toy Fair 2018 Reports - Paul Lamond - Subbuteo

I'm having a mojo-fail at the moment, March and October are never good months for me, the mind wanders, the extreme tides fulling me away from the flickering cod's eye of my laptop, to vastly better endeavours (I'll be working the rose thorn-tips out of my hands for a fortnight!), but there's plenty in the queue, so keep popping back . . . if you can be arsed - it'll all still be here in six months time!

One of the biggest new stories (for me, not the general public!) at the Toy Fair 'back in' January (where does the time go, it's our very-actual-bloody lives; tick-ticking away!) was the return of Subbuteo, which if I understood the sales-chap right is now in-house, or part of the intellectual-property portfolio of Paul Lamond, they having either bought the rights, or a long-term license?

Look for the sales display in your local stockist! It's green!

A nice display of what is already a growing range of teams, with seven strips already issued (last year?) including all the teams of the UK and Eire (actually - not sure about Wales while Curnow seems to have been left out!), backed up by accessories and larger 'starter' play-sets.

The main event is the International Playset which gives a pitch with hoardings, fences, two teams, goals, referee and officials, balls &etc - in a box. The only visible difference is that the goalies' beams are red now, rather than the green they used to be.

However, there are two other major changes over the older versions (which we have looked at once or twice here at Small Scale World), the first has to be a matter of opinion, in that they claim the pitch material is better . . . if it makes for faster ball play, those who liked a slow ball game won't find it better at all, and if it's slower . . . vise-versa!

The other upgrade one of those no-brainer, rocket-science, euraka!, why-didn't-someone-think-of-it- in-1950-something applications - which I can attest-to personally as being a major contribution to player-safety (he misquotes the old Goodyear TV add's) because - the players are now made of a flexible rubber, silicon or substitute-PVC compound, making them extremely flexible and almost impossible to damage if you drop them, drop something on them or tread on them - genius! I bent one (after invitation to do so - I hasten to add) pretty-much flat and he just popped-up again!

A smaller pitch-set or goals are also available to build your league slowly on a budget, there seems to be a choice of white or coloured nets, probably indicated on the box-ends, I didn't notice. Other accessories are currently limited to the fence-hoardings, a set of officials and spare balls, but I'm sure the range will be expanded if sales are promising.

The teams, notice the set; hair colour varies, ethnicity is obvious and varied. Another seven team-strips have been added for 2018, and if that rate is continued for a few years they'll be back to the 1970's heyday when you could order from several hundred different strips, and while I don't suppose it will get to that point, there's no reason why it couldn't be done with computer-aided manufacture (CAM).

Indeed, with a dedicated support website and CAM-linked ordering system you could stipulate the strip, boot, ethnicity and hair colours individually for all 11 players, just like buying a new-car (or 11 new cars) these days! Hint-hint Paul Lamond - find a VC who loved Subbuteo as a kid, they'll lend you the money!

All new for 2018 is the beginnings of a Spanish league, flicking goalies and a leaping goalie for penalty shoot-outs, whether there are any plans for an English player who can't hit the goal for toffee, remains to be seen and for the English goalie . . . Vaseline his hands?!

D is for Diminutive Dinky Dino's - Board Games II

So the second game today, and - possibly due to the infant nature of its graphics - it was only 50p. Can't say no to that, especially when it's a box-full of dinosaurs, if; rather small dinosaurs!

The box, all very exciting! From Paul Lamond here in the UK, but the dino's are base-marked RBS (for BS Randal) so under license or a repacking? Originally developed in 2001, it claims to be the 'Classic dinosaur board game' which is either hyperbole or points to an earlier version? I suspect the former!

The game is still in the 2018 PLG catalogue, coded - as per the image - 5780.

The board, it's already gone to recycling, and the light was wrong, so I've had to enhance/tweak it in Picasa, which has left it looking a bit waffted!

But the best bit - which you will already know if you've got the game for your kids or studied the first picture - it has 17 sculpts, each player gets four different dinosaurs and the 'chaser' gets a slightly larger T-Rex! That's value for money, think of Risk; three identical sculpts for 6 different armies and it's probably only accident that they've changed the designs every ten years or so, the AWI sculpts seem to have been recently replaced with new Napoleonics?

They are not as small as the eraser/egg animals we've looked at a couple of times now, but still small enough, while to prevent tears (when one's favourite dinosaur gets eaten by the tyrannosaur) they just go back and start again - the winner being the first to get all four past the patrolling 'Rex

The lower picture contains a few other mini-saurs which have come-in, with odd-lots in the last week or two. Two rubbery/PVC types with cartoony countenances and a nicer-sculpted polyethylene sort-of-raptor in purple! And I've placed them with physically similarly game-tokens, which also shows they aren’t particularly in-scale, with the two sauropods not even the biggest sculpts!

In the upper picture Number 1 is on the left (T-Rex) and 2-17 are from back blue to front yellow, moving down the rows toward the viewer, left to right;

Dino Line-up

1. Tyrannosaurus Rex ('T.Rex')

Age: 65 million years old

Size: 12 metres (40 feet) long

Weight: 8 tons

Diet: Carnivorous

Habitat: North America and Asia

2. Styracosaurus

Age: 70 million years old

Size: 5.2 metres (17 feet) long

Weight: 2.7 tons

Diet: Herbivore

Habitat: North America

3. Stegosaurus

Age: 150 million years Old

Size: 9 metres (30 feet) long

Weight: 2 tons

Diet: Herbivore

Habitat: North America

4. Giganotosaurus

Age: 100 million years old

Size: 12.5 metres (42 feet) long

Weight: 8 tons

Diet: Carnivore

Habitat: South America

5. Deinonychus

Age: 110 million years old

Size: 2 metres (6.5 feet) tall

Weight: 80kg (176 pounds)

Diet: Carnivore

Habitat: The American mid-west

6. Protoceratops

Age: 80 million years old

Size: 1.8 metres (6 feet) long

Weight: 400 kg (500 pounds)

Diet: Herbivore

Habitat: Asia (Mongolia)

7. Oviraptor

Age: 80 million years old

Size: 1.8 metres (6 feet) long

Weight: 20 kg (44 pounds)

Diet: Omnivore

Habitat: Asia (Mongolia)

8. Ornithomimus

Age: 70 million years old

Size: 4 metres (13 feet) long

Weight: 150kg (331 pounds)

Diet: Omnivore

Habitat: North America

9. Diplodocus

Age: 150 million years old

Size: 27 metres (88 feet) long- tail bones are 14 metres (46 ft) long

Weight: 12 tons

Diet: Herbivore

Habitat: North America

10. Brachiosaurus

Age: 150 million Years old

Size: 30 metres (100 feet) long

Weight: 30-50 tons

Diet: Herbivore

Habitat: North America Africa

11. Rioiasaurus

Age: 220 million Years old

Size: 10 metres (33 feet) long

Weight: 1 ton

Diet: Herbivore

Habitat: South America (Argentina)

12. Wannonasaurus

Age: 85 million years old

Size: 60 centimetres (24 inches) long

Diet: Herbivore

Habitat: Asia

13. Velociraptor

Age: 80 million years old

Size: 1.8 metres (6 feet) long

Weight: 25 kg (55 pounds)

Diet: Carnivore

Habitat: Asia- Mongolia and China

14. Iguanodon

Age: 130 million years old

Size: 10 metres (33 feet) long

Weight: 5 tons

Diet: Herbivore

Habitat: North America, Britain & N. Europe

15. Minmi

Age: 115 million years old

Size: 3 metres (10 feet) long

Weight: 1 ton

Diet: Herbivore

Habitat: Australia

16. Megalosaurus

Age: 170 million years old

Size: 9 metres (30 feet) long

Weight: 1 ton

Diet: Carnivore and Scavenger

Habitat: UK

17. Parasaurolophus

Age: 75 million years old

Size: 10 metres (33 feet) long

Weight: 3.5 tons

Diet: Herbivore

Habitat: North America

N is for New Arrivals Part II - Animals

Having had a dinosaur post a while ago, then another in Rack Toy Month, I can't believe we're having a third so soon, but that's how the stuff comes in!

Monochromatic erasers from WH Smith, 2-quid isn't going to break the bank and they are bigger than the Paperchase ones although the 'kerthunkersaurus' is a poor sculpt.

These are also Smith's, at 3 for 2 and seven or eight sculpts, I chose three contrasting ones including a much better kerthunkersaurus - I must get the proper name of the poor thing! Here credited to Keycraft, these have been in boxed-sets of several animals in The Works for a year or so now under HGL (Grossman)'s moniker I think? But in such presentation - well outside my budget.

[Note - loading this just know (last Wednesday morning) I'm also downloading Target set images from Brian Berke which look like they might contain the same sculpts, will check at home!]

The Toysuarus was offering these at 79p each, well it would have been rude not to, so I got one of each! The Beetles are the ones we've already seen in two packagings at the beginning of Rack Toy Month (or even a few days before?), the Dinosaurs are yet another set of smallies, and I'm going to get them all back-out and compare soon, just for the hell of it, so they stayed in the bag for now, which left the frogs.

I was going to Blog them with the MTC set the other day, but they are in fact different sculpts, being three poses in various colours while the MTC's are all the same [four-ridged back] design.

The reason I went to the Toysaurus was to get these (also 79p), as I'd said they were the ones above when we looked at them last time, but they weren't! A nice lesson in false memory - hours after the event, because I'd forgotten the other set and conflated the two when posting the others, and mentioning I'd seen them in glow-in-the-Dark plastic in Toys R Us!

In fact, the Toysaurus had the normal ones in the party bags, and these from Grossman are actually new sculpts. This is why one should try to use maybe, probably or possibly if the stuff isn't actually on the table in front of you...I think?!

The ladybird is very similar, and while I'm sure standard painted versions exist somewhere, the spots on this one are textured within the sculpt, rather than reliant on paint.

Look! Charity Shop! 50p! Invicta Plastics megasaurus for the British Museum. Herein lies a funny story, well; it might only be ironic?

When I was a small-scale only collector (and a limo-driver), I used to have early-morning runs out to Gatwick or Heathrow on a Sunday; exec's going off to the 'States or wherever for Monday meetings, and I would do the car Boot sales on the way back*, sometimes hitting them as the traders were setting-up - still had to pick up the crumbs left by earlier early-birds like Collectakit's Pat Lewarne though!

Anyway, if there was large-scale stuff, cheap enough, I'd drop it round a mates house and he was always giving me small-scale lots so fair was fair (and he's given me far more over the years - JB for those who know), one day I got the Invicta set in full, in a BM box (lovely set, lovely sculpts, lovely colours), about 15? Maybe 16 in the set, there might have been one missing, but I remember making it up from spares on JB's lawn in the sun.

Fast forward 20 years, finds I'm buying them one at a time...and I had the whole lot in my hands! Still; it's more fun this way and I have got a couple of the smaller ones already in storage!

*It was a Mercedes V-Class, not a stretch - try parking one of those at a car-boot sale! Although I did drive Stretched-limos for a while too, horrible things, horrible customers - except the couple on a Wedding Anniversary who got me stage-side at Robby Williams and gave me £20 for a fish-supper and coke!

These were also a charity shop buy, 50p the lot, they're very small and each has its name on the belly, a definite irony as there is a kerthunkersurus here, but I didn't take note of it and they're in the attic now . . . what am I like!

It was a toss-up between ' I - Figures' or 'II - Animals' for this one, but 'figures' already had 8 images so Peter goes here! Paul Lamond Games, Charity Shop, 99p and it's been a while since we had some paper/card flats on the Blog, I must remedy that properly - he says cryptically!

===============================================================

Apropos the date: Don't forget its Sandown Park toy fair tomorrow - if you're at a loose-end? 400-odd tables of other people's old playthings . . . I'm on the lookout for a motor for an HO-gauge Tri-Ang LT tube train!

U is for Unknown Military - Pre 1900

This is another lot of unknowns, mostly Knights and Pirates, with a couple of Napoleonic subjects and a nice pair of Samurai. An Airfix Guardsman is used as a height/size indicator.

The first (top left) should be French, he certainly has a lot in common with plenty of French plastics but may only be a Hong Kong copy? To the right of him is a rubber figure which for some reason; I have a hunch is Spanish. Beneath him are two Samurai, I suspect these are Kinder, although they aren't in any of the Kinder catalogues, Kinder issue some items unique to specific countries [They are not from the MB Games 'Shogun' game]. Finally a Napoleonic officer who will not look out of place next to some of Italeri or Zvezda's latest 'tall' production.

I'm told these are from Italy, and the horses do display a passing resemblance to the Res Plastics horses supplied in two parts to kinder in recent years, but any idea on the maker? 15th November 2017 - PRB, after Manurba, two sizes, both now together in  their own post.

These were issued in 54mm by an Atlantic offshoot (Gigi? the one with a puppy and laurel wreath logo and/or Heller; see below) in two sets of 10 poses, showing Italian, Neapolitan and other states 19th/20th C ceremonial uniforms. In 30mm you only find the three poses although I have some orange ones somewhere - the colours of the Italian flag!. [The others have turned up, they aren't orange! (I think the orange ones were in the sample with these, which were split with the finder, he had one of each pose including the orange one's) they're yellow and they are closer to 25mm AND are three of the other poses! the 54mm sets were issued by Heller as a paint-your-own set with some phials of paint and a brush]

More Italians? The top three seem to be the ends of sweet tubes, or lolly-pop stick covers? I feel the sculpting is quite Italian in execution [they are similar to Bonito tube tops]? The guy on the left is - I suspect - a Hong Kong Christmas cracker toy, but quite fun, while the one on the right is obviously from a board-game, but which one? I can't find him on Boardgamegeek (a link is to the right somewhere). [Ron Chiasson did find him on BBG; He's a pirate from the board game 'Skull and Crossbones, by Paul Lamond Games, thanks Ron]


This is the complete strip 'F', after the figures have been separated, there is also a strip 'A', not sure if there were others. The 'A' strip includes a cartoon'ish captain similar to the one on the left in the previous group above, so they may be from a kids TV cartoon? I'm feel they were issued in UK breakfast cereal, but no one knows which? Equally they could be game playing pieces as they come in the four primary colours of red, green, blue and yellow.