K is for Killing Three Birds with One Stone!

Still cruel and unnecessary!

These turn-up in odd lots and rummage-trays at toy fairs and toy soldier shows, they aren't that rare; none of this mass-produced, polymer, infant-toy stuff is, but they are fun and they are in a box of their own, so let's tick it!

Condor Games licensed from Seven Towns (who are still around I seem to recall), and reading the blurb on the box-lid, you just wouldn't get this to the shelves now, the Daily Wail would blow a gasket, the Guardian would mutter darkly about 'long term mental health damage' and the bairn's would want to know why there were no knifes or semi-clad, busty-assassins included!

Goldrush - 45mm'ish (47mm in total with base) and polyethylene, that's it really, four miners with trolleys, they predate the Atlantic version by a few years I think.

Seven Towns did turn-up the other day licensing something modern, or modern'ish* I think, yet they were licensing things in the early 1970's, and often involved with board games, but not always, so some kind of intermediate 'rights' agent, between artists on the one hand and manufacturers/ publishers on the other I suspect; handling the intellectual property issues between the relevant parties, but primarily on behalf of the originating author/toy-inventor, whom they may be in the business of nurturing?

There's some interesting stuff on Seven Towns over at Soupie's Minifig's Blog which points to that sort of senario;

P.E.T Aliens/ComicAliens

* It was the 2002/3 Impact from Drummond Park games, seen here at Small Scale World a year or so ago. They (Seven Towns) have also worked with Berwick Games (Mission Impossible) and the mighty [but no more!] Parker (Vendetta).

Two similar sets for which I only have the figures (the box and the four-colour figure image of the Goldrush are from the archive and were shot courtesy of John Begg ten years ago) are The Blues and the Greys  and Sheriffs and Outlaws, which were both shooting games in the same vein as the Lone Star set seen here recently, but with an added 'around the board' (actually a vac-formed piece) movement mechanism.

Both set's figures are around the 50mm-mark, but the kneeling pose of the ACW guys means they are actually, easily 54mm compatible. All are pretty crude figures and seem to share a - jobbing - sculptor? And I think both sets have five-each of both colours?

Listing;

Condor

Range of games some using pistols to shoot at the pieces.

Board Games
- Ambush - Sheriffs and Outlaws (one pose, 5-each, black and brown, gun-slinger, 50mm)

- Ambush - The Blues and the Greys (5-each, two poses, blue and grey, kneeling ACW figures, 50mm)

- Goldrush (man and trolley 45mm, 4 colours, 45mm, licensed from Severn Towns)

- Supersell (16 figures, flats, 4 each of 4 colours, plus card flat and flat vehicles)

D is for Display

Some of you may have noticed I rescued some of the Impact rock formations or 'mountain-piles' from that Drummond Park/Idea Shop/Seven Towns board game I blogged earlier in the year . . . I actually dove back into the recycling bin for one each of the three, as it occurred to me they'd make useful little display bases!

The locating-studs that anchor the pieces to the card holes in the original playing board have to be removed which is done first with side-cutters, then finished with a scalpel - and kids . . . if there are any kids reading this; never, ever, ever, EVER cut toward your exposed thumb as in the picture above . . . it's a posed shot!

Or at least never, ever, ever, EVER cut toward your exposed thumb until you're old enough to take responsibility for your own stupidity, as I am!!

The finished objects can them be used to display all sorts of things, adding a bit of visual interest to otherwise formulaic images!

Seven Towns on Seven Towns as PET Aliens clamber over the rocks.

I is for Impact

Picked-up another charity-shop board-game in August, box was shot to pieces but there was enough of the bottom tray to ID the name of the game which meant ID'ing some more 'unknown' figures in the collection, and a pound-fifty got me a reasonable sample for a post!

It's funny, trying to ID game figures ought to be easy, you go to Board Game Geek and search; don't you? Well, yes, and if you're lucky you'll find them, but I spent ages trying to ID the name of the game with the Minimodels conquistadors, and it wasn't until I was searching for something else that I found them under Tri-Ang, while the pirate from Paul Lamond needed Ron Chiasson to help as I'd tried all the obvious things and got nowhere, meanwhile these guys were waiting and the guy on the blue Dredd'esque motorbike is still anonymous!

A board-game needs a board! The main game; 'Impact Episode 1' comes with the card boards (x6) and piles of hills which line-up with holes in the board, the later add-on/follow-on game; 'Ambush at Wolf Ridge' has a formed mountainous moonscape, of which you got only four; with smaller armies.

On one level the whole thing is very much a marketing exercise aimed squarely at getting a slice or slices of the Games Workshop, D&D and Aliens/Predators franchises, being a co-operative venture between Drumond Park (game play and box design - now part of the Vivid group), Idea Shop (characters and imagery) and Seven Towns (gun firing mechanisms) who have been licensing stuff since the 1970's - this game is dated 2002/3

The above opinion is backed up by the juvenile play (always board) of the first two levels and pretty simplistic third level, limited scope and fact it seems to have disappeared quite quickly with only the one extension game issued, strangely the Wolf Ridge seems the commoner of the two?

You follow the paths and shoot the enemy with the missile firing 'guns', playing at level three allows for a simple capture system. An Episode 2 country/urban battlefield was announced on the back of the box but I haven't found one on-line yet?

However, on another level and leaving the criticisms aside, the figures make the set and they are less than shabby! A mid-density PVC, factory painted, Dinosaurs versus Humans, what's not to like! In Episode 1 you get two armies, ten dino's with one static gun (a very neat Gieger'esque, squat piece of pure evil) and eight humans with a 'Walker', tracked-bot and static gun-turret.

The Wolf Ridge sets seem to have smaller numbers of the same human sculpts, but at least one new dinosaur. I'm going on what I can find on Google/feebleBay.

The shtick is that these Dinosaur Raptor scouts have invaded Earth in a mountainous region where the only humans nearby are a bunch of miner's - the Corezec drillers - who then have time (at the start of a hostile invasion!) to fashion weapons from their mining equipment (and undergo military training and the procurement of matching uniforms and PLCE and adopt military rank structures!) in order to fight-back and defend Earth from the vile gatorsaurs!

Those invaders must have taken their time between opening hostilities and firing their first shot! And - let's face it - the sculpting is more deep-space mining-vessel than Earth-side anything . . . Nostromo's acid-etched floors and cocooned-crew!

The 'Guns' - they are classified on the box as field, medium and large, but there are no separate rules for each class I'm aware of, and they all take the same ammunition, a silicon-rubber-capped bolt 'missile'.

Apart from the firing mechanism which rather ruins the lines of the weapons, they are all reasonable, the dino's having GW-style, chunky, man- (or dinosaur-) portable amorphous, bone-like units and the lovely alien 'Pilot' skull type static unit, while the miners have converted drilling and boring machines and an equally evil-looking, squat, automated turret/bunker thing.

The complete Raptor Scout army below, while the upper shot compares them with a Hasbro; Halo figure and figures from both the big shooting games of the 1980/90's Tomy/Pressman (et al)'s Crossbows & Catapults and MB Game's similar Weapons & Warriors (also carried by Pressman at one point?); the smaller blue pirate figure.

The announced Episode 2 was to have included Carbozec tech. warriors for the humans and T.Rex assault troops for the 'saurs, but the only different one I've got is the one in the above comparison which I believe comes from the Wolf Ridge set? I have the larger 'unknown' sample in storage but memory serves that they are all the same as the recent purchase.

Not unknown any more!