D is for Design Eye - Ultimate Explorers 'Castles'

Looked at in Plastic Warrior's little brother One Inch Warrior, many years ago now, and not by me, but I made it my business to track them down once whoever had covered had done so!

Interactive books, or 'activity packs', there were two and we will look at the other shortly, Castles dealt - obviously - with medieval forts, and you get some figures in two scales (approximately 54mm and 15mm), some plastic jewels for craft projects (make a crown type of thing, a clip-together catapult, a booklet (authored by Susan Churchill), a scroll, some game-playing paraphernalia and the game itself, which hides . . .

. . . a fold-down fort! Specifically, the entrance to a Norman castle tower/keep with raised walk-way to a barbican gate-house, draw-bridge and mote. It's quite a complicated arrangement with several layers and various connecting pieces, along with a couple of other features.

Here on the left the rooms of the keep are revealed by a fold-back section of the wall being pulled away, while on the right a wooden portcullis can be raised and lowered - a slight 'continuity error' is that it takes the drawbridge chains with it!

The figures; Earlier this year I suggested elsewhere that the king might be based on a statue of Alfred the Great, but then spent a few days trying to track it down on Google and while finding several, including a couple in similar garb, none of them were the right pose, so it may be a more unique sculpt, or based on another statue (Richard I, or John - it still looks familiar?), he's compared with the similar figure from the other, Egyptian, set.

Above them are the three poses of small figure - crossbow, longbow and swordsman. I have found sevearl sets over the years (and lost one!), and I now have samples in both a hard polypropylene (left-hand trio) and a soft PVC or replacement material in a similar soft rubbery composition - right-hand.

 

Airfix figures of this age tended to 23mm, so they are getting on for 20, but the knights are a tad smaller, while the Egyptians have heavy bases, so 15mm or 'HO' compatible is a better bet, they can be used with the fold-down fort . . . or on the carpet.

The catapult is a little unsteady in that the swinging arm is rather suspended in thin-air and held in place by a rubber-band. On the left a pair are accompanied by Airfix yobbo's of the Sheriff of Nottingham's mob for size reference.

On the right the machine is compared with stone-throwers from Zvezda (lower, similar wheeled-catapult), Orion (white, a later Einarm with wrought-iron spring action) and the Elastolin Onagar, but here in its undecorated (and rather glue-smeared) for-France Ougan-branded guise.

Well, he follows me all the time and they were in the queue! Taken on 19th May, for those getting hot under the collar . . . and it's a question answered! Egypt next.

A few hours later - I found this in the folder for the Egyptian set, it's a cage behind sliding wall sections, there's a winder behind it (as artwork, not working!), so you can send your pitiful prisoners into the dungeon to rot!
 

N is for New Finds, Pt.1 - AC Models and Modelscene

I was visiting my friend Jimijames down in Chandler's Ford the other day, during one of our big storms, needless to say when I got to Eastleigh the trains were all shot to buggery and so - having a few minutes (!) to spare - I went for a wander. A few hundred years found me out side AC Models, an old-school model shop, redecorated to a modern standard, filled with goodies and staffed by really friendly, helpful and knowledgeable staff.

I wandered in, had a mosey-nosey about and found that Modelscene are now issuing the old Merit figures unpainted on sprues consisting of three old sets together. I bought two straight away!

Further study (ha! Further 2 minutes on Google!) reveals a third set (5200); being the various passenger sets. I assumed they must be the original sprues from the Merit days, but Paul (Morehead - Plastic Warrior) reminded me that the Army were produced in khaki plastic at one point and the other two sets weren't, so it would seem that Peco / Guagemaster / PPP have made up a new mould with the old cavities from the three old mould-sets brought together. The Boy Scouts cart is loose in the other card's blister along with a steel axle, cut to length.

They (AC Models) also had a 50p rummage bin, and the next day I returned and bought another Triang cable-drum flat and some accessories from the recent Hornby military sets along with a set of bear-naked ladies! We've looked at the Hummers already Here, while the - full-price - Preiser rudie-nudie beach-babes will feature in a post one day with the Noch naughties and one or two other items in a similar NSFW vein!

The cable-drum carriers are for a retirement project and I have collected (amassed?) various flats in tin-plate, die-cast and plastic with Matchbox, Elmont and other road vehicles, along with the Airfix telegraph pole set, and various cable drums painted and transferred, kit and commercial, it is intended to get one of the big steel-mill kits from Atlas/Terminal/Walther's, cut it down the centre-line, mount it against a painted backdrop and have a marshalling-yard for all the cable-drum lorries and rail wagons laid out in front...one day!

While I was there I also grabbed a few Zvezda sets, they are simply exquisite, and while you only get four or so figures or a small AFV, AT or Flak-gun, they are only 1.99! They are made out of a very pure (?) styrene, which looks and feels at first like an ethylene, soft'ish to the finger-tips and very shiny, but when you apply a spot of glue you get a neat and instant weld, and realise that it's actually a hard plastic when you have to mend the grenade!

Old fashioned high-street model shops are as rare as rocking-horse shit these days and so to find a new one is a nice surprise and given that my childhood memories of model-shops is one of them all peopled by miserable sods who sighed all the time, it's a double bargain to find such nice staff and pleasant atmosphere.

AC have a website here AC Models, but try and visit them, these few survivors need all the patronage they can get, I'll definitely be going again! They have a second half next door which may have been Gaming/Role-play or R/C stuff - I don't know because I didn't have time to visit it!