R es para Romanos A Caballo

Literally translates as Romans on Horseback, means Roman cavalry! More box-ticking and we have seen one of them before here, as a late-Reamsa/re-issue moulding in unpainted silver, who commands my definitely Co-Ma, not RP (. . . or Basa!) squad of ring-hand Romans.

Having failed to get the frames square on the images in the infantry post, I got these dead square without thinking about it and didn't even think of scanning them! Also they did have the clear plastic sheet (but no film), so have stayed in their box for now.

Five mounted cavalry on two horse sculpts, there are two officer types - if you measure such things by plume size/type - but with such an eclectic set of shields and an un-armed 'trooper' doing a Caesar impersonation, in gold armour, I think they are too toy-like to get excited about on that level and are best called 'auxiliary' cavalry, late Empire!

The two horse designs are a bit chunky, and are reverse poses of each other - apart from the tails! That's it another couple of boxes-ticked, Reamsa-Gormasa Romans from the Soldis-Históricos 'big box' line.

H es para Históricos!

And so to Spain, not actually, but by way of subject matter for another box-ticker! Looking at a set of vintage Reamsa moulds which have seen some mileage now and I think these - by Gormasa - are the last major issue?

How mine came, the cellophane was ripped beyond repair but I managed to get it to behave for the scanner, which did quite a good job, possibly because of the pale backgrounds? If I try to scan say, a kit runner, flush against the black pad, all I get is fuzzy, but these did quite well?

However I needn't have bothered as there was a better, commercial image on the back of the box, alongside the cavalry set! I don't know if these had a 'Soldis' iteration, I suspect Históricos were the older (by era) version of the same Soldis line; the boxes are certainly the same?

I tried to be clever with the photography, but it's impossible to get the frame perfectly square with a hand-held pocket-camera, so it is what it is - a collage of lop-sided frames! But the figures are lovely and it's nice to have them in the stash.

The tool is unchanged from original owner and the painting on these is good enough to conjure-up the originals if not pass for them after a bit of playwear! But the material is a bit of a giveaway; the Reamsa figures were polyethylene, these are a substitute-PVC with the same rubbery qualities of other elastomers.

My sample's box was missing the ridged, clear plastic sheet which should tuck into the corners of the window, so with the wrap gone as well it was going to be a nightmare to keep it all together, thus, it went the way of all flesh, but not before I'd scanned all the useful bits for the archive! the troops have got a [clean] takeaway-tub in the main Romans box!

Tiger Hobbies is for Supreme Toys!

Box-ticking some modern production Romans today, with the slightly floppy PVC-substitute Roman toy soldiers from Supreme / SP Toys, they are rather good, for what they are - rack toys - but toward the larger size in the 54mm bracket, not so much in height but 'chunky-monkey'ness'!

As they are found, supplied in the UK by Tiger Hobbies, who informed the hobby they were carrying Supreme which is why - despite the past witterings of Erwin on TJF's site - we know Supreme are an entity!

Elsewhere they would have been carried by other sellers, possibly Simba in Europe (I don't know for sure), possibly Schilling in the 'States, but not Sunjade who were a jobbing shipper back in Hong Kong - we've looked at all this before!

Three skirmishing spearmen with separate, plug-in piliums . . . pilii? An Asiatic mercenary/ethnic archer (thanks Airfix via blandford!) and a command group including a horn player (Cornicen), a Signifier and an officer/NCO 'Centurion' type.

The shields are glued-on in the factory, sometimes with the lower-arm as part of the sculpt, but two of mine had come lose/broken off in transit, so needed a blob of plumber's sealant to get them fit to fight again!

The teeth-arms are provided by a wobbly shield-wall of five; four legionaries and another Centurion looking-chap! The most notable thing about them is how bloody happy they all look, it's like they are on a day's training and someone just said Biggus Dickus after being told not to! In fact; several of them look like Michael Palin!

And if twelve separate posed large'ish figures weren't enough, we get four mounted soldiers, of whom one is clearly roman and carrying rank, a legate or something, there's almost too many 'officers' in this set!

His cloak however leaves a lot to be desired, having not been designed to take the high rim of his saddle into account, so he doesn't sit well - and I tried him with all four horses!

The other three seem to have been recruited from the Atlantic Trojan school of toy soldiering though! If you were to add a flowing horse-hair mane to that high, curved metalwork, they might make nice Arthurian cavalry? However they have to a certain extent had their cloak-tails designed to fit the saddles, although you do need to try them on different horses to get the best fit.

All four mounted figures (like Schleich or Papo) can fight dismounted and stand-up well, even on a furry surface. The guy in a breast-plate/cuirass is carrying a rolled scroll, not a dagger! Another 'officer'!

The horses are the 'standard' medieval hoses we have seen here at Small Scale World several times and in several sizes, the two with asymmetrical bases seeming the commoner, both from Supreme and the various pirates, than the two with oblong bases.

There was an issue in silver polymer with gold paint, from the flesh paint on the legs (lacking in the red set) there's a suggestion they were an earlier issue, but the card says both were contiguous? That's it, Supreme's Romans!

2nd April the same year - Nice to see the PSTSM were collectively following things here! 

Y is for Young Guard - Historex No's 638 / 703

Except even I know they were no younger or older than the Old Guard or the Dutch Guard, recruiting from the same pool to replace the battle losses or bodies left frozen on the steppes of Russia. But only the pioneer gets 'the' hat!

The next post in this series (few days time) won't have a colour plate as it deals with the various vehicular elements of the artillery train, and you're probably supposed to know what colour they are from your Blandford or Almark guides!

F is for Foot Chasseurs, of the Imperial Guard - Historex No's 637 / 703

I'd just about got my head round mounted Chasseurs not being Hussars, while being Hussars, and now someone takes their horses away! As Obelix would say "Those Wellintonians are crazy"!

Still the numbering is more straightforward; so far I'm guessing the 700's are an earlier or alternate numbering system and the 600's a newer/expanded range, but that doesn't explain the 100's, or the fact that the colour plate refers to the previous post, as will the next one - it seems 703 is all Guarde Imperiale!

Young Guard are rearguard today . . .

I is for Imperial Guard Grenadiers - Historex No's 635, 636 and 703

Of course I know 'all about' the Imperial Guard, I was raised on Airfix in the 1970's and every other issue of Military Modelling seemed to have at least one guardsman, usually a few, liberally spread through the articles, painting competition reports and adverts, but beyond that I know nothing and knew even less about the Dutch ones!

Two colour plates and only one sheet-set throws these together for now.

Foot Chasseurs next and thanks again to Mr Foy.

B is for Bobbly Bunker!

I drove past this the other day, at Edenbrook, near Dogmersfield, and noticed it had an interesting roof, so stopped and took a few pictures, now there's a car park - it has been a field most of my life - and despite being still quite away outside town, is being turned into an 'end destination leisure facility' for the denizens of the new developments which are turning Fleet from a small Victorian dormitory into a larger town lacking facilities of most kinds!

Facing Northward, it seems to be a pretty standard Type 22, but they are hexagonal, while this in an octagon; more commonly associated with the much larger Type 27, even to the added entrance block off one wall, but the variation between bunkers - of any type - was vast and the common instruction from the ministries was "do what you can with rationed materials, local supply/construction problems, manpower availability and the lie of the land."

Looking Southeast, this would have been part of the GHQ-A Line, one of several lines of defence against invasion from the Germans, and I shot another a couple of miles away ages ago which I'll try to get up here shortly. The door is obviously a modern one, and I suspect the town council is using it to store tools or community activity stuff for the bike track and allotments being constructed in the field.

Due West, this could be modeled from the unit embedded in the old Airfix play set Gun Emplacement although that plastic one doesn't have walls of the same length, but it would look OK! In fact you could remove the ventilation shafts and door over-hangs of both bunkers in that set and glue them together to get the basic for this one!

Heavy-wire/reinforcing bar has been set into the cement/mortar courses to attach camouflage netting or foliage too and you can see that with a lot of these bunkers, the corners were left unfinished to save time - in peacetime a join like that would be pared-back flush with each face.

Dead South, and you can see a heavy concrete roof has been added and given a look I haven't seen on others round here, perhaps at the whim of the builder, in his own time at the end of the day, perhaps for a specific reason, like breaking up its outline in a bare-arsed field - the trees may not have been there then, just a low/trimmed hedge?

The light was muted and with uniform weathering it was not the best conditions for photography, but you can see the bobbled effect of 20 or so pimples rising out of the body of the concrete.

The positioning of the bunker - which would have had a section of ten men when fully manned with a couple of LMG's and maybe some anti-tank capability, Boyes .55" A/T rifle or one of the Home Guard 'contraptions' (The Northover Projector) - is ideal for covering the tunnel under the main-line to Basingstoke to the West (upper image) and the bend in the road coming up from the South (lower image).

Although the positioning of the door without an additional protective blast-wall suggests that the main expected role was to cover/counter enemy advance up the road from the south - the Odiham area. Once the Odiham/Alton area was in their hands, they would have several air bases to bring in troops, and would be heading to Farnborough and Blackbush, to take/neutralise the air bases there?

And/or indeed - to neutralise the vast garrison/training area of Aldershot-Farnborough-North Camp, Arborfield, Camberley-Frimley, Chobham, Crookham, Deepcut, Pirbright/Bisley and Southwood-Minley (hell - it was all military round here!), before turning-right for London!

By some chance twist of irony, there are at the same place, three modern, civilian, triple-spike 'containment' barriers, aping the old dragons-teeth, but probably presenting little challenge to a Challenger II! They join-together like jig-saw puzzle pieces!

T is for Two - Hobbycraft Rack Toys

These are fun, one being a copy of previously seen stuff, the other a rather weird take on millinery! It's funny, you can go to one of these big-box stores regularly for several years and find nothing beyond a mould-your-own pirate fort to shelfie, or you can go three times in three months and walk away with something after every visit! I was in Hobbycraft the other day for a multi-compartment storage tray and left with three, and these two!

"Throw an egg in it; that'll make it Easter-bonnet'ty!" Yeah, seriously . . . but a nice set of mini dinosaurs married to a scenic space-taker and a couple of bits of greenery, Easter bonnet's are all about the greenery!

The two on the right are from forthcoming posts on kids comic giveaways, and while the Hobbycraft ones are similar they are 'new' copies rather than pantographed clones, and - it has to be said - of slightly poorer quality/finish.

The palm trees are fascinating - from a technical point of view - as they are a single moulding (that frond is growing out of the trunk), which must be shaped with heat, probably while still hot from the moulding process? The shrub is clearly a fish-tank thing with a weight-basket attached to bury in the gravel at the bottom of a tank!

And they both have this bi-colour single-shot moulding which pushes the paler colour to the extremities, which have looked at before, again coming our hobby via aquaria? 

While these are branded to Unique, who we've seen before as purveyors of fine novelty tat! They are smaller copies of the Henbrandt ones we saw here, the originals going to five poses, to which we added a sixth pose here.

I don't know if these knock-offs have copied all six sculpts as they are only sold in fours and all the bags had the same contents? That's it; a couple of rack-toys in Hobbycraft now.

I would add that House of Marbles are carrying the Henbrandt set in new colours, so we will see these again here at Small Scale World.

H is for How They Come In - While in London!

I managed to get up to the party shop at Clapham Junction again this year, it's a routine now, I don't really look at my watch on the second troll round the show (after the pub!), but once it's obviously dark and heading for five' or six'ish, I get the over-ground back to Clapham and wander up to the party shop (which closes late).

I have a little mosey round, and head back to the Station, find an hour or more's the wait for a Fleet stopper, so get the next up-line to Waterloo, grab a burger and get the fast-to-Woking service out of there which slides through Clapham without stopping! It used to be every half-hour from both stations, but since privatisation it's got steadily harder to go anywhere conveniently - thanks Tories!

But before all that shenanigans, Mr. Evans handed me a pack from The Toy Project (one of several toy charities both sides of the pond) as soon as I arrived! They actually weren't at the show this year - having not been invited - but Peter had been up and picked me a handful of useful figures, among which were another Beatle (Macca-moneybags is the left-hooker isn't he?) cake decoration, some Lucky Toys (et al.) figures and a farmer from one of the sets Pagett/A-Z were carrying a couple of years ago.

The Piratical chap in yellow might be from a board-game, he seems to have a cocked or tricorne-hat designed to stack something (counters) on and a very board-gamey base? A Disney princess type and small PVC farmer (New Ray?) make up the lot - thanks Peter, and you can support The Toy Project here.

So to the party shop; they had moved everything around and while the novelty/party-favour section was larger, there was less there of interst to me/you, but I managed a set of Iwako knock-offs including a third iteration of the micro-tank, this time branded to Symex and the same guns we saw last time (The Works) as a single, but now three!

I also bought these as they were dirt cheap, and I think they are a re-shoot of an old 1970's tool; the 'rubber jiggler' / hollow finger-puppet dinos', here a bit stiffer, but still rubbery! Actually there's a fair bit of dinosaur stuff gathering in the queue so we will have a dino-fest soon! And note they have been bought-in as Asda clearance (I vaguely recall eschewing them in Asda as too expensive around the 4/5-quid mark a year or two ago?), so they may still be findable in Walmart 'over there'?

As it happens, the Iwako and 'Rock Star' boxes were both still here, they went to storage last week but I quickly shot these 'cumulative' shots before I shipped them out!

C is for Chasseurs - Historex No's 634 & 641

You see the first plate here is what I think of as Hussar uniforms, but they are definitely Chasseurs, and Nappy himself thought they were cheaper than Hussars so . . . whatever!

Remember, although I'm cropping-out the odd dog-ear, these are all roughly A4, and {print to screen} will produce A4 sheets for you, even of the colour plates which are actually closer to A6 in the original.