Two sets were issued, the same six poses of generic post-Cold War US ground troops ('Grunts'), one set being painted in the green temperate combat fatigues of a USMC unit, the other; Army Infantry in desert combats.
Checkin' out the check-point (actually an Airfix Desert Outpost), a close up of the 6 figures going about their business, nice figures and still readily available being only a few years old, and from the time when Corgi was churning out stuff in a mad rush to one of it's periodic bankruptcies!!
I tend to look upon these as being, like the various Bluebird issues in the UK at around the same time, a nice idea, but - if not actually daft, certainly born in the wrong time. Issued in 1990, when the small scale (non-war-gaming white metal) market was pretty stagnant, Esci/A-Toys were phasing out and Revell had barely got started with a few down-scaled Hausser/Elastolin.
However, like Bluebird and Galoob further afield, there was this piecemeal, drip-drip attempt by the established toy guys to re-capture the electronic computer-game generation with Toy Soldiers and/or wrest people away from action figures and back to something more traditional.
This was Monogram's stab at the impossible task (not that impossible as within a few short years (1996 onwards) A Call to Arms, Accurate/Imex, HaT and the Eastern sculptors would create - very quickly - the renaissance we are in the midst of and still enjoying), being sets of 5-each, factory painted, die-cast zink-alloy (mazak) 'Pocket Force' figures from World War Two and the Vietnam Conflict.
Unusual, but then we are talking about the company that produced the 'Monogram Merite' 54mm lead figures - while ostensibly remaining a Plastic Kit manufacturer - in the late 1960's! No scale is given for these but they come in at 25mm exactly, plus depth of base.
There were two main product ranges, the figure sets themselves in a substantial styrene carry case with built-in magnifiers to see detail of the figures (well executed, but a flat and basic paint-job) and a thumbnail sketch 'Collectors Card' of the troops on the card reverse, which - I guess - you were meant to cut-out and place in the box, although this instruction wasn't given.
And then (Never start a paragraph with 'and' Swany used to say...sorry Mr. Swan!) they were issued with the fold-up rubber 'Battle Link' fire-zones! This was the probably true downfall of the range, mine is mint and I can't get it to fold-up or stay folded for five seconds; you're not going to buy a second example of an 'interactive' toy that refuses to interact!
So, with 8 sets of 5 figures and eight Battle Links there are only 40 figures or 16 mint items to locate, and these do turn up relatively inexpensively, quite often. Distributed by Revell Plastic GmbH in Europe, they were licenced from Dixon-Manning Ltd, the UK toy design firm started by ex-Marx/Aurora guys John Dixon and Peter Manning.
One slight mystery - around the mid-naughties (an awful expression but 'the twenty-hundreds' is a right-old mouthful!) there appeared a pre-production shot of a then forthcoming range of Corgi military sets with figures, and I'm sure they showed some of these guys - complete with the oxide-brown bases.
However; I now can't find the catalogue or flier I saw the original in, indeed it may have been something like an issue of Die-cast collector, however if it turns up I'll add it to this post. I definitely remember mentioning it to Paul Morehead during one of our chats, but I don't want to be a Barry Bullshiter, if it's some false memory, the Dixon-Manning link though, is a likely clue, they may have had a set lying around that could be used for pre-production press release photo-shoots, especially if they were involved in the birth of the new Corgi range. In the end Corgi issued new, vinyl sculpts titled; 'Tactical Strike'.
Pocket Force
8071 US 7th Marines Vietnam
8073 – Vietcong Guerillas
8075 – US “1st Infantry” WWII
8077 – German Infantry WWII
- US Special Forces Vietnam
- North Vietnamese
- US Paratroopers WWII
- German Paratroops WWII
Battle Links
1/8176 – Vietnam Firebase with US Marines
2 – Vietnam Jungle with Vietcong
3 – WWII Farm with German Infantry
4 – WWII Beachfront with US Infantry
5 – Vietnam River Bank with US Special Forces
6 – Vietnam Sniper Base with North Vietnam Regulars
7 – WWII Checkpoint with US Paratroopers
8 – WWII Eastern Stronghold with German Paratroopers
The standard Legionary set for Imperial Rome, 9 each of two soldier poses and a three figure 'Command' group. You got 5 of the accessory sprues so lots of spare arms (in glue-able plastic!) and the odd spare shield. A Transfer sheet was - again - originally included, but later sold separately and flash was niggle-some with this issue.
Cleaned-up and equipped with right arms & shields, the advancing legionnaire is a reasonable figure. On the right the same figure is given a home-made shield from melted/squashed sprue and with a cavalry arm fitted makes another auxiliary skirmisher.
Set AR2 was born Roman Light Infantry and would go on to become AR2a - Auxiliary Javelin-men, and AR2b Western Auxiliary Archers. Left-hand of each row is the original, the rest have had a little work with spare arms and stretched sprue, there was so much potential in this, and I wish we could have, today, more hard plastic/styrene figures...that aren't 28/32mm!
The cavalry set, again the transfers would eventually get separated, but with 12 shields in two designs and 6 arms this was good value for the 99p being charged in 1982, although our friends across the water might have had more to say about $2.75 as - at the time - 99p equaled no more than 2 dollars?
First thing to note is that the artwork hints at all sorts of Hong Kong favourites being available, the Crescent/Blue Box WWI gun, the Nissen-huts and tents, Britains Palm trees, Marx barbed-wire etc...but not in this set, so they might be in other sets?
This is what was in the box, all standard HK fare, there was also the windscreen of a - missing? - Jeep. Not actually marked HK, but I'm pretty sure that's where it came from, the trucks have different wheels to the usual HK ones, but the remains of the mould numbers of the HK mouldings are under these so it looks like they were produced in HK for Solpa. Trucks are ex-Kleeware models while the boat seems to be a new design.
The figures, again we have a mix of the usual fare and some newies; top row are the old Britains Khaki infantry poses, bottom left sees two Airfix Germans while the other three are relatively new and dealt with below.
The three 'new' poses. The one on the left seemed familiar and I posed him with the hard plastic Hasegawa kit-figure, but think - upon reflection - that he is based on the similar radio-operator from the early Esci-Revell GI's kit. The middle figure is the old Crescent 8th army pose, much copied by HK, however he's been given a vague German helmet!
Two of the Greek sets bagged, there are two other sets - Cavalry and Macedonian Phalangites, set AG2 became AG2a & 2b with 20 of one pose instead of 10 each of both.
As well as splitting the peltasts/archers (and splitting one of the Roman sets into two) in later production the transfer sheets were dropped from inclusion in the bagged sets as well and sold separately.
My pitiful selection of Cavalry, I know what the head of the other rider looked like as some have been glued to this guy! And with both horse poses I have nothing to complain about!
The head of the missing cavalry pose, which as you can see has been 'cut and pasted' on to the cavalryman I already have, so I don't know what his whole pose looks like! And I forgot to post the other foot poses in the Greek range so here they are, again I have no weapons for them so don't know if they were separate plastic mouldings like the Romans, or metal, or indeed if you were supposed to source them yourself like some HaT Greeks? I used the bloke on the right to hold horses! Listing imported from defunct A-Z, below.
The obvious first conclusion was that they never made a figure similar to the Kinder figure, George Washington (7080, left) was the only seated figure in the AWI range, and seems to have been produced only in the 7cm/70mm range. The horse however IS based on an Elastolin sculpt, used by the Wild West range (itself a variation of an earlier horse used by the ancient and medieval ranges), here shown on the right with a cavalry trooper.
I then discovered that I hadn't put the Culpitt's rider on the spare horse at all - he was too big, so I put a spare Airfix officer on it instead, they were in the 'waiting for a base' pile!
Top, a 40mm Elastolin horse with the kinder version to the right. Below them the full Airfix figure on the left and the Culpitt's figure to the right, while below is the Marx Paul Revere courtesy of Scott.
It would seem that the Kinder figure is in fact a combination of the two, He has the right (pointing to the rear) arm of the Marx figurine, but the left (holding reins) of the Airfix. He has the wide-collared 'cape' from Marx with the coat-tails halfway between Marx and Airfix. So in the end a quite unique figure, which ties in nicely with Airfix and other war-gaming figures of the type.
A comparison shot between the Kinder and similar chasing Blue Box 30mm cowboy, similar in that it has a 'swoppet' style base and plug-in legs on the rider. The Blue Box model is based on a Britains 54mm Swoppet original.
Many thanks to Scott for the use of the Photo, Scott's blog is here; Things you'll like, it's very good.
Almost cirtainly from 1979 and in commemoration of the American Bicentennial celebration of internal terrorist insurgency (it's a joke!), this figure is one of, if not THE most desirable Kinder toy ever made.
Res Plastics (RP) supplied a lot of the figures Kinder included in their solidified Nuttela balls during the late 1970's and on through to the mid-80's, among which were these Superheros in two sizes, 54mm and 30mm, so far I've only tracked down Batman and Superman, but these sets usually contain at least 4 figures so who am I missing? I suspect Robin the Boy Wonder and Superwoman, or is it Supergirl? [The apparent moulding variation in the 30mm Bat...'men' is due to the angle of lean on the green one!]
My favorites, but suffering from a very real frangibility of the plastic from day one, the Arabs/Colonials are compatible with both the Airfix and Italeri figures and with a possible 9 different configurations of camel, can really enhance the low pose rate in both those sets. Two Arab poses, one with a FFL style kepi-blanc and the other with a solar topee/Pith helmet, these are non-combatant in execution. There is a 5th pose, an Arab with his arm up, I haven't tracked down yet.
Occasionally the two 'European' poses in the above set came with a horse instead of a camel, again the horses come in two halves but this time four of each giving a possible 16 configurations.
The other RP figures in this series of sets. The Romans and Musketeers seem to be far more common than the Wellingtonians, Knights and Barbarians, but all things come to those who wait, and in the meantime I have another million figures to find!
A 'spruelette' I've been holding on to for years without knowing which figure/set it comes from!
Three Imai caricatures based on Star Wars, or at least using the coat-tails of the Lucas cash cow to 'fly'! A robot 'walker' from Bandai, this is apparently 1:144, but as it's a lot bigger than the Takara 1:144 robots I covered back at the start of this blog, there's a lot of flexibility as to what scale it - or any large robot - actually is. With some being manned, and others autonomous, and with most either imaginary or based on TV cartoons on the other side of the world, you can make them any size you want. I'll probably make these up as they're all pretty modern.
Dkwookie on the HaT forum brought these to our attention the other week and I managed to pick some up that weekend, still available from 'The Works' discount book/craft shops here in the UK, at 1:90 they are passable for war-games in 15/20mm.
The LCF train set came from Peter Evans, one of the founders of Plastic Warrior, who knows the eclectic, completest nature of my collecting well enough to buy a piece of Hong Kong tat - so bad it's good - whenever he sees it!! It also arrived a week before he said he'd send it, thanks Peter!
Finally, this came from Mercator Trading (link to right), I sometimes help out on his stall at shows, and had watched it not sell for a couple of outings, but people did keep looking at it, so in the end I coughed up and will cover it fully in a day or two. A whole box of Dregeno wooden tractors from the former East Germany...Bargain!
The loose set gets put in a click-shut bag 4x5 1/2 inches (none of that jumped-up French artilleryman's metric shite here!!) with an index card that has the maker, the set title and whether or not it's a complete set written-in.
The 'detail' sheet then goes into the A-Z 'Book Manuscript', this is for small scale figures only (15mm-45mm) and currently extends to two volumes with about 500 companies listed and appendixes. In this case the sheet slips between Preiser and Pressman.
The sleeved ephemera gets slotted into the larger multi-volume files on all things military and civilian - toy & model - Metal, card and plastic. Lying in between Premier and Pressfix, this leaver arch file is one of two for the letter 'P', being Po-Q.
