Category: Collecting Toy Soldiers

Playmobil Russians (not available commercially of course)

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Playmobil has a policy of not encouraging War Toys or Wargames (idiotic if you ask me when the most popular sales are the Pirate Ships… nothing worse than pirates in my book… and also produce Imperial Romans and even a Circus (Roman you know)… hundreds of fans indulge in making for themselves Napoleonic Armies (a forever popular addiction)… why Playmobil do not produce sets os soldiers or Military Bands eludes me completely… after all they do the pieces that you can collect bit by bit and then mount on… the most difficult part to get are Hats (some astute manufacturers in resin do) the rest is fairly easy to get. There are even flags adhesive manufactured! So there you have it we have those Armies after all… and Playmobil can manufacture James Bond Aston-Martin etc. Toy Soldiers are NOT their forte (a part from the ACW which they did!… and a lot of soldiers to do AWI/7YW… and cowboys and redskins)… a strange world we live in.

When Russians are made through customization…
Paulowski Grenadiers

Improving sets with bits&pieces

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Sometimes perfection needs a bit of variety… meaning that the REPLICA set was great but strangely enough the 4 gunners where a bit repetitive… 4 gunners in the same instance or attitude made 8 for a battery… so… with the passing of time I become obsessed by their looks and finally decided to add ramroads and bullets to them… see second pic. It was just a matter of ordering some bits&pieces to IMPERIAL/DORSET miniatures… and glue them on.

Now they look much better in my collection I guess… same to be done to an Indian Raj Battery (Only the bullets). There, now you know what obsessive collecting is… at least mine!

Enjoy!

Royal Artillery Set by Replica (Original)
Same set with “improved” gunners.
See what I mean?

More from IMPERIAL/DORSET MINIATURES

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Since a very young child I was a fan of P.C.Wren, yes I was able to read at a very young age… since then The BEAU GESTE trilogy (in fact five books and some short stories here & there) influenced my taste for toy soldiers and have collected them in all kind of scales (see elswhere in this Blog). In 54mm my DORSET collection precedes the REPLICA BRITISH 2nd AFHGAN WAR at least a couple of decenies… influenced by A GENTLEMAN’S WAR wargame rules (Howard Whitehouse) I am nowadays squaring the collection into 12 minis units to fight each other (for fun and tweaking the rules a bit). Of course the minis are not only used for AGW… a lot of scenarios can be played with each Army alone… more of that one day.

I let you with two recent additions by Antony Spencer head of design at IMPERIAL/DORSET (and ALL THE QUEEN’S MEN too I guess).

Enjoy!

FFL officer with flag.
FFL officer variant.

IMPERIAL/DORSET SOLDIERS Castings

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I was rather laconic yesterday (health issues)… nothing to worry about too much I guess. It is not always fun to be seventy.

Today I will show you what excellent service means… You ask for some French Foreign Legion castings with a detailed note explaining what you want… then Antony from IMPERIAL/DORSET SOLDIERS takes the trouble to send you the pics of them TO BE SURE the match is OK.

You can not ask for more!

I will be back buying from them in a monthly basis… already other orders are on the pipeline. You can not have a better deal!

Enjoy!

First pic
Second pic

Cabinet reorganization

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It was a necessity… specially for the small cabinet… the “TOKIO Tube look” is gone… so are The French Foreign Legion and the late British Empire (Kakhi)… gone to my old office to play A GENTLEMAN’S WAR with them…

So there you have it, the part of the collcetion in action stances is gone back to wargaming in Andorra la Vella… and the “ceremonial part” stays in Pal.

About time if you understand me. Yesterday afternoon it was a lot of work putting the Toy Soldiers in boxes to be moved and reorganizing the display on the small cabinet… the whole of six shelves was “gone”… but the result is satisfactory… I was already told once in Facebook that my figures needed space to “breathe”… alea jacta est.

Enjoy!

The French Foreign Legion and supports… are gone to another cabinet in my office.
So did the Kakhi British in Afghanistan… 6 shelves emptied in total…
This is the new look…You could do with some close ups but you got the idea alright!
There it is… door closed and all tip top.
The “big” cabinet slightly thinned down in numbers…
There you have it… closed down and “up to the nines”…

John Firth’s Delhi Durbar

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See complete series of pics (including Kipling) in Facebook group mytoysoldiersandme … awesome dispaly and collecting!

See Kipling (bespectacled)
Fantastic collection well displayed in a minimum of space…
Detail
Another detail
And yet another one…
No words…
Detail
Detail
Probably one of the longest series of pics on any of my posts… well deserved…

John Clarke’s Own

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Expressly built for A GENTLEMAN’S WAR ruleset I guess…

The battle of Dorking (completely fictional) is surely embeded in the mind of a lot of Toy Soldiers Wargamers in 54mm… do not ask me why… a sad depressing book (highly readable though)… shrinks/quack doctors do make a hard cash from it!

Enjoy the model! Ah! incidentally topped 120.000 visitors a couple of days ago, as usual this is popular specially in the USA (It puzzles me because stopping at 1900 it leaves out the US Century… but you’ll never know why at all)

I must confess I have acquired some Prussian Playmobils to play it too but maybe à la Wells.

Another nice piece in gloss this time…

Castings from IMPERIAL/DORSET SOLDIERS

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Due to the long absence of REPLICA from the market (hopefully available again in January) I checked and ordered some unpainted castings from IMPERIAL/DORSET Miniatures to complete some units. Yes, I will paint them myself and hopefully you will see the results in this webpage in a month or two.

Just writing this lines to praise the understanding and help from my contact (Antony) who delivered precisely what I needed. All this is a suite provoked by the HELP of Paul Watson with another Ensign I sorry missed.

So here you have me, meddling with brush and paints at my age!… LOL… in fact it is perfect for my age… a relaxing hobby if one exists.

More in a few weeks (keep checking).

Lateral view of future Ensigns around 1878
Highlander Bugler (without arms) and two Pipers
Frontal view of the Ensigns to be (I will add right arm with flag myself)
They would look like this once painted…
My pic (and Toy Soldiers) of the 66th (Berkshires) last stand at Maiwand. (The last eleven counting the dog) Those who are also History Buffs will know that in fact there were several last stands that day, and many fugitives that reached Kandahar in a pitiful state.

You usually care about details in Wargames or Toy Soldier Collecting after reading a lot about periods in History. The Second Anglo-Afghan War is well documented. What I do not understand is the obsession with Afghanistan at all in modern times!… but I digress… I stop my wanderings at 1900 for many good reasons and will not comment about later times nor – God forbid!- current events.