We checked all the figures, added a few lost items (very few), did some changes of headgear (mainly ADC’s), took a lot of pics, and enjoyed the time.
Their collections are in great shape as you can see in the pics. Armies usually have 4 line Infantry Units (regulars), 1 Light Company, 1 Grenadier Company; two units of Cavalry: Light Dragoons and Cuirassiers; Artillery (a couple of pieces); Sappers, and even a Doctor and assistants. Actually the Armies also have a mounted spy (masked) and a Religion Priest. Plenty of Generals and ADC’s too of course. Mainly the figures are straightaway from Playmobil figures and pieces (you are really spoilt for choice in the “tricorne period”) and apart from some resin headgear variations for the sake of shaking a bit the “uniformity” it is fairly easy to build your Armies. Old School Wargaming is probably the best approach IMHO
BTW the Red Army (British) is in the hands of the younger of my grandsons, but I do not mess with it because he is too young to take it too seriously and has to parade them a few years more I guess.
I reread the rules “Three Inch Glory” wargaming (XVIII Century) available for download free in google, recently they added a skirmish rules for 10/12 figures I must read too!
As usual an image is worth a thousand words, so here they are.
Enjoy
A set of rules (the only one I know).The back of the headgear of the Grenadiers.A basic unit, a company of regulars of the “white Army” (Spanish or Austrian is just a matter of clipping the right colours in the hands of the standard-bearers)Sorry for the “angle” but it was the only way to get a pic of the table.The White Army Light Dragoons.The White Army Cuirassiers.Cavalry Commander with guidon bearer.The Grenadiers of the Blue Army (French or Prussian if need be)The basic Unit a regular Company of Infantry.In the front facing left the Cavalry of the Blue Army (looking right you can see the backs of the White Army Cavalry Units).A close up.The Blue Army Light Dragoons (resin helmets by Javier Jimenez – MALONE-)
The Blue Army Cuirassiers.
The Blue Army Colours (French in this case)A French King with dog. (In fact is based on a Prussian King figure!)The White Army Colours (Spanish this time)
This is a summing up, there are more Posts in this present web page about Playmobil Toys… probably never intended to become Toy Soldiers (in the true sense) at all mind, but the GEOBRA brand did enjoy producing Pirate Ships and Romans (probably very reality hard core violent subjects in the real world)… so it is more a matter of deluding themselves I guess.
The Sport of Kings it was called, and small profesional Armies took rendez-vous (more or less) shooted a bit to each other and claimed victory (sometimes both sides) see Barry Lyndon film.
Football and TV had not yet been invented so you had to do something completely different if you follow my thoughts.
Seriously, the potential as entertaining friendly wargaming is there, I recognized, collected, customized, and give as a gift to my grandchildren (I am more into lead Toy Soldiers myself). But still have kept some in my own collection!
Yesterday, we took a look at their collections, well preserved (to my surprise!) and reorganized the whole lot. It was my intention (completely wrong) to buy from them instead from ebay the imaginary “scraps” of the lot because I feared once interest outgrown it is always the bin nowadays… LOL… WHAT A SURPRISE!… Now I will probably buy some items (the less interesting that anyway they will inherit no matter what!) to give them pocket money… but will preserve their collections (the best parts)… and stop messing about with them. Sometimes with the best of intentions you are proved completely wrong!
If I have time (and interest) I will probably write a fastplay set of rules for them. (I only know about the “3,5 inch rules” that are not bad at all… but I love them more concise and not so complicated.
Have some pics (I will add more today I think!) as a summing up.
Yesterday pic, nice Spanish Grenadiers with custom headgear. More pics today.Finally displayed on a bookshelve.Detailadded a bugleadded my personal avataradded a painted by me dogHow time flies!… I remember showing themselves how to parade them… they have grown up a lot! the elders are 17 and 15 this year… and I thought (maybe wrongly) that their interest would have faded and toys forgotten… LOL. I did not mess up with the small boy in the middle and his even younger sister because they still play with them from time to time I have been told.I heavily customized some characters in their collections, and it was FUN!Those are my personal pets (I still have some in my collection… YES… I have a small collection myself too!)The Band of the Guards took me a lot of time to complete… hard to find Tubas I remember.Trooping the Colour is one of my pet subjects in any scale…The 7th Cavalry… I even tried to sell them to no avail… LOLFrench Foreign Legion (I sold some of them)… the rest are for keeps.
Maybe in 2025 you will see “FASHODA GONE WRONG” an Old Toy Soldiers & Old Wargame entertainment (SOLO). 54MM AGW affair using British and French Colonials (NO entente cordiale… LOL)… in fact I am pretty sure that this one would be my next wargame (Old School).
You see I do not like to “kill” natives or indigenous people in my wargames… I do not collect them as “cannon fodder” (Not even in 6mm mind!)… One thing is collecting miniatures (read Toy Soldiers) and the other is not being aware of the more grim aspects of colonialism (as if Persian, Greeks and Romans… to name a few were not “colonialist” or “conquerors”)… BUT here is not the place for discussing seriously the inhuman race.
Get a sight of the troops that would be involved on the pics below. All the affair would be precipitated by the French Commander in place… General Armand d´Hubry et Nemesis desire to win the Legion d’Honneur…
Finally finished Army (The armoured car is a secret weapon proptotype only used in the NWF)… same as the Indian Army Units (Guides&Gurkhas)… Bengal Lancers not going to FASHODA either. This pic shows the full Kakhi British Army in its proper cabinet next to the wargames table).French Troops (99% by Dorset Soldiers and a REPLICA General!)More French XIXth Corps d’Afrique.British and Allies (meaning Indian Raj Troops) by REPLICA and Dorset Soldiers.The British “proper” minis…
Of course, after that incident and its consequences either Calais or Dover would be involved in a messy action… follow that here website for more!
Britains Little Army (soon to be reinforced) is awaiting the second battle as a consequence…Much more recent picture!
Box 1Box 2Box 3The two sets of Victorian (SIMKIN TIMES) CavalryThee Highland BrigadeForefront 6th Dragoon Guards (Carbineers) and 16th lancers in the rear rank. Pic “in process” by Andrew Stevenson.
Finally here! (meaning ANDORRA)
They are part of a larger order… but Cavalry always have an extra appeal to me.
In 2023 (by the last months) I placed an order with Andrew Stevenson (REPLICA METAL MODEL SOLDIERS)… this is part of it.
Intended to be a part of a little British Army to play AGW (Yes you’ve guessed right I will of course mess with the original rules!)
Never thought the vast amounts of patience needed nowadays to collect “la creme de la creme” (si j’ose dire)… days, weeks, months, more than a year sometimes… but well worth the wait.
The problem (main) is not the wait itself… it is my age LOL)… time is now an issue…
You can not “hurry up” Andrew… he is IMHO an “artist”… multiple interests…. multiple ranges…. multiple novelties…. multiple objectives… he also collects!…. whatever… Probably the best if you are affected by BRITAIN’s nostalgia… I have never indulged in collecting “antiques” if you think pre-WWII (or WWI for that matter) Toy Soldiers…. do not have the time… neither the money (or budget)… neither the interest (pure or purist). On the contrary I do collect NOW the Centennial sets by Britain! (You need all sorts you know…).
The use of REPLICA models in wargames is a bit of an heressy as I considere them “collector’s items” on their own right!. But boy do they bring “class” to your tabletop…
I enjoy the step by step approach following the books you all have…
Enjoy!
Buford’s Cavalry is in position.Overall view of my ex-office with the 10 Corps involved deployed (3 Rebs and 7 Yankees)A Confederate Corps of 3 Divisions.A Union Corps also of 3 Divisions.General Lee HQ’s + foreign observers + Reserve Artillery
Made some pics today showing variants or different ways to base minis in a standard 60x30mm stand.
All minis are 6mm Baccus and the buildings are all Leven.
After building a collection of brigades in an orthodox way (meaning two lines of 12 minis and 4 skirmishers forward… as recommended on the most popular rules). I started to think that what really mattered was the Brigade stand per se. So it existed leeway to the way you could glue or organize the minis on the stand to add aesthetic effects and variety.
Here is some of the results. I used the Army of Northern Virginia for the pics but the Army of the Potomac has the same treatment in my collection.
Hope you enjoy.
4 Brigades (Second line does not have skirmishers forward, 3 small Regiments on the front Brigades; second line flanks refused.More heterodox basing of minis.Two brigades with 2 Regiments each.Other variants: Front left VMI (a la HORSE SOLDIERS), front right 2 different size regiments, the one on the extreme right is different.Second line: Brigade of 3 regiments on the left, Brigade charging on the right (Can also be used for routed troops)
After some gluing up, I finally organized the Zulu War Cavalry… even some mounted Infantry to be redcoated yet.
I started with the 17th lancers from my spares box… and followed with some NNC Cavalry (also from the SB)… but the Natal Mounted Police and Carbineers come from GREG… after organizing and basing (pending flock) I did a surplus contingent of mounted Infantry.
Curiously enough, I can be heterodox in the basing because small colonial affairs permit it (IMHO)… but I am quite ortodox in basing with big conflicts like the ACW (but for Artillery Commanders and other markers I use (deviating from the more popular Rulesets!)… all is a matter of personal satisfaction I guess.
That ends another Project in 6MM.
Probably my last!
Enjoy!
Both mounted and dismounted Cavalry (auxilliary but the 17th lancers).
Sellers and postage etc went without a hitch… tip top all the way! (I clarify this because I forgot to mention). Kudos to them.
You see I was busy at the beginning of the 90’s and did not notice at all when William Britains did those soldiers in 54MM… Busy working on my real life and not much time for the hobby in that “fighting stances scale”… after a deep crisis with wargaming in 25/28MM (which caused the collection to be sold) I was going into 6MM wargaming (still are and satisfied of my decision) but indulging in Playmobils Hard Plastic 75MM… I still collected in 54MM but quite display and ceremonial sets (still have them no fear).
The acquisition of the book A GENTLEMAN’S WAR provoked an interest on wargaming in 54MM a la Wells (very old classic stuff) and I decided to reshuffle my collection. The French (mainly French Foreign Legion were transported to Andorra la Vella and left Pal forever… so did the Second Afghan War Replica Collection… and then I completed those sets (still at it mind) to play my FASHODA went wrong scenario… pitching one against the other… a part of playing them solo in colonial semi-historical more correctly.
Then one day Andrew Stevenson published a pic of his units in full SIMKIN uniforms splendid array… and I was hooked… so I am now building a purely DORKING scenario British Army. BUT no Prussians at all… the French will do the trick again! (being the “enemy” I mean).
The tribulations of a loony collector should have titled this post!
And of course 30 years later you need to search for them on ebay!
Guards should be on the right of the line but I was in a hurry!Yes those are the Guards but I finally added the white frontal stripe.Those are the ebay.co.uk buys… read the text for more detail.The “oversized drummer will go out” to another cabinet… a miss…In the process of exchanging “colours”…no way I am going to field two Union Jacks…Third and last unit (have to paint new facings) at least the drummer is the right proportion.See the difference?… even the base is too “tall” on the big drummer… part of a Band set I guess….The changing of the arm was easy and swift the second time… the first one still shows the stress of the first conversion.
