Feast and Famine.

 We're already heading towards the end of the car boot season, and this year the pickings have been very thin, but last weekend there was a bumper crop:

The complete haul above cost less than £20 in total, particularly pleased to get the Tudor houses in the background which are ceramic ornaments and in scale for 28mm figures (but will work fine with 54mm).  The vast bulk of WW2 Airfix are conversion fodder destined to become medieval footmen.

I needed some French para's to go with my Viet Minh for the Indochina project but don't like to mess about with vintage Starlux if I can help it so these Hugennot copies will do the job just fine.

Some of the better odds and ends will be gifted or end up in the junk boxes at the Plastic Warrior Show next year.

At first I though the crude hollowcast copies of Britains Zulus were homecast and planned to repaint them but when I checked the markings under the base I saw they were made by Hanks, so I'll probably keep them as they are. 

French made Matelots

I have always had a particular fondness for toy soldiers made in France, they produce them in every conceivable material, and while the sculpting isn't always the sharpest, the poses are always very imaginative.  Here are a few examples:

The first two above were made by Miniajouet, the first is an early figure made in rubber during the 1950's the second is later manufacture in hard plastic.  The third figure was made by JSF (Jouets Standard Francaise) and was originally made in hollowcast lead.

Two helmsmen from JSF and one from Miniajouet, all of the figures shown in this post were originally produced in both white and blue plastic.

The Naval officer with pistol is a first series plastic figure by Starlux, who originally made toy soldiers in a plaster composition material called "blanc de meudon" hence the rather chunky design.  A Naval Aviator made in rubber and a later plastic Captain with sextant from Miniajouet.

The Matelot dragging an anchor is from the same Miniajouet set as the others shown in this post, they were originally made in hollowcast by HR (Henri Roger) there are a few more in the set but I don't have them (yet).  The middle two are by Domage & Cie who sold aluminium figures under the trade name Aludo and plastics (acetate) as here under the name Acedo, the first figure with the bucket of water is a soft plastic copy.  The last chap is sitting on a pile of rope eating his dinner, he has lost the spoon which he should be holding in his right hand, made by JSF and from the same series as the others in this post.

If figures like these float your boat you can see lots more on the French 1/32 Plastic Toy Soldier Forum, there is a link to it in the header bar of this blog.  You have to register to join and the text is mostly in French but there are lots of pictures and it is by far and away the best resource on the internet for all types of old toy soldiers.

The Romanians are coming!

Plans are afoot for a wargame set in the Crimea during WW2 using 54mm plastic toy soldiers, it's a way off yet but it will still need a bit of preparation.  Fortunately the game will require little in the way of air and armour units, but it will require some Romanian infantry and I can't think of any firm that made such troops, therefore some sort of bodge is called for.

 Taking the Osprey book as my source for uniforms I trawled through the mountain of junk figures I keep for such purposes and came up with several bags of these Hugonnet figures.  I bought them for a few francs a bag in a supermarket, on a booze cruise to Calais forty years ago, and they have been languishing in the back of a cupboard ever since waiting for me to come up with a use for them.  I've included the header card from the bag which shows the Hugonnet/Feral logo quite nicely in the bottom right corner.

The Romanian uniform comprised a full length jacket and short gaiters, so we're okay on that score, Mountain Rifle Regiments wore a large floppy beret, so that's good too.  Only problem is with the regular infantry units who wore a variety of helmets including the French "Adrian" and Dutch models, I have some metal heads in Adrian helmets so could do a few quick swops for a bit of variation but the current helmets are fairly indistinct so I may just leave them as they are.

Here are all the poses, Hugonnet were notorious for making piracies of other firms figures, mostly Starlux but also Cofalu and Cherilea.  The first three figures in the top row are copies of Starlux and the rest are all copies of Cofalu modern French army toy soldiers.

Moulded in green and tan these are very much the French equivalent of "Army Men" cheap toys in plastic, colour coded to provide two distinct armies.  They are crude, anatomically challenged and badly moulded, many carrying the deformity of being injected into an overheated mould.  But for all that I have a certain fondness for them, the poses are very dynamic and I've always felt they had potential, I just never figured out what that might be.  Well, we'll see.....

Battle of al-Musayfirah 1925

We felt it was time to give the "One Hour Wargame" (OHW) rules by Neil Thomas another airing, Anthony and I both like the fast moving simplicity of this game system and it works well with 54mm toy soldiers.

Looking back through old copies of Wargames Illustrated for inspiration I found a scenario for the Battle of al-Musayfirah in 1925 during the Great Syrian Revolt.   After WW1 The League of Nations had given France a mandate to govern Syria and the French promptly instituted a number of measures to control the local tribes.  This inevitably lead to a nationalist uprising  by the Druze, which spread to the other tribes.

We chose scenario 15 from OHW, Fortified Defence, as it best reflected the actual battle.  Basically, a French Foreign Legion column was ambushed and badly mauled so the survivors took refuge in an old Turkish fort at Suwayda.  A relief column was prepared and an advance party sent forward to set up a defensive position at the town of al-Musayfirah as a staging post for the main column following behind.   A traditional colonial campaign in the finest traditions of P C Wren and Beau Geste, here's how it went:

On the left is the old Turkish fort at Suwayda, the town behind it in the rear centre is  al-Musayfirah, to the right of the town is a rocky area, in the OHW scenario this should be woods but rocks are more suitable for the desert so we just gave them the same terrain effect for movement and combat as woods.

We diced to see what forces each side would get, the French got 3 Inf, 2 Arty and 1 Cav, while the Druze got 3 Inf, 1 Heavy and 2 Cav.  That seemed to represent the original forces quite well, I wasn't sure what to use for the Druze heavy unit, in reality they had some artillery but I couldn't find any references to machine guns or other heavy weapons so a little imagination was called for.

The French start with one unit in the old Turkish fort at Suwayda and one in al-Musayfirah.  The Druze opened the ball with a mass attack on the garrison in the old Turkish fort.  Victory would go to whichever side occupied both the town and fort at the end of 15 turns.

The rules give the two garrisons additional firepower, which reflects the actual battle as the French had machine guns which took a terrible tole on the attackers.   To even things up the Druze have a refit rule which allows them to create a second wave with all their original units at their starting positions, rather like the Zulu wave mechanism we used in our recent Rorke’s Drift game.

The French cavalry came from the collection of veteran wargamer John Ruddle who created them from bits and pieces of old Britains hollow cast Spahis, all repaired and repainted.  Behind them the French Command are represented by Starlux mounted FFL.

The first wave of the Druze attack succeeds in overrunning the defenders in the fort and pushing back the relief column.  At this point they invoked the refit rule, leaving the fort abandoned temporarily while the second wave formed up for a renewed attack.

In the Druze second wave one unit has reoccupied the fort while the main push is directed against the garrison at al-Musayfirah.  Here the remaining infantry and Command, with heavy unit attached, use the cover of the rocky terrain to advance for a mass attack on the town.  The camel borne gun is the handiwork of Ross Macfarlane, as are the fort and town buildings.

The all out assault goes in, Druze mounted units rush the town while the foot provide covering fire from the rocks, will the beleaguered garrison hold out?

As we reached turn 15 and the end of the game, the superior firepower of the French forces carried the day.  A bombardment of the fort drove the Druze defenders out, leaving it unoccupied, while the mounted units caught in the open were wiped out by the French mountain artillery.

Anthony insisted we take a picture of the lunch, l'd like to tell you it was something suitably North African but clearly it's traditional beer and pizza.

The game played out very similar to the real battle, in 1925 the Druze suffered heavy casualties from the French machine gun strongpoints in al-Musayfirah.  They did manage to break into the town and promptly made off with all the columns horses and donkeys, but the attack through the rocks was broken up by a continuous bombardment from French aircraft.

It's surprising what turns up.

The recent mild weather in the South East (UK)  has ushered in the start of the Car Boot Sale season a little earlier than usual.  Our local one is held on a farm, so it's a good long walk in the early morning fresh air, and I like to go along as often as I can for the exercise.  Who am I kidding, I go along for the bacon rolls and to hunt toy soldiers!   It can be very hit or miss but  here's what I picked up this week and last:

A group of modern white metal figures made by Del Prado, the first one depicting Captain Souter of the 44th Regiment of Foot could have walked straight out of the Last Stand at Gandamak painting by William Barnes Wollen.  The remaining five are all types of the French Foreign Legion, this series was issued in France but not in the UK so they are harder to find here, I use them mostly for uniform research and at less than £2 each they had to come home with me.

I know nothing about old tin toys, except that I like them, and I do like to include them as set dressing in wargames.  The saloon car is about the rights size for 54mm toy soldiers while the Omnibus is a bit small but I think we'll get away with it, they both need a bit of cleaning up and straightening out but nothing too drastic.  I don't think there's any great age to them, they look like modern reproductions to me but for a couple of quid each they had to go in the bag.  Likewise the ceramic stable block which was made to take a tea light candle but will now illuminate my toy village.

Finally a hotch-potch of odds and ends that came in at about 50p each from various junk boxes.  The first three Britains/Herald Robin Hood figures are so damaged and scuffed that they will end up as conversion fodder.  The Evzone and horse from the Lone Star Lone Ranger figure will be passed on to someone else at the forthcoming Plastic Warrior Show next month.

The remaining two figures I'll keep, the chap in green is a Starlux character figure of Barberousse (Red beard) from the ORTF (Office de Radiodiffusion Television Francaise) TV series Richard Coeur de Lion.  The set was issued in the mid 1960's and included two foot figures each of Richard, Redbeard and Blondel and one mounted figure of Richard, they're quite hard to find.  The diminutive figure of Napoleon was made in France by MDM.  The palm tree is a modern white metal item.

The Plastic Warrior Show is being held on Saturday 11th May and further details can be found on the Plastic Warrior blog, link in the column to the left.  Good Hunting!

Toy Soldier Auction at Sheffield Auction Gallery

Time for a post on proper toy soldiers!  Last week a large collection of toy soldiers went up for sale at the Sheffield Auction Gallery, I didn't get along to it myself but I hear from those who did that the bidding was brisk.  Surprise of the show must be the prices achieved for boxes of Airfix figures: 17 assorted boxes of 1/32 made £220 against Estimate (E) £30/50 while 17 assorted boxes of HO/OO made £320 (E) £60/100, That's about £13 a box for 54mm, which seems reasonable and about £19 a box for 20mm, which doesn't, or am I out of touch?

Anyway here are pics of some of the more interesting lots, or at least the ones that I thought were.  As always, click the picture to enlarge, click again it's even bigger, all photos courtesy of Sheffield Auction Gallery:

One of the earlier lots typical of those being offered this one went for £35 (E) £30/50, many similar lots were (E) £20/30 and sold in the range of £30/40.  I'm showcasing this particular lot because it has some interesting Continental figures and I noticed several Malleable Mouldings in there. Most of the other mixed lots of this size were less interesting and generally sold above estimate.

This Marx Big Top Circus made in Swansea reached £28 (E) £20/30, the box is tatty but the tinplate tent was there without any figures.  How much would this have sold for in the USA? No doubt someone will tell us, there isn't the same interest in Marx tinplate in the UK and several other lots went for prices that our American colleagues haven't seen in decades.

This shot has a good view of the Marx Movable Indian with all his accessories, issued about 1967, I remember seeing them in the shops and they have remained a firm favourite ever since. Sold £22 (E) £20/30.

The Barzo Davy Crockett Playset, of recent manufacture in the style of the old Marx playsets it is now out of production and eagerly sought after in the USA. Sold £40 (E) £20/40

An original Marx Cape Canaveral playset, I'm not really interested in anything non military but included this because we didn't get these playsets over here in Europe during the 1950s and 60s so a lot of people won't be familiar with them and this is quite a good example. Sold £70 (E) £50/80

A selection of 17 Carmen figures, solid lead, made in the 1930s/50s by W Y Carman (President of the British Model Soldier Society) for adult collectors, these are a bit knocked about but I love 'em.  Sold £180 (E) £30/50.

A good selection of rareish plastics: an original box of Cavendish "British Regiments 1751" made for the tourist trade along with Henry VIII and his numerous wives, an unpainted SEGOM figure from France, Monarch Highlanders, several pieces from the Charbens Francis Drake set, 2 from the Gemodels Humpty Dumpty set and various Cherilea/Crescent oddments. Overall a great lot. Sold £120 (E) £60/80

A complete set of the Benbros hollowcast Robin Hood set, nothing special about it but it's a good pic of a very nice set.  I have them in plastic....what's that you say...but Benbros never made them in plastic! True they didn't but Giles Brown of Dorset Soldiers acquired the original moulds and cast a few sets when he was experimenting with plastics. Sold £110 (E) £25/40 (I did say it was a nice set!)

A nice pic of the box art for the Cherilea Medieval Castle, notice the strange squared off triangle shape of the Keep, I could never figure out why they did that? Also the Cherilea Toys logo, the late version after the company had been taken over by Sharna Ware and the gawky Hong Kong knockoffs of Timpo swoppet knights. The castle was made to go with their 65mm knights so why didn't they use them in the picture? Sold £28 (E) £20/40

There's nothing special about the Kleeware castle, it turns up all the time and was reissued by Timpo at one point but again it's a nice pic of the original box art. Sold £25 (E) £25/40

Britains hollowcast Territorial Army, these five unremarkable figures sold for £440 (E) £20/40 so they must have something going for them!

Two figures of Charles II by Courtney, again they aren't really toy soldiers, having been made for the adult collectors market, but they do have a certain vintage and you don't see them very often so it's nice to be able to showcase such a good shot. Sold £80 (E) £20/40

More Courtney's, this time 2 x Elizabeth I together with Henry VIII and three of those unfortunate spouses, Sir Francis Drake resplendent in white, someone bowing that I can't make out and one other by Vertunni. Sold £160 (E) £80/100

Finally a group of 5 figures based on the Coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II by Graham Farish, the sixth figure on the extreme right (which has been misdescribed in the catalogue) is Marie de la Queillerie made by SAE (Swedish African Engineers) and was given given away free with petrol in South Africa

There was lots of other good stuff, not least of which was a Lone Star Dick Turpin which sold for a respectable £75 (E) £20/40 and you can view more of them here Sheffield Auction Gallery I don't know how long they keep these results up for so take a look soon if you're interested.  Having worked in the auction industry I can tell you that on average a general art sale will expect to get a sell through rate of about 50%, specialist sales like this tend to get a much better hit rate, looking through the results I could only find three lots that didn't sell out of 320 in the toy soldier section, that's over 99%.  A stonking good result and food for thought for all those Jonah's out there who delight in telling us that the hobby is dying.

Tony Bath - War Game of the Middle Ages and Ancient Times - part 2

So how did the rules work out?  Well I have to admit when I was drafting the quick reference sheet I had grave misgivings.  Players dice to see who goes first in each game turn, the winner moves, fires and melees, then the loser does the same, actions are consecutive not simultaneous.  Movement distances and terrain penalties are sensible and not over complex, the same goes for firing ranges and effect, so it's all fast moving.  So far so good.

The French Battle advances, crossbow companies in the lead followed by knights on foot and heavy infantry.  The mounted knights hold back while the footmen test the softness of the ground and clear a path through the English men at arms.

The only difficulty we had was with the melee system, the rules state that when a figure from one side moves to within half an inch of an enemy they create the "contact point" and that all figures within an infantry move (i.e. 12 inches) of said point are included in the melee. Seems straightforward but in practice so many troops are drawn in that it just becomes one almighty bundle, perhaps it works better with 30mm figures?

First blood to the archers, three companies of French crossbows get off the first string of arrows and annihilate the Burgundian bowmen.  Realising the threat of being unable to reply to the enemy archers the English light horse charge and catch them unsupported in open ground as they ride them down.

The melee is a two stage process, first you asses which side has won then you calculate the casualties.  And this is where the difficulty comes in, different troop types (see QR sheet at bottom of post) have combat values which vary depending on the troop types opposing them.  This is fine when both sides have the same troop types in the melee but with the 12 inch inclusion zone described above it is inevitable that you will have mixed arms (heavy/light cavalry, heavy/light infantry etc.) on both sides and we found it nigh on impossible to figure out who had won the melee, try it yourself and you'll see what I mean.  

To simplify the situation we broke the melees down into a unit on unit calculation rather than the 12 inch free for all and it seemed to work okay.  Once the winner has been decided, casualties are based on a simple calculation which ensures that the larger side always wins, very similar to the system in H G Wells "Little Wars"

The footmen of both sides lock horns as they slowly splash through the soggy marshlands.

In the melee we found that when the heavier armoured French eventually came to grips with the enemy they bludgeoned their way through the lines but the greater numbers and mobility of the lighter Allies meant that they could quickly plug the gaps to blunt their advance and wear them down by attrition.

Four companies of English men at arms hover like mosquitoes around the edges of the wetlands.

Over the years I've been picking up bits and pieces of Timpo knights on the cheap - a pair of legs here, a torso there, from the junk boxes at shows and when I started to put all the bits together I found I had a decent enough quantity to field an army with no painting involved.  The only drawback being that there is a preponderance of Crusaders which seem to have been very much more common.  The idea of using them as a Crusader army in the Holy Land doesn't really float my boat and I can't see me picking up enough Timpo Arabs to make that feasible so I have decided that any figure in a white tunic with a red Cross of St. George will be English.

After riding down the French archers the English cavalry have overreached themselves and are charged in the flank by the French heavies.

I think it's fair to say that some rather basic tactical errors were made on both sides, notably advancing archers unsupported in an attempt to close the range for them (I might consider extending the bow range to 3 feet in future games).  With the loss of all the archers the game turned to one of local melees erupting all over the field and with no morale rules to break the tension these became a fight to the finish slugfest.

The English numbers hold up well against the heavier strength of the French knights and both sides are worn down by attrition until the allies decide to slip away leaving the French in command of the field but too depleted to follow up.

So all in all a fun fast play game, we both agreed the rules worked well as the core of the system but they need a little bit more built around them like something to cause a unit to break and run or even refuse to fight.   Our aim was to play the to game as close as we could to the original rules, or at least our interpretation of their intention and I think we achieved that, although I would love to have tried them using 30mm flats.  This was just a trial run so we kept the scenario simple but tried to include as many of the troop types and terrain features as possible, the original manuscript offers additional features such as constructing earthworks, sieges, supply etc. And for the Ancients there are chariots and auxiliaries, all the more reason to buy the book (see last post)

The quick reference sheet for the rules, should anyone wish to give them a spin!  Oh I think I forgot to mention that the loser of a melee falls back 1 move, quite important that. 

Tony Bath - War Game of the Middle Ages and Ancient Times - 1956

Following on from the Herring War game a few weeks back (see earlier post) AM and I made tentative arrangements to meet again across the table of  Mars, AM chose the period, Medieval, so I got to choose the rules.  I was a little surprised at the choice, but pleasantly so as I'd been spending a little too much hobby time working on the 17th and 19th centuries recently and a change is as good as a rest etc.

The lay of the land at the start of the game.  The flower of French chivalry confidently line the southern hills on the left while the bawdy English and their brutish allies the Burgundians are jostled into line along the northern slopes opposite, between them the marshes in the valley floor are swollen from the incessant rains

I mentioned in a previous post here that I had stumbled across the first set of wargame rules written by Tony Bath, founder of the Society of Ancients, in 1956 and since then I have been looking for an opportunity to try them out. 

The English lights - cavalry and infantry rush into the fray

There's something that appeals to me about the idea of using old rules for playing with old toy soldiers.  Now, my medievals don't hail from 1956, they're mostly from the 1960's, (well, some are) so not too far out. When I first read the rules I assumed they were written for 54mm soldiers because the movement distances were what I would expect for larger size figures and of course that was the type most widely available back then.  Also there was something about the game mechanisms that reminded me very much of Wells' Little Wars rules.

The well appointed French heavies - cavalry, infantry and swarms of crossbowmen begin a ponderous advance over difficult ground

Tony Bath actually used 30mm flat zinnfiguren which he imported from Germany for his games as the Ancient and Medieval periods were barely covered by the toy manufacturers of the day and this was long before the advent of the 20mm wargame miniature or even that pillar of the hobby soon to be known as Airfix.  By contrast the historical coverage of the flat manufacturers was, and remains, phenomenal.

Faced with the prospect of a charge from the heavy French horsemen, the English infantry make for the relative safety of the marshlands

Although the name of Tony Bath has become synonymous with the Ancient period it was to be several years after writing these rules that he founded the Society of Ancients and it is clear (apart from the title) that he intended them to stretch to cover at least the Hundred Years War as there is specific provision for "dismounted cavalry in full armour armed with shortened lance as used by the french at Poitiers".

The French crossbowmen have secured the ruined abbey

So, very much an old school game was had, with books under sheets for hills, pine cones for bushes, marshes hastily cut for the occasion from card and aquarium ornaments for ruins.  The Anglo-Burgundian force were mostly Timpo swappets with a hindrance of militia provided by Elastolin Saxons and stiffened by a phalanx of Deetail pikemen.  The French were mostly conversions, some painted in heraldic livery and finished in the toy style.

First blood to the French, the heavy cavalry on their right charges into the first line of Burgundian men at arms while a body of militia forms a hedge of pikes to protect themselves from the onslaught

We wanted to play the game as true as we could to the original rules without any tweaks and we could see that they depend on testing combat strength v mobility between the various differing classes of troops, so to give them a good first run out we made the opposing armies very different in composition.  The French were much heavier with greater firepower, about  30 heavy cavalry, 30 heavy infantry and 30 archers.  The Allies were much lighter but greater in number: 15 light cavalry, 60 light infantry, 10 militia, 10 heavy infantry and 10 archers. 

On the French left more heavy cavalry approach the marshes but are checked and look for firmer ground through them

I was given permission by the British Model Soldier Society to reproduce these rules for enthusiasts but before I got around to doing it I discovered they had been published as part of the History of Wargaming project, edited by John Curry, in Vol 4 - More Wargaming Pioneers so if you want to give this game a spin I would urge you to buy the book, it costs less than £12 and is part of a project that deserves all our support.  What I have done is produce a summary of the rules in a quick reference sheet which I will make available in the next post, but you really should still buy the book because there's a lot more in it.

The English men at arms jeer at the French knights from the relative safety of the wetlands egging them on to come forward