Plastic Warrior Show 2025

 The date for the 2025 Plastic Warrior Show has now been released.....

......And here are the directions to get there:

TRAVEL GUIDE

 

Directions to The Plastic Warrior Show

BY ROAD

From Outside London take M25, M3, A316, go over one roundabout and entrance to the winning Post is after 500 metres on your left.

From Inner London, after Richmond Circus follow A316 and continue straight on over three roundabouts. You will pass the Winning Post on your right. At the next roundabout take the fourth exit and entrance to the Winning Post will be on your left after 500 metres.

FREE PARKING. There is extensive free parking at the site and in the residential roads behind the Winning Post. The Harlequin Suite is to the right of the main building.

BY PUBLIC TRANSPORT

From Central London and the South of England by overground train (South Western Railways) from Waterloo or Clapham Junction to Whitton Station. There are eight trains an hour and the journey time is approx. 30 minutes, this is a loop line so four trains an hour run from two different platforms at Waterloo Station.

From the North of England by train to London arriving at Kings Cross, St. Pancras or Euston.

Take the London Underground Victoria line just six stops to Vauxhall and change for South Western Railways to Whitton Station as above. Whitton Station is just three minutes walk from the Winning Post.  Turn left out of the station past Jubilee Avenue and Pauline Crescent, the next turning on your left is the entrance to the Winning Post.

Should you wish to take the London Underground to Richmond as in previous years, the easiest thing is to change platform and take a South Western Railways service to Whitton Station as above, (four trains an hour from Richmond, journey time eight minutes).

Alternatively you could get a black cab or a H22 bus from the taxi rank and bus stop outside the station.
Oyster cards are accepted on all London Underground lines, buses and South Western Railways to Whitton Station.

The Winning Post Inn

Opens from 08.00 to 11.00 serving breakfast or coffee for those who arrive early. The pub serves drinks from 11.00 and lunches from 12.00. There is a cashpoint on site but Whitton town centre, with a full range of shops and banks, is just three minutes walk from the hall.

Within the Winning Post complex is a Premier Inn travel hotel for those who want to break their journey and stay overnight.

Lionheart - a medieval wargame with 54mm toy soldiers

 Lionheart is a medieval boardgame published by Parker Brothers in 1997, played on a square grid with 25mm pieces the aim is to capture the enemy King or destroy all of his army, it plays a bit like a game of chess.  We thought we'd try out the basic game to see if it would translate to a wargame with 54mm toy soldiers, here's how it went:

The English left wing shown above and the right wing pictured below, the basic game has 4 unit types: The King, mounted knights (2 units), infantry (5 units) and archers (2 units).  For visual impact we doubled the number of figures in each unit, so the King got a standard bearer, each mounted unit was 4 figures and foot were 8.

There is an advanced version of the game that includes 3 more unit types: heavy foot knights, peasants and mercenaries but we left these out this time as we were just looking to test the game mechanics.  One major change we did make was to play on a hex grid rather than a square one but this doesn't make any significant change to the dynamics of the game.

The French left wing shown above and the right wing pictured below.  Players dice to see who goes first and then play on I go U go basis, as we'd doubled the number of figures in play we also doubled the number of actions allowed each move from 2 to 4.  The actions allowed are: Move, Turn, Attack and the limit of 4 actions applies across the whole army not unit by unit, actions can be taken in any order i.e. 4 units could make 1 move or alternatively 1 unit could move, a second could turn while a third moved and attacked.

All units move in a straight line, mounted (King and knights) can move any number of hex for 1 action but foot units (infantry and archers) only move 1 hex for 1 action.  No interpenetration through other units is allowed.

Archers can fire over friendly units and their range is anywhere in the arc of the 9 hex in front of them (2 hex, then 3, then 4).  All other units attack when they move into direct contact with an enemy unit and have an action remaining to enable the attack i.e. for an infantry unit to move 2 hex and make an attack costs 3 actions.

The game uses 6 sided dice with symbols: 3 x Axe, 2 x Arrow and 1 x Panic.  We used ordinary D6 with 1,2,3 = Axe, 4,5 = Arrow and 6 = Panic.  A D6 is thrown for each foot figure in a unit and 2 x D6 for each mounted, so a maximum of 8 x D6 for each unit.  Archers register a hit for every Arrow thrown, all other units make a hit when an Axe is rolled, casualties are removed: foot for 1 hit and mounted for 2 hits (rounded down).  Combat is completed one unit at a time and hits are not cumulative.

If 4 x Panic dice are thrown the the unit attacked must turn and retreat one move i.e. a unit of 8 infantry attacks an enemy infantry unit, it throws 8 dice and scores: 3 x Axe, 1 x Arrow and 4 x Panic, the unit attacked suffers 3 casualties then must turn and retreat.

We found the rules very quick and easy to assimilate, the game flows fast and smoothly.  Foot units advance rather ponderously and need to be supportive, a unit that becomes detached is liable to be picked off and overrun by enemy cavalry.  On both sides archers made up 20% of the total units, so a decent representation but not enough to dominate the field and turn the game into just another shooting match.  The mounted units are very much the arme blanche of the game, sudden sweeping charges packing a devastating punch, just as it should be.

We didn't include any terrain features but there is provision for this.  Going forward I think we will take scenarios from One Hour Wargames, or perhaps based on historical events and introduce the additional 3 unit types (heavy foot, peasants and mercenaries).  The simplicity of the rule system and lack of any record keeping also means that we could easily double the number of units and actions per turn to make it a much bigger game.  It would be interesting to try an Agincourt scenario, with the flower of French chivalry facing a wall of English archers!

 Apart from the Timpo crusaders, which have been based to give them more stability on the table.

all the rest of the figures are conversions, mostly from the talented hand of modeller and heraldic expert Vince Mattocks,

Elastolin Bundeswehr from the car boot sale.

 Among the finds at the car boot sale last weekend were these post war composition figures of the German Bundeswehr made by Elastolin, which warrant a post of their own.

The immediate post war production of Elastolin was something of a hybrid, utilising the same "sawdust and glue" composition mixture for the bodies but introducing a new pattern of head made in plastic and wearing an American style M1 helmet.  Elastolin used the same composition bodies with this plastic head and just different painting schemes to depict both Bundeswehr (as shown above) and American GI's for the export market.  Previously the pre war American infantry were made entirely in composition material and wore the British Army style Brodie helmet.  

Elastolin had been using the bodies of their German infantry with separate plug in heads and different painting schemes to depict various contemporary armies since the early 1930's but this was the first instance of them utilising plastic parts.  The flag was the same pattern of tinplate standard that they had been using pre war but was painted in the black, red and gold colours of the national flag of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Fleamarket finds from the weekend.

 It always seems to be feast or famine at the local car boot sale but last weekend I managed a reasonable haul:

This lot set me back £20, which I thought was very fair, there's nothing rare or special but it's quite a nice mix and they will add to several of my existing projects.

A few more Conte Normans are always welcome, my existing ones have been painted up as they came so I can afford to use some of these ones for conversions.  They are made from a firm rubber which leaves the weapons prone to bending, after straightening by hot water treatment I give the bendy parts a coat of wood glue (which is an industrial strength PVA used by carpenters) to keep them from reverting to their previous shape.

The four Timpo Vikings all need repair so I will have no qualms about basing them for wargaming, the two AWI have been added to a display shelf and I have suitable mounts for all the others.  The Marx reissue of Paul Revere in white is very versatile for conversion to many periods.

REAMSA remoulds from the Willian Tell set, I think the figure of Landburgher Gessler is particularly well sculpted, he looks just like the character played by Willoughby Goddard in the 1950's "Adventures of William Tell" TV series.

The more collectable items: a Franciscan monk and Mousquetaire du Roi made by Starlux, the grenadier drummer made by Cavendish is rarely found in white plastic so is probably an early example. The Cherilea Numidian, Lone Star African Native and Crescent Sheriff of Nottingham on the bottom row are all destined to be converted.

Medieval Lord and Lady - but who made them?

 After the success I had on facebook with the identification of the Galloglass made by Oojah-Cum-Pivvy I thought I'd try the same approach to find the origin of these rather fine figures. I believe they were made in England, 54mm tall, they are made from some sort of composition material, they may have been made for a toy theatre or something like that.

My thoughts that they might have been made for a toy theatre prompted suggestions that they may have been Shakespearean characters such as Petruchio and Kate from Taming of the Shrew, they certainly have the arrogant stance for that couple.  The period costumes have been well researched and carefully painted, I have seen examples of them before so I think they were produced commercially but not in large numbers.

Two more figures from the same series, a boy/Prince and a Monk, they are not the usual wood/glue composition or the plaster of Italian figures, perhaps more like the Blanc de Medun of some French types which is very hard, there is no armature. The base on the Prince is lead and not original but was added by a previous owner.

On the figure of the Boy it says "Courtier temp. Ric II Earl of March" on the man it says "Courtier temp. Edw IV" these were stickers added by the previous owner to notate who the figures represented in his personal collection, sadly he give no indication of their manufacturer, he uses the word temp. to abbreviate "time of". 

I acquired them in one of James Opie's auctions for Phillips back in the 80's the seller had been a student of heraldry and his entire medieval collection along with his research archive were up for sale. The lots were all high end connoisseur figures, Courtenay, Ping etc which sold for serious money but these were in a lot of plastics, most of which were conversions to represent personalities in their heraldry, luckily nobody else wanted them so I was the only bidder. Being conversions, all of the figures had these paper stickers on the base to show who they represented.

To date their manufacturer has not been identified so if you recognise them please leave a comment to let us all know.