Timpo Station Figures boxed

 I went along to the Sandown Park Toy Fair last weekend and this is what I found:

The Timpo Station Figures are fairly common but I've never seen this boxed set before, I thought the artwork was quite stunning but at £350 it was too rich for may blood (and thankfully not really my sort of thing anyway!) happily the vendor very kindly agreed to let me photograph it to share with you.

Inside the box the figures are separated by cardboard dividers and include station staff with various pieces of luggage, missing are the sailor on leave with kitbag and one other.  Sculpted by Roy Selwyn-Smith before he went to work for Zang and subsequently Britains, it includes portrait figures of him and his wife as Mr and Mrs Smith (top row third compartment in blue jacket leaning on cane and last compartment sitting on suitcase.

And so to the figures I did pick up for myself, all from junk boxes and mostly needing some attention I paid an average of £2 each.  Above Britains General Officer and Officer of the 11th Hussars.

An as yet unknown (but I'm working on it) French made 45mm solid Turco, a Britains gun, a 48mm Prussian infantryman marching made in Germany by Heyde and a Britains Senegalise who will be joining an existing unit.

Three medieval knights made in France by CGB Mignot the first two utilise the body of the archer with quiver moulded at the waist but have been given shields and sword/axe (missing) to make them into Men at Arms.  See previous post here.

The sitting U.S. Military Policeman was made post-war in West Germany by Arnold and goes in a tinplate model of a Willys Jeep, I have the other figures that go in it with him but always seem to miss out on the vehicle itself.  

At first glance I thought the mounted Lineol officer saluting was King Leopold III of the Belgians but when I cleaned the grime of ages off him I can't be sure that he is.  Both Elastolin and Lineol painted in the whites of the eyes on their 75mm personality figures, and that's the quick way to identify them, but not on these smaller 65mm ones and they sometimes used the same figure with a basic paint job as an unnamed General Officer with the eyes just drawn in by pen.  More investigation needed.

And finally three plastic Crusaders made in China and sold under the name Supreme, modern production but theyy usually come in large poly bags and I have only wanted these particular poses.  At 65mm they are a bit large to go with most other manufacturers ranges but they are great designs, made under licence from King & Country and will paint up great.

Lionheart - A Medieval Wargame with 54mm toy knights

 Our first trial of the boardgame Lionheart worked very well so we decided to expand on it by introducing some terrain elements and an additional two unit types; Heavy Foot Knights and Mercenaries. The remainder of the armies were the same as in our previous game and we increased the number of actions in each turn from four to six per side.  The basic game mechanics were explained in my previous post HERE.

The French line up with Heavy Foot Knights on the left flank (just visible at the top of the pic) and the Kievan Mercenaries on the extreme right.  For the Mercenaries we used Medieval Russian Knights made in china by Supreme along with some made in Russia by Engineer Basevitch.

While the English line advances with Heavy Foot to the front (Britains Deetail knights just beyond the Timpo Crusaders) and Irish Mercenaries with their priest following in support.

The game allows for one more unit type; Peasants, but I didn't have any suitable figures to hand so we left them out, maybe they'll appear next time.

With their enhanced mobility it's always difficult to hold back the Mounted Knights, they charge across the field when they see an opportunity to strike.  This invariably draws out their opposite counterparts and leads to a duel between the chivalry.

  The Mercenaries are strong in combat and have the ability to induce panic in any unit they attack, forcing them to retire, the danger is that they can be turned if they come in contact with the enemy King and may change sides.

The terrain comprised a line of hills with a road running through them on one flank, a central plain and a forest with a road running through it on the opposite flank.  I like to keep things simple to begin with.

The Heavy Foot Knights (centre) are powerful in combat but very slow moving, it takes two actions to move them one hex, as a result they never really got into the game.

After the Mounted Knights had exhausted themselves duelling the Infantry and Archers moved in, the latter being quite vulnerable if attacked so need close support.

The Kings and their retinues tends to become a mounted reserve, kept safely out of the way behind the lines until desperation draws them out into the fray.

As things turned out all of the action took place in the central plain and virtually no use was made of the hills or forest.  (Note to self: put more obstacles in the centre of the field next time)

I always pick up bits and pieces of Timpo medievals when I see them in the cheap junk boxes at shows, they invariably have no weapons, scabbards or shields but that's easily sorted.  They are notoriously unstable on their small green bases so I mount them on 2p coins, this will be anathema to some people but lets face it they're not rare, you can find hundreds of them on the internet auction sites every day of the week.

This time the game was much less cohesive with small groups of opposing units engaging in clumps of combat dispersed around the field.

It's a good game system and I like the way it flows, I think we will need to give more thought to how we deploy the Heavy Foot Knights or revisit the way we allocate actions in each turn.  

With a little tweaking the system could be easily adapted to the Dark Ages or brought forward into the Renaissance, so we might have a go at one of those periods sometime.