Die Zinnlaube - German toy soldier magazine

The last month has seen quite a flurry of activity in the world of toy soldier magazines, it kicked off with Plastic Warrior, which came through at the start of December, see the blog links bar to the right for details.  Followed on Christmas eve by Die Zinnlaube, this German magazine is only issued roughly once a year and isn't widely known so I like to give it a bit of a plug.  The toys covered tend to be early, predominantly German made, flats, solid lead and composition figures, so it aims very much at the top end (read expensive) of the collectors market.  Still it's nice to see lots of unusual toy soldiers that rarely get an airing elsewhere.

The front and back covers (above and below) show carved wooden figures by the French firm Giroux, I do like the "rocking horse" pose of the mounted Cossack.  

Articles include: Editorial, Obituary - Roland Umhey, Italian Composition Figures, Giroux Soldiers, Advertising figures from the George Spenkuch foundry, Diorama with Heyde figures celebrating the 250th anniversary of the explorer Alexander von Humboldt, the "Saxon artillery kettledrum carriage" made by Heyde, the French conquest of Algeria made by J E du Bois of Hanover, Paris World Exhibition set by Krause, figures from the collection of Peter Hofmann, interview with Danish collector Mogens Hvid, Austrian General Staff of 1859 in flats, homecasting moulds made made in France by Scad, figure identification page and Heyde 75mm personality figures, 

The text is now just in German and English (French has been dropped) which covers 90% of the readership, and anyway it's worth getting just for the pictures.  Cost is 20 Euro (including post to UK) by Paypal and as it only comes out once a year I feel it is worth giving yourself a treat at Christmas.  It's a high quality publication, runs to 96 pages in full colour and it's available from Freunde alter Spielfiguren

Hark the herald.................

This trumpeter comes from a set of Winged Hussars, not surprisingly made in Poland, and invariably attributed to the manufacturer PZG.  The figure has been gilded and was originally mounted on a plinth to be sold as an ornament or tourist item.  It's part of a range that I assume was inspired by the Siege of Vienna as it includes a personality figure of King Jan Sobieski, Winged Hussar, Dragoon, Standard Bearer, Kettle Drummer and Trumpeter.

PZG is the Polski Zwiazek Gluchych (Polish Associaton of the Deaf) which ran workshops producing all manner of goods to provide employment for people with hearing disability.  Founded in 1946, the Association is still going strong today and during the Communist era produced various ranges of toy soldiers.  These days collectors tend to label all Polish made plastic figures as PZG, even though very few are actually marked as such, due to the dearth of information on who manufactured them.
                                                                                                      

The elegantly sculpted horse has damage to a couple of his legs from where he was prised off the original plinth, another project in the queue is to repair, rebase and repaint him, perhaps I'll actually get around to doing it next year.  To get an idea of what he should look like when painted up take a look at Eric's Blog here.

King & Country at the toy soldier show

The team from King & Country were over for the recent London show and this rather magnificent new Vietnam diorama was the centrepiece of their stand.  The post WW2 era has never really appealed to me but I know a lot of people collect this stuff and the standard of terrain modelling on K&C dioramas is always inspiring.

I think K&C only attend the December show these days, trawling back through old photos I noticed that I never got around to posting the pics I took of their display last year, I'll remedy that over the next few days.  In the meantime let me wish you a safe and peaceful Christmas.

Wargame at the London Toy Soldier Show

The internet blurb for the December show in London said it would feature a wargame arranged by James Opie and Replica Metal Soldiers & Models so I thought I'd take a look (well I was going there anyway for a Christmas get together with the lads)

The table was laid out for the Battle of Tell el Kebir, a good choice for a display game as it needs very little terrain (important if you're the one transporting the stuff) and the two sides are easily identifiable, Egyptians are in white, Brits are not.  I don't know the purpose of the bits of paper dotted all over the place but this sort of clutter on the table is a pet hate of mine.

Nice to see that I'm not the only person who resorts to mounting toy soldiers on 2p pieces!  Cavalry are mounted on lengths of transparent Perspex which are all but invisible, I was very impressed with the table mat which appeared to be just hand painted cloth but executed so much better than my own efforts.

I was told that the rules being used had been written by James Opie, based on Wells' Little Wars but with some modern twists (no matchstick firing cannon!).  It's nice to see a display wargame returning to the London Show but I do still miss the old Skirmish Wargames Group games.

James Opie was on hand at the nearby stand for C&T Auctions and was joined by Luigi Toiati who was promoting his new book "The History of Toy Soldiers".  Regulars at the London Show in the late 1980's and early 90's will remember the affable Luigi as the man behind Garibaldi Toy Soldiers, I've had his book for a while now but haven't had time to read through it (pictures look nice though) so a review will have to wait a bit longer.

In the meantime James and Luigi were promoting another new book "La dinastia degli Antonini a Roma" which is a privately printed history of three generations of  the Antonini family who have been making toy soldiers in Rome, their FIGIR composition figures are well known but not their lead creations so I've written to Santa for a copy, but as my emails to Rome haven't been acknowledged I'm not confident it will get here by Christmas!

Stuart Asquith's Big Wars - Battle of Tanga 1914

Across the blogosphere collectors and wargamers are running games in memoriam to Stuart Asquith who sadly passed away recently, I hadn't cleared up after our recent game set in North Africa so decided to play a solo game using the Big Wars rules written by Stuart and Jack Alexander.  Big Wars covers the period 1880 to 1914 so I thought the Battle of Tanga fought during the WW1 campaign in German East Africa would squeeze under the wire.  I had to take a few liberties historically but here's how it went:

In November 1914 Britain sent an Indian Expeditionary Force of about 8,000 men to invade German East Africa, the plan was to make an amphibious landing at the port of Tanga then advance north to meet up with troops marching south from British East Africa, trapping the German "Schutztruppe" in a giant pincer movement.  A simple plan, what could go wrong?  Er….. plenty apparently.

There was an unofficial Coastal Truce agreement under which the Royal Navy were required to give the Germans 24 hours notice of any intended attack (I kid you not!).  On 2nd November 1914 the Navy demanded unconditional surrender of the town and port, this was ignored and next day the IEF began landing, no resistance was expected from the token garrison.  However, on receipt of the demand the German commander had called for reinforcements and started digging in (well you would wouldn't you)

Tanga was the coastal terminus of the Northern Railway and the Germans began rushing troops by train, around the clock, to the port.  The initial IEF landing on 3rd November was supported by salvos from the supporting naval escort, it had little effect.  Above, the German Askaris were armed with the obsolete model 1871 rifle which fired black powder rounds, clouding them in smoke with every volley.  

Here the IEF debark from their landing barges.  I played the game on an area of about 5' x 5' which I found from previous experience is fine for Big Wars, movement distances are quite short and casualties from firing fairly light until you get to quite close range, so you really need to get troops into melee to get a decisive result.

A couple of liberties taken here for the benefit of a good game.  German naval units fought on land throughout the campaign, but not at Tanga, also the Germans had two field artillery pieces but they arrived too late to take any part in the battle.  On the British side most of the units were from Indian Regiments but I have included units of the Kings African Rifles who also fought throughout the campaign but not at Tanga.

The Askaris fall back steadily while keeping up a steady fire at close range which begins to blunt the advance.  The rules allow artillery and machine guns to move or fire, but movement rates for MGs not mounted on carriages are short so the British support units fell far behind the infantry advance.

The IEF occupy part of the town and the Ghurkas hoist the Union Jack but their success is short lived as German reinforcements continue to arrive and a counter attack throws the British back.

A fun game, quick and easy to master, and a good scenario for solo play as there isn't much scope for tactical movement.  I playtested the rules quite a bit when they first came out in 1993 and used them in a "play by email" game that I hosted a few years ago (see Big Wars link in right hand column) but apart from that they've been rather overlooked, perhaps it's time they got a bit more of a regular outing.

In 1914 the IEF outnumbered the Schutztruppe by 8 to 1 so, not unnaturally, the British Staff believed the battle would be a walkover.  The Navy were ordered not to support the attack so that the town might be taken intact for use by the occupying force, for the same reason the IEF mountain batteries were not landed.  The result was that the entire IEF was evacuated on 5th November leaving most of their equipment behind, perhaps not the most ignominious feat of British arms, but well up there.