O is for Old Fashioned Cars

I finally tricked myself into getting six posts off Picasa, I can't tell you how long these have been ready for publishing, but while needing Blurb, the images have been edited and/collaged for about four+ years!

I announced they were due on a post on Moonbase Central about three years ago, since when they've done them again, twice, I think (I'll try to find the links) and Ed Berg has posted some too. While the article folders have been on the desktop 'ready to go' several times and quietly put back in 'My Pictures'!

But under the most tenuous of links with the previous post, we're kicking off with these Huilor premiums. Huilor is a manufacturer/seller of cooking oil, and issued various premiums back in the day. These were made for them by Cle, Del and Injectaplastic, with one or two still debatable, but the similarity between the vehicles, suggests co-operation of some kind between the three makers/lines, who are all, also, connected to other 'novelty' stuff.

Fully marked on the undersides of the chassis (another connection between them all), and with me not knowing much else, further blurb would be superfluous, and strained, so I've just annotated the images with the base markings . . .

 

Early racing car

 

Paris-Vienna Rally car

 

This is the only Injectaplastic in my sample.

That tenuous link!

 

People will say they are copies of this, that or the other die-cast (Brum, Rio or Matchbox 'Yesteryears') but the fact is these were very popular when I was a kid, along with pictures, posters, printed tiles, crockery & mugs, matchbox/matchbook labels, place-mats, beer-mats and coasters, 3D wall plaques, pipe-rack, ash-try or pen & ink stand ornaments and etc . . . and they were all of real vehicles, so some similarity is always going to ensue!

Not there wasn't a lot of copying, we'll see some in the subsequent posts! I'm not sure if they came assembled or as kits? Another connection all these have is being polystyrene rather than the Polyethylene of some others, or the die-casts just mentioned (which we won't be looking at). And the French for 'Old Fashioned Cars' is Vieux Tacots (old clunkers) . . . Bonux next!

M is for Maisto's Military Mystery - Cubeville Cary Cases

Fun one this, but a bit mysterious, I picked it up from a dealer in the market area at the Hop Farm, Beltring's big week-long combat-wombat shindig 'Trucks & Tracks' back in 2008, he only had these, but he had a mountain of them, like half a van-load, still in the outer, manila cartons.

The box shows three sets, but two of them come with the same truck, either tilted or tiltless! And I wouldn't exactly describe any of them as particularly inspiring? The feeling being that 'Military Cubeville' was a live market-test which sank with little trace!

The one I bought; Cubeville Outpost, there are elements of the much older (1970's) Monogram Pocet Force & Battle Link sets about this, but where they had a PVC or latex scenic base which squidges-up and folds away into a smaller case, the Maisto sets are larger due to the rigidity of the scenic diorama/vignette contained within.

Which - the scenic item - is a reasonable ruined dwelling with watch-tower, sandbag piles and a rather formal stack of bright-silver 'jerry' cans! I think the access ramp also has a secondary role of joining multiple units together but I might be wrong on that one?

This was placed above the carry case with a top/side right-angled window in the other side of the box (I didn't shoot it; I'll scan it sometime) and you get two quite nice figures in the 25/28mm bracket and a M2/M3 (I still don't know which is which; I think the difference is mostly on the inside?) Bradley IFV, and it's the early, pre-Gulf Wars upgrades version.

Close-up's of the two figures (it's a figure Blog!), the box isn't clear, but there seem to be six to collect, possibly seven, but it may only be four or five? ATGM looks like it might be an M41A7 Saber (improved BGM-71 TOW system), while the squad-commander with radio is pretty stanndard, post-Cold War fodder.

The mystery is they are hard to find on the Internet and there are none currently on evilBay, although other Maisto military are easier to locate, all small ranges (G.I. Joe, Military Force (upper shot), All Stars and Kid Connection), along with odd  military finished vehicles in the normal 'Matchbox' style range, most of the bottom row above.

Some, like the 'Electronic Warfare' truck above (or was it a fire appliance first!?) reappear in the other brand-marked ranges, in the truck's case as a fully camouflaged version in the G.I.Joe series . . .

. . . or even as Jurrasic Park knock-offs in the Dino Adventure line! Maisto also do military vehicles in other scales, including 1:35th and 1:16th, I think I saw a 1:48th one as well. But as to Cubeville, pulled quickly from the market I fear?

N is for Nottingham Mafia

Which by now I'm sure you've worked out is my moniker for Games Workshop! It's not that I dislike them in the same way I dislike the management at Lego, and I love their products more than I love Hestair Kiddy Bricks.

But they are a bit of a cartel, and they do milk their more sycophantic followers (it's more than a fan-base, it's a cult!), and they have contributed to the inflationary drive of adult 'hobbying'. Still it's a successful strategy . . . hell, through last year's lock-downs their shares were giving better dividend returns than the best guilt-edged bonds!

Anyway, because they are self-aware enough of their failings to realise some people may have trouble investing fully in the 'franchise', all at once, at the start of the exercise, to - from time to time - issue card figures or scenic items in their magazines, to give you something to play-with/around, and here are a few of those figures.

The big blue 'Magnificent Sven' sheet came within White Dwarf magazine decades ago, I think, and you get 12 characters and a killer-wolf-dog-lion thing, all decorated in a cartoony style reminiscent of contemporary graphic novel stuff from the same era, you also get three figures and a couple of weapons to colour yourself . . . or use as wraiths!

The Lord of the Rings sheets use photographic images of someone else's professionally painted miniatures to encourage you to greater heights, they were 'army-builder' sheets in early issues of the part-work which were meant to be replaced by actual figures from later issues of the part-work.

While these four Orks (or whatever they are) are more recent, but I can't remember where/when I added them to the collection? I've probably got the details in the hand-written archive/manuscript notes and I suspect they were just taped to the cover of a White Dwarf in a little bag.

The three samples have different fixing systems, with Sven's mob and enemies being a  single sheet printed both sides with a fold-back base, giving a reversed L-shaped cross-section. The LotR and ork sets have two prints and two bases which can folded into an A-frame tent, or an upside-down T, depending on preference, the T however will benefit from a piece of scrap-card laminated to the base - dotted line - to provide the same rigidity/stability you get doubling-up the two layers on the A-frame.

S is for Soviet Space Tanks!

You know I like the odd space tank and you know we often see early Soviet toy AFV's here, so let's combine the two!

These are clearly trying to represent the old air-mobile Russian BMP (or at a stretch the regular-force's BMD) and the ASU mini assault gun, but by using running-gear more reminiscent of an MT-LB's or the BTR50 (fully-tracked cargo trucks)'s and using identical superstructure, what we've ended up with is a 'new' family of space tanks . . . bargain!

Waiting for the 'Off'

Crewed by gum-ball copies of Giant Aliens (shades of 2000AD's Invasion and Bill Savage fighting the Sov's to liberate Scotland!), the BMP-alike is in the foreground, the ASU-alike behind, you can see that both have too many road-wheels for either real life vehicle, while the identical superstructure is clear.

Airborne Infantry;
'Seek & Destroy' missions

The fact that they are bright blue (Soviet 'Airborne' blue?) helps with the off-world theme and here supported by Giant originals (note the better quality of the mouldings).

Construction is a simple clip-together and the hard polystyrene equivalent of Airfix 'readymades', but with less accuracy! I don't have a maker for these yet, they are unmarked, but I haven't looked for them on the two main forums yet, so that will probably come with time.

'Bivouac'

I love them, clearly recognisable as Soviet armour, they are also and undeniably 'Space Tanks'; yeay! I've marked them up as 28mm, but their fictionalisation makes them what you want them to be.

Some Wiki-pages so you can make up your own minds;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMD-1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASU-57
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MT-LB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTR-50

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP-1

F-UPP is for Follow Up to the Previous Post!

From the "If you're going to mention him in the text you might show them the bloody thing Hugh" department, come not one but two miners, one of which is definitely Australian!

Forgot I had this one (hiding in the 'mocherette' folder with all the Westair, Peltro and Kinder crap), his axe is broken, but a semi-precious stone that size will break most tools! In a copper alloy and 'antiqued' to match all those tourist pencil-sharpeners (probably retailed off the same shelf!), he's digging some interesting stuff - I think the pale one is a piece of Larimar, the dark blue a poor (or low-value) piece of Opal (Sapphire cabochon)?

This is the one I mentioned in the previous post; one has to assume he's from Wales, Scotland (at a pinch) or even Cornwall, but he too could be Australian, from the Ruhr, from the former Czechoslovakia (Ertzgibirge?) or even somewhere more exotic like Chile or South Africa; without a label we'll probably never know, although the stones should be a clue, he's standing on Marble (Italy?) and attacking something which looks to be a bit like unpolished Black Tourmaline or Enstatite?

The coppery one is around 25mm, this one is closer to a war-gaming 28mm and manufactured the same way; whitemetal in cold-cast rubber moulds, although I think the blob of Araldite is a post-retail 'mend'!

V is for Variation on a Theme

I've pointed out before that two board games in particular (Monopoly and Cludo) have become marketing vehicles for the parting of money from fools, but others (Risk, Axis & Allies) get the multiple-version treatment, today it's back to Cludo / Clue.

With pop-culture dominating the non-work sphere of western or developed-world existence we will return to both as often as I find them in charity-shops - not being a fool, I wouldn't be seen dead paying-full for any of them, even if they did a Terminator Risk in 20mm with artwork by Moebius and figures sculpted by H. Geiger!

Un-boxing is easier as a .gif; there's a lot in here and it's been expanded to eight players, with three supports and 12 rooms, an expensive way of making a slower and more complicated version of an old favourite.

Endless (or 32?) alternate set-ups, but I think the positioning of the entrance hall/lobby may limit that choise-total, each is a separate card and there are some plastic crosses (x marks lots of spots) and magnifying glasses (which like the cracker-toy novelties do actually work!) that can be liberally sprinkled about the place like a fantasy games-master setting rat-traps!

The figures; only reason I care about the existence of any of these re-hashes, the three supernumeraries are the ones with square bases, the eight player-pieces get round bases, all nicely sculpted with parquet flooring - which matches . . . err . . . none of the rooms!

They are reasonable for 25/28mm gaming, and with the Victorian air, would suit Steampunk or the HG Wells/Jules Verne/H. R-Haggard anchored stuff, or even Edwardian 'Hardboiled' stuff.

Ably assisted - as always - by my late assistant, little did she know that 31 days later she would be joining the 99.9^r% of everything that ever lived, a message hidden there for the meat-faced loons who don't think we've entered the most serious existential-threat phase of our evolution? She is sorely missed.

C is for Captain Morgan's Cut Throat Crew!

These are current, or at least still available, the card is over 12-years old, which is why I didn't de-card them, nor will I bother with much blurb, as you can see them all, beautifully painted, on the company's website!

As purchased, I can't remember if they were an expensive 'impulse' purchase at a War Gaming show, something cheap under the table at a Toy Soldier show, or came-in with a mixed lot at some point, I may even have paid full at the old Esdevium Games shop in Aldershot, years ago? But they're here now!

That's them; Foundry Miniatures Cut2/CUT012, a nice, slightly chunky whitemetal pirate crew, all I need is a 1:60th ['ish] ship and Cap'n Morgan's your uncle!

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Games Workshop - Figure Shots

These are just a few shots I took while the Games Workshop sales-guy was giving me the spiel about the starter-set we looked at the other day, some are from that new Age of Sigmar system, others are older Warhammer 40,000 stuff with all the ray-guns and gizmos!

This appears to be a 'quick-game' (?) board game, but there was nothing about it in the introductory starter mag.? Using hexes and two basic armies of Nighthaunts and Stormcast Eternals; there appears to be some over-layed hexes and I know nothing else about it, but - nice figures!

The Nighthaunts again, painted by GW's own in-house guys, I may try to get one of the mounted figures to add to my old-school skeleton army as a commander?

The 'good guys'; Stormcast Eternals, they are sort of sword and armour (no sandals in evidence) version of the Space Marines . . . I think! Is there even a narrative between these and 40,000 . . . I thought plain-old Warhammer was the earlier age?

These are some religious-order from the Warhammer 40,000 universe I think (arch high-priests of recidivism?), again painted to show, and probably familiar to regular readers of White Dwarf as the stars of many an article, painting guide and such-like.

Likewise these guys; I can't remember who they are either, sort of arch-tech sci-fi types (Taui, Toui? Something like that), often painted in a dun or fawn brown (from memory) they look pretty medical in white - sanitising the universe like photographic negatives of crazy, futuristic, Nazi panzer-troops!

GW can also supply branded tape-measure's - for when you've absolutely, positively fallen for all the hype! Some builders-merchants will give you a free one if you order enough sand - just sayin'!

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Tactic - 15 Minutes to Self Destruct

I mentioned that one of the items I shot at the toy fair had made it into more general coverage, and this be the fella'; 15 Minutes to Self Destruct from Tactic Games.

The hook as far as we are concerned is the four individually-sculpted figurines for the playing counters, each about 28/30mm-compatable, and they would paint-up well as the futuristic pajama-wearing crew of any space-fleet of your choice! Each is a different coloured plastic and are paired; two male and two female figures, so no charges of sexism possible!

I can see two problems with this game; 1 - if each player takes the five switches to his left after the start point-leaving switch, in a snake sweep, they should all (bar Yellow) be able to clear them very quickly, in sequence, with Red or Purple going to Yellow's aid if they finish their 'sector' first.

2 - If the cards/app/dice won't allow such a simple system, the onus would be on all players to short-count, or over-count to land on a switch needing turning-off, and - because it's a game reliant on teamwork, against the clock - the other three to turn a blind eye?

I stress that that's guesswork from studying these three images, but a game designed to be played in less than fifteen-minutes may be open to cheat-hacks? Perhaps if anyone does play it - they could put me right and explain it to the rest of us! There's also the problem that it needs an 'App' to be downloaded, which has shades of all those old 1980's cassette-tape and 1990's VHS-video games, even some 2000's DVD games, all of which seem to pile-up in Charity-shops like weird driftwood . . . alongside 12" Gajagoogoo singles!

Really - it's all about the figures! Red and Blue have their minds on the job, Yellow and Purple seem to have stopped panicking about the self-destruct and decided to celebrate imminent obliteration with a dance!

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - The Age of Sigmar

It can't have escaped the notice of those concerned - gamers and specific fans of the Nottingham Mafia - that Games Workshop changed their entire business model a year or two ago (and did very well out of it if their share's performance is any guide), for which changes, another of the 'freebies' at this year's Toy Fair 2020 was a starter kit for the Age of Sigmar in the shape of a magazine, which we're going to look at quickly here.

Again, like yesterday's erasersaurs; no hurry, and this has probably been out for a while (© - 2018), and will be around for a while to come, but you get a White Dwarf type publication with a free figure attached. My sample being a show-freebie is printed with a blind price panel, so I can't say for sure what it costs, but you get 108pp with covers, and a frame-runner for a 'Stormcast Eternal'.

It's one of the more basic such frames, with no extras for the spares-box . . . shock horror! As far as I can tell it's a perfectly good sculpting, up to GW's usual standards of detail and build-quality, and from what I can see, the whole game is set in a 'verse somewhere between Warhammer 40,000 and the older LotR stuff, having both the interplanetary element of the former, and the fantasy olde-worlde Norse mythology of the latter?

No surprises here; it's exactly what you get in any issue of White Dwarf - army building guides, protagonist guides, potted histories, modeling tips, painting hints, a move-by-move sample game and lots of professionally-painted miniatures in wonderful technicolor.

But that's the thing . . . if you've ever bought into any sector of the Nottingham Mafia's systems you don't need this, won't need this and can move straight to the rule-book and army lists for your chosen faction, but for younger readers coming into the hobby from the hype surrounding Game of Thrones (or the Hunger Games maybe?) it's probably a good place to start.

MC is for My Chap's . . . Geddit!

I know, I know, I'd shoot myself, myself, if I wasn't having so much fun spouting nonsense in the general direction of the Internet! Just a quickie following up on several previous visits to these Chap Mai modern combat, small scale types.

I was going to put this on the 'But is it Giant' Blog, but feel as new/newish-production it should be here, that Blog (which hasn't had a post for a while . . . ?) is really for pre-2000 or even pre-1990 'vintage' stuff.

We've seen the green set before, on the runner, but Peter Evans sent a whole bunch of them loose in a parcel six-or-more months ago, and they included a whole set of the same poses in black, so here they all are together from both sides. I hadn't previously encountered them, but Chap Mai have issued various big-box sets over the years, including some store-branded generics, maybe one had 'goodies & baddies'; their own sets tend to have a single un-clipped runner?

We can then . . . now (?) run through all the charity-shop purchases of vehicles, with the new figures . . . for the hell of it! The M1 Abrahms type is a bit on the small side for the 25mm-odd figures, but the five kneeling poses look better.

The M2/3 Bradley/A-Cav MICV is also a bit small, but looks better with standing figures although the one on the left is more helicopter- than AFV-crew?

Hummers stop for a nosey-about, but they aren't paying attention to the Shat-al-Arap waterway where the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's frogmen have a bone to pick with Uncle Sam! Topical humour there, unless you're on the end a Trump-triggered, state-sponsored terrorism 'incident'! The language is lovely these days isn't it? The Coca-cola Games - The Iranian Maimings, The KGB Slow Painful Death Incidents!

Lannies also park-up in 'all round defence', but the spanner's come out - How very 'British Army Procurement'!

The Land Rover and the Hummers are the only ones with the clip-receiving protrusions on the underside (see posts passim under Chap Mai) for parachuting, on a little pallet, out of the big Hercules/Transall/Galaxy transport aircraft play-sets. I guess the others must be from more recent sets involving less parachutes? Although I'm guessing, they will all be on the old Index and Argos catalogues I keep meaning to go though!

The 'Rambo-squad' pulls-up! Jeep Wrangler 'technical' and rather odd-shaped/sized 6x6 truck of vague WWII vintage (which despite the looks actually holds-up well against the Airfix readymade) who are my latest two procurements (in the course of last year) and must also be from more recent/less common sets, as they definitely weren't in the old adverts, but they have the same wheels as the other soft-skins.

I still need to do the same paint-removal job on the jeep bonnet (hood)'s 'SOLDIER' artwork - leaving the allied air-recognition star - as I did on the 6x6 'deuce-and-a-half'. In point of fact - that these two are both 'new' to turn-up and in a new colour and have the same bonnet-markings strengthens the case that they are from a newer set, possibly the source of the equally 'new' (to me) black figures?