R is for Ravensburger's Rake of Role-Play Recreations!

And so to TKMaxx, where a relatively expensive (but cheaper than the toy shops) purchase (we buy this stuff so you don't have to) led to three board games currently on the seasonal displays, and all containing nice figure sculpts in that mid 40mm-50mm size bracket. Each licensed from a different studio.

 

From Universal Studios we have this game based upon the better known characters from the horror oeuvre, some of whom are not even Universal properties, but hey, who's nitpicking Hugh? From the left in the above line-up we have The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, 'Frankenstein and The Bride (obviously, actually - Frankenstein's monster!), The Mummy and the Invisible Man.

To which is added a sheet of card-flat 'standee' civilian victims/secondary players, I don't know for sure, as I haven't read the rules; I would hope by now, you know these game posts are about the figures, other Blogs do games better than I ever could! The coloured ones look like they could be used in Cludo!

The second game is from Warner Brothers, and takes us to the Emerald City via a pair of red shoes and a wicked witch! I was going to weave the Kansas gag in here, but it's on the box, which rather stole my thunder, there! I assume you don't need these Wizard of Oz characters identified, but they are quite accurate to the original movie, and Dorothy is carrying Toto!

Finally, a Disney vehicle gives us five named Gargoyles, a human helper and two baddies, reduced to standee flats! The Gargoyles are rather nicely done with little contrasting flecks in them to suggest stonework, while the human (Elisa) is flat red. You'd have to be a fan of the movie to ID the individuals, or read the rules properly, which - we've already established - I didn't do! But there's a Goliath, Brooklyn, Broadway, Lexington and Hudson, in there somewhere!

 

Feelin' blue - a sizer, with the Invisible Man, Dorothy and a Gargoyle, the Invisible man is touching 39mm with his base, the 'Monster' heading toward nearly 50-mil, but most are around 40/45mm. Out there now, two are £14.99, the other (Gargoyles?) £12.99.

H is for How They Come In - Wednesday's Purchases

Posting will be intermittent and bitty for the next couple of weeks as I've got this 'getting everything out of storage' thing going on, with little plan for it and no time! But I sometimes work better under pressure!

And so to the teeming metropolis of Farnborough for a month's supply of vapeing ancillaries, and a swift visit to a couple of charity shops they have there . . .

This lot owes me the grand total of £4.50p! and the most expensive item was the board-game from Ravensburger with the four fairies at two-quid! The Carrara/Fontanini (Italianate Fusilier?) from the other shop was a pound-and-a-half which even I'll concede is a bargain; I usually have to pay 4-7-quid each for them, while the Supreme Indian was thrown in with the two dinosaurs for a quid; back in Fleet later the same day.

The Fontanini was in the window along with about 9 ceramic ones of similar size, from two sources, one having better paint, the other thinner bases. I didn't look at the prices as I know I would have bought them all if they were a similar price to the plastic one, and while it may be a bargain, I can't buy everything!

Also the Fontanini has a shop-sticker on his base saying Rotated - Week 18, which means he's moved shop [unsold] at least three times - stock tends to get four weeks in one store? As is own sticker is off-centre and there's a chip to the other side of the plinth, I may remove him from the marble and have him as a stand-alone 160mm figure - with plinth and headdress plume he's currently 190-mil' in total.

The fairies - from the game Disney Fairies Magical Flower Garden Game - all look similar but are different poses and I've already christened them 'Hot Pants' (white), 'Miniskirt' (pink), 'Twin Set' (yellow) and 'Grecian Wrap' (blue), although they are almost impossible to photograph in that semi-transparent/translucent 'jelly-baby' vinyl!

The Protoceratops was interesting as he/she seems to be a pre-WHSmith version of the ones I was buying from the same store a couple of years ago . . . last year? Anyway, the previously purchased one is the left of each shot, and you can see the new addition has better definition in the moulding, different eye treatments and marginally better (or 'less lazy') paint.

I was buying them on-offer, occasionally, in a three-for-a-fiver deal - I think - but can't remember if I posted them all? I only got the nine, leaving a pterodactyl and plesiosaur that I remember - probably a couple of others that didn't leap out at me - and which will come in over time anyway, like the most recent recruit to the 'herd'!

R is for Ravensburger - Board Games III

Our third visit to board games today, brings Ravensburger into the tag list for the first time - I think? We're looking at two games, but I suspect some of you will raise an eyebrow at the second, but hey, figurals are figurals!

Picked this up the other day for three-quid I think, the fact that this is the fifth (?) game from charity shops in the last four or five weeks is a sign that the post-Christmas clear-out is now in full flow!

The board has 16 fixed sections of dungeon and then there are a number of others that get slid through the gaps, building the dungeon and constantly changing the pathways, while the icons on 12 of the moveable sections and all the fixed-elements affect the players as the battle-through.

The all-important bit as far as Small Scale World is concerned - the figures! Basically four practisers of magic, be they; wizards, warlocks, witches, necromancers or mages! From the left; there's a Gandalf-a-like, an eleven Queen, a Dwarven mage and a hagged witch!

Comparison shot with one of the Bilbo's Graham Apperley donated to the Blog a couple of years ago (far left), and a few other figures that were kicking around, close-to-hand; two chinatroops and two game-playing pieces - Wizard's clone trooper from Star Wars and TSR's larger Buck Roger's Battle for the 25th Century counter.

Each month, at the start of the month (or when I first need to scan something!) I reset the title-bar on the scanner to that month and zero, thus; Feb18Toys-001, and as the month progresses all sorts of stuff is scanned-in, mostly for the archive, but as you know, some stuff is cropped and included in posts.

Now the other day; scanning the instruction sheet in (for the archive) of this game, my scanner - struggling to provide a preview of a small black&white illustration on a high-resolution colour setting -invented some colour! And not just any colour, but the sort of gradated, neon-rainbow colours designed by the gods to appeal to an Aspergic mind!

So I took a screen-capcha, blew it up, took another and here it is! Pretty huh?! This existed, while not really existing, only for a moment, ephemerally, in some non-existent, side-room of cyber space . . . it makes you think . . . well; it makes me think!

What it looks like when it's not indulging in a spot of psychedelic self-weirding!

It also helps explain one of the main game mechanisms, not that I ever really dwell on them, it's about the figures!

Speaking of figures, this is also Ravensburger, it's actually been in Picasa for a while, waiting for a suitable post, as I don't try to subject the Blog's readers to ephemeral juvenilia for the hell of it, or to deliberately annoy them, but it's all got a place in the whole; it's all 'grist to the mill'!

See - It's all figural! They're snails! Flats! From Ravensburger! There's another wood flat in the queue . . . a cow . . . fresh-in . . . coming-soon!