O is for Oh, What Could Have Been!

This is the original customer information flyer and order form, it must be a later one given the number of sets listed, and the splitting of the earlier sets into the single pose versions?

The following product list is a different edit to that in earlier posts, and is now the definitive listing, superseding the previous edits;

Rospaks Product Listing

 25mm polystyrene war-games figures from the Heroics & Ross stable, sold in header-carded, polythene/polyethylene bottle-bags. The range was announced/launched in November 1981, and had finished by October 1982.

 
Greeks
AG1 - Greek City Hoplites
AG2 - Greek Light Infantry [November 1981 to April 1982]
AG2a- Thracian Peltasts [from April 1982]
AG2b- Scythian Archers [from April 1982]
AG3 - Greek Cavalry
AG4 - Macedonian Pikemen/Phalangiter/Palangites

 
Romans
AR1 - Roman Legionaries
AR2 - Roman Light Infantry [from February to April 1982]
AR2a - Roman Auxiliary Javelinmen [from April 1982]
AR2b - Roman Western Auxiliary Archers [from April 1982]
AR3 - Roman Cavalry

 
Persians
AP1 - Persian Archers Kneeling Firing, (probably never issued)
AP2 - Persian Spearmen (Kardakes), (probably never issued)

AP3 - Persian Mede Spearmen/Bowmen, (never issued)

AP4 - Persian Immortals, (never issued)

AP5 - Scythian Horse Archers, (never issued)

AP6 - Persian Half-Armoured Cavalry. (never issued)

Celts

AC1 - Celtic Warband Swordsmen, (never issued)

AC2 - Celtic Warband Javlinmen, (never issued)

AC3 - Celtic cavalry, (never issued)

 

Waterslide Transfer Sheets (originally included with the figure sets, later sold separately)
T1 - Greek City Hoplite Shield Designs
T2 - Roman Shield Designs
T3 - Macedonian Shield Designs, (probably never issued, but might have been printed?)

 
Painting Instructions
Sheet 1 - For packs AG1 - AG3
Sheet 2 - For packs AR1 - AR3

Sheet 3 - Persians, (never issued)

Announced - Never Issued
- Napoleonics
- Roman Catapult and Crew
- Greek Elephant

P is for Photographs of Plastic Pugilists

Just a bunch of old Rospaks photographs from the archive, some are black & white, all are - now - low-resolution and some were used with the original article/s in One Inch Warrior magazine, the small scale off-shoot of Plastic Warrior magazine.

It's all Greek to me! We have looked at these before here at Small Scale World, so if you click on the Rospaks tag, under this paragraph, or down the right-hand side of the page, you'll get it all up, with links to someone else's Rospaks posts I think?

MM is for Roaspaks in Military Modelling Magazine

The short history of Rospaks as a seperate entity of Heroics & Ros (known better for their range of micro-armour, which were much finer castings than the cheap, often lop-sided, Skytrex, I went with!) is best writ by studying the few appearances in Military Modelling magazine, and this post in of those cuttings.

 

November 1981

Trade Ad.

Images show sets AG1 and AG2

November 1981

'Observation Post'

 

December 1981

Trade Ad.

AG2 and AG3

January 1982

Trade Ad.

AG1

February 1982

Trade Ad.

AR1

 

March 1982

Trade Ad.

AR1

April 1982

Trade Ad.

AR1

May 1982

Trade Ad.

AR2 and AR3

June 1982

Trade Ad.

AR2 and AR3

 

October 1982

'Observation Post'

Obviously the magazine is still going (I think; it's years since I bought it), and despite several changes of ownership will still retain some copyrights on the above, which is all from my own archive and shown here for research purposes. The 'Tippex' marks are where I originally wrote-in the publishing dates/details.

It's notable that they stopped advertising some months before the announcement of the end of the line, presumably they were looking for a way to save the project? Less than a year first-to-last and still missed by many, they were quite crude figurines, sculpted in the lead/whitemetal style, but they had a definite charm.

You also have to bear in mind, when these were 99p, a box of Airfix HO/OO figures were about 25/30p?

R is for Rospaks Romans

I want to try and use October as a sort of Boxtober! That is to get a lot of boxes ticked, or at least clear some less substantial stuff from the laptop, and get it into the tag-list, and it'll be mostly short posts with one or two images or old archive stuff I'm starting to scan in, and - to that end - this is what I have in the archive, on the Rospaks Roman infantry sets;

This is 'Sheet 2' the instruction sheet for the Roman sets, I don't have 'Sheet 1' for the Greeks, it's one of the few Rospaks items I don't have! If you have it and could send scans, that would be brilliant, or put it on your own Blog and send me the link to put here; it doesn't matter where it ends-up, so long as it's in the public domain before it's lost forever!

 

Infantry - old photograph

Cavalry - old photograph

The waterslide transfer sheet, T2, was originally in one piece, and while cut for inclusion in the first sets issued, would eventually be sold separately, as Heroics & Ros looked about for a fiscal model that would work.

Note; it's T for Transfers not D for Decals, waterslide transfers are still used by the ceramics industry who had been using them in Britain since the 1750's, although it's now believed someone in Italy was the originator/inventor of the technique? Decal is a modern word popularised since the 1970's, and whose etymology is lost or questionable! But it is widely used in ceramics too now! I think it is an ugly, orphan word whether pronounced as dee-cal, or deck-ul and never use it!

R is for Romans, Rospaks Romans

Continuing with the Rospaks coverage I started the other week, here is the rest of their production, they did advertise Persians being released in the last two trade Ad's but I don't think anyone has ever seen them! Nor did they ever star in the illustrated adverts. They also stated forthcoming Napoleonics, a catapult and a War Elephant...such plans, such plans...

The standard Legionary set for Imperial Rome, 9 each of two soldier poses and a three figure 'Command' group. You got 5 of the accessory sprues so lots of spare arms (in glue-able plastic!) and the odd spare shield. A Transfer sheet was - again - originally included, but later sold separately and flash was niggle-some with this issue.

Cleaned-up and equipped with right arms & shields, the advancing legionnaire is a reasonable figure. On the right the same figure is given a home-made shield from melted/squashed sprue and with a cavalry arm fitted makes another auxiliary skirmisher.

Set AR2 was born Roman Light Infantry and would go on to become AR2a - Auxiliary Javelin-men, and AR2b Western Auxiliary Archers. Left-hand of each row is the original, the rest have had a little work with spare arms and stretched sprue, there was so much potential in this, and I wish we could have, today, more hard plastic/styrene figures...that aren't 28/32mm!

The cavalry set, again the transfers would eventually get separated, but with 12 shields in two designs and 6 arms this was good value for the 99p being charged in 1982, although our friends across the water might have had more to say about $2.75 as - at the time - 99p equaled no more than 2 dollars?

The range was withdrawn about ten months after it's announcement, and nothing has been heard of it since, Plastic Warrior approached Heroics prior to my original article in 1 Inch Warrior, but elicited no reply and various myths abound, mostly around inter-industry rivalry, however they themselves stated it was for "Economic reasons" to 'Observation Post' in Military Modeling, and the splitting of packs, selling of transfers for an additional 35p and painting instructions for a further 5p would suggest they were still searching for a successful sales model?

This was - after all - the time when half the toy and modeling industries in the developed world were going to the wall, so it's no great mystery! I've added a complete product list below.

Rospaks Product Listing
25mm polystyrene war-games figures from the Heroics & Ross stable, sold in header-carded polybags. Range Lanched in November 1981, finished by October 1982.
Greeks
AG1 - Greek City Hoplites
AG2 - Greek Light Infantry [November 1981 to April 1982]
AG2a- Thracian Peltasts [from April 1982]
AG2b- Scythian Archers [from April 1982]
AG3 - Greek Cavalry
AG4 - Macedonian Pikemen/Phalangiter/Palangites
Romans
AR1 - Roman Legionaries
AR2 - Roman Light Infantry [from February to April 1982]
AR2a - Roman Auxiliary Javelinmen [from April 1982]
AR2b - Roman Western Auxiliary Archers [from April 1982]
AR3 - Roman Cavalry
Persians
AP1 - Persian Archers Kneeling Firing, (probably never issued)
AP2 - Persian Spearmen (Kardakes), (probably never issued)
Transfers
T1 - Greek City Hoplite Shield Designs
T2 - Roman Shield Designs
T3 - Macedonian Shield Designs
Painting Instructions
Sheet A - For packs AG1 - AG3
Sheet B - For packs AR1 - AR3
Announced - Never Issued
- Persian Cavalry
- Barbarians (Celts)
- Napoleonics
- Roman Catapult and Crew
- Greek Elephant

R is for Rospak

I first covered these in Plastic Warrior's little brother; One Inch Warrior - Vol. 4, but Hew Williams of Mid Glamorgan (I don't know if he's really from Mid Glamorgan, but whenever Welshmen write into magazines and things that's where they inevitably come from - so it's a safe bet!) was asking after them on the HaT forum yesterday and I said I'd post a few here.

Two of the Greek sets bagged, there are two other sets - Cavalry and Macedonian Phalangites, set AG2 became AG2a & 2b with 20 of one pose instead of 10 each of both.

As well as splitting the peltasts/archers (and splitting one of the Roman sets into two) in later production the transfer sheets were dropped from inclusion in the bagged sets as well and sold separately.

I used to think that the transfers also came in blue, yellow and green, but I now susspect that's a false memory confusing Revo sheets with Rospaks.

My pitiful selection of Cavalry, I know what the head of the other rider looked like as some have been glued to this guy! And with both horse poses I have nothing to complain about!

Available between Dec.1981 and Oct.'82 they were a sort lived range, sculpted in a Metal figure style by the 1:300 war-games & micro-armour firm of Heroics and Ros. Given the move to war game sizes plastics in the last 12 years, it's a pity someone hasn't put the moulds back into production?

There you go Huw (this should really hurt Our Man Dark's head!!), enjoy!! I'll post the Romans in a day or two.

The head of the missing cavalry pose, which as you can see has been 'cut and pasted' on to the cavalryman I already have, so I don't know what his whole pose looks like! And I forgot to post the other foot poses in the Greek range so here they are, again I have no weapons for them so don't know if they were separate plastic mouldings like the Romans, or metal, or indeed if you were supposed to source them yourself like some HaT Greeks? I used the bloke on the right to hold horses! Listing imported from defunct A-Z, below.

Rospaks Product Listing
25mm polystyrene war-games figures from the Heroics & Ross stable, sold in header-carded polybags. Range Lanched in November 1981, finished by October 1982.
Greeks
AG1 - Greek City Hoplites
AG2 - Greek Light Infantry [November 1981 to April 1982]
AG2a- Thracian Peltasts [from April 1982]
AG2b- Scythian Archers [from April 1982]
AG3 - Greek Cavalry
AG4 - Macedonian Pikemen/Phalangiter/Palangites
Romans
AR1 - Roman Legionaries
AR2 - Roman Light Infantry [from February to April 1982]
AR2a - Roman Auxiliary Javelinmen [from April 1982]
AR2b - Roman Western Auxiliary Archers [from April 1982]
AR3 - Roman Cavalry
Persians
AP1 - Persian Archers Kneeling Firing, (probably never issued)
AP2 - Persian Spearmen (Kardakes), (probably never issued)
Transfers
T1 - Greek City Hoplite Shield Designs
T2 - Roman Shield Designs
T3 - Macedonian Shield Designs
Painting Instructions
Sheet A - For packs AG1 - AG3
Sheet B - For packs AR1 - AR3
Announced - Never Issued
- Persian Cavalry
- Barbarians (Celts)
- Napoleonics
- Roman Catapult and Crew
- Greek Elephant