Wee Men Plastic Toy Soldiers

I'm a fan of HäT Industrie's small-scale figures and soon decided that I needed an army of their Polybian Romans. I mean -- who doesn't need an army or two? My Polybian legion is currently composed of various HäT Industrie 1/72 plastic scale models. The company is a designer & manufacturer of 1/72 and 1/32 scale soft plastic and 28mm hard plastic military miniatures designed with the plastic toy figure collector, wargamer or hobbyist in mind. I've included notes taken from Wiki regarding the figures depicted. The Polybian legions of the early Roman republic was a manipular army whose structure was based partially upon social class and partially upon age and military experience. The army is based on units called maniples (Latin manipulus singular, manipuli plural, from manus, "the hand"). Maniples were units of 120 men each drawn from a single infantry class. The maniples were small enough to permit tactical movement of individual infantry units ...

I picked up a bag of rather largish 54mm Vikings from a Hong Kong company called Supreme. I'm pretty sure these are recasts but of what I have no idea. The figures are horridly painted but that doesn't matter since I'll be repainting them anyway. The details on the sculpts look rather crisp though and aside from the rather Basil Rathbone-ish mustaches and beards, I figure these can be nice Norsemen when painted up. Here's the link to an online seller fo these figures -- Michigan Toy Soldier Co. I'll be posting the painted versions soon. Enjoy!

 Here's a lucky find in an obscure little toy shop -- 1:32 (54mm) hard plastic Star Wars figures! I managed to get 7 different figures in a hard, tan plastic. The sculpting is acceptable and the figures are free from mold lines. They are, however, studded with 2 or 3 plugs and mold holes. These can be easily cut from the figure and filled in with putty but I'm leaving them on until I decide to paint them. These are probably recasts from the old Kenner line of Empire Strikes Back action figures scaled down. From top to bottom, left to right the figures are: Han Solo in Hoth gear; X-Wing pilot Luke Skywalker; Leia in Hoth gear; Bounty Hunters Dengar and Bossk the Trandoshan; 5D6-RA7 Imperial Espionage Droid; 21B Medical Droid From top: 5D6-RA7 Imperial Espionage Droid 5D6-RA-7, nicknamed Fivedesix by those around him, was an RA-7 protocol droid in service to the Galactic Empire during the Galactic Civil War. Fivedesix was known to be foul-tempered...

Some of my favorite toys are my toy soldier sets with plastics dominating a large portion of my collection. Featured here are plastic recasts of the Britains Saracen Knights, also billed as Storm Knights. These 54 mm figures come with removable weapons and bases. The originals are quite rare, with mint samples reaching $70 to $100. Too bad mine are only repros, bought from a department store toy section for around $3 a bag. I still enjoy fiddling around with them immensely, with some figures receiving paint jobs and being basis for conversions.

The Airfix range of military figures is one of the iconic brands of plastic toy soldiers I grew up with. Airfix is a UK manufacturer of plastic scale model kits founded in 1939 by Humbrol and currently owned by Hornby, a famous UK model railway brand. This is the latest reissue of their classic Deutsche Afrika Korps, the German expeditionary force in Libya and Tunisia during the North African Campaign of World War II. The box contains 14 figures. Click the picture above to go to the Airfix webpage for these figures.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers..." I have been fascinated with plastic toy soldiers for a long time now. Big. Small. World War 2. Medieval. Soldiers. Civilians. Painted. Unpainted. Boxed. Bagged. Sprued. Loose. Toy figurines. Scale models. And everything in between. If it's plastic, odds are that I like collecting them.  A toy soldier is a miniature figurine that represents a soldier. The term applies to depictions of uniformed military personnel from all eras, and includes knights, cowboys, pirates, and other subjects that involve combat-related themes. Toy soldiers vary from simple playthings to highly realistic and detailed models. The latter are of more recent development and are sometimes called model figures to distinguish them from traditional toy soldiers.  from Wiki's entry on Toy Soldier I can still remember summer days playing with plastic soldiers on our carpet, lining them up in rows and imagining leading them into epic battles. I ha...