Wee Men Plastic Toy Soldiers

Hat Industries' Numidian Light Horse from their 1/72 Punic Wars range. This is the first set where I seriously tried to understand horse color. I'm still trying...

 Hat Industries' Italian Allied Cavalry from their 1/72 Punic Wars range.

More of my cavalry troopers during painting. I found a mark on the base but don't know what it means. Any idea? Since I decided to paint the 7th cavalry figures, I've been mulling over giving them either a toy soldier look (bright base colors, solid blocks with no shading and hi-lites -- but not glossy like traditonal toy soldiers) or a scale model look (with blending, weathering, etc) I'm leaning towards a a toy soldier lookwithout the gloss. what do you think?

Remember that set of 7th Cavalry troopers I wrote about last time? I found the fourth pose!  I had believed it hidden somewhere in my parents' bodega but I found it among a bunch of ESCI figures I had stored at my home and was planning to paint up. This prompted me to paint the lot instead. Painting's still a work in progress. I'm still looking for reference regarding the button color as well as the hat color. More soon!

On display are four 1:32 S.A.S. troopers, or least I believe they are. No marks are visible on the stands and I can't find any reference of these as either originals or recasts of another brand. The sculpting is very soft on details with guns being very rudimentary, especially the figure holding a pistol that looks more like a hotdog sandwich. Two figures wearing balaclavas and tactical face masks/armor, one standing and another kneeling, carry what seem to be MP5s. The fourth is carrying a shotgun and seems to be wearing a gas mask. Not an impressive set but one of the few post WW2/Modern figure sets I own. I'm currently painting another set of these figures and hopefully, they'll come out better looking. As is, they'll make good S.A.S., SWAT or anti-terrorist forces for a modern skirmish game.

I just read this piece of news and am pretty bummed about it: "Zvezda's last full box? Slightly ahead of schedule, Zvezda have announced the release of their set 8078 German Infantry Platoon (for the years 1942 to 1944). With the release of this set there are no more full figure sets promised from this manufacturer, although a large number of game pieces are due over the coming months. Whether they will return to making full sets in the future is impossible to say, but we will certainly be sad to see an end to what has been for the most part an outstanding range of figures." from the Plastic Soldier Review news for Feb 27, 2013. link I've been a fan of Zvezda's figures but the Art of Tactics small boxes with an average of only 2-4 figures just doesn't seem right to me. The format kinda goes against the grain of what enamored me with 1/72sets before. Oh well… Will I buy this set? Probably. I'll even hunt down more of their old set...

BMC produces inexpensive plastic toy soldiers from a variety of historical periods. Admittedly, their sculpts have often been criticized as unattractive compared to those of other makers and they make no pretense of historical accuracy. As plastic toys though, they are good enough and are the perfect choice to bulk up a starter army en masse. Such is the case with thse American Civil War Union soldiers. These 1:32 figures comprise my very first foray into the American Civil War period. Most of the figures that came in my bagged sets contained mainly foot infantry, a mounted officer and a few cannons and their limbers. I am not familiar with how armies during that period deployed for battle so I just arranged them in convenient groupings and snapped away. The horses and the riders came in only one sedate, casual pose. a pity since it would have been nice to have a charging squadron of cavalry on the field. The cannons came with only one crewman a ...