54mm Fantasy?

 While I have been casting about for inspiration this month, one other idea (other than Prince Valiant, that is) has been given a new push.  I have noticed recently that there are now two boxes of soft plastic 1/32 scale fatnasy creatures available on Amazon (and probably elsewhere). The Series I box was $20, and the Series II box was $25, within my impulse purchase range, so I decided that I would order them and have a look.

Series I contained orcs, griffins, skeletons, unicorns, minotaurs, wizards, dwarves, two headed somethings, snakey medusas, dragons, centaurs, knights, faeries, and elves, in a mix of light and dark plastic. Numbers were fairly even; 7 of each although I was apparently short a faerie.  For scale, they are shown below with a knight from Accurate Miniatures from my Medieval Mayhem collection. The sculpting on the figures is fairly basic, but the human-sized creatures are not a terrible match.  The dragon is a bit small, and would probably be more comfortable looming over some 1/72 scale figures.  There are no pose variations, so any units would end up with a bit of an old school Minifigs aesthetic going on.

The Series II figures were more of a mix.  They included Cerberus, Amazons, frog-men, wolves, lizard men, cyclopes, a second unicorn pose, a headless horseman, a phoenix, a militant mermaid, a berserker, and a harpy.  The numbers were more random.  I was short two figures of the 56 promised, and had 1 Cerberus, 2 phoenixes, and 2 frog-men.  As with Series I, size of the humans is a reasonable look next to the Accurate knight.  The cyclops, like the dragon, would be happier with the 1/72s, and one phoenix may also find his way into that project as a roc.  

The plastic is pretty soft, so a test of paintability will need to be done.  There are plenty of spares of things I won’t need in units to test compatibility with spray primers...

I’m not sure what I would use for rules; adding a bit of fantasy to Medieval Mayhem seems possible, and playing Dragon Rampant (perhaps with half-sized units—a default of 6 foot or 3 mounted rather than 12 or 6).

In addition to these new figures, I also actually have a bucket of plastic toys laid by when Toys R Us closed out in 2018.  They had a bucket of Mythical Warriors in their “True Heroes” line (there’s a mis-naming...).  It had included 7 different figures, a female rogue, a hero, two witches, an orc, an elf drawing an arrow, and a dwarf(?) with a hammer (who is big enough to pass for human, so possibly equally usable as a berseker).  

Each bucket included some rudimentary toy scenery; a bridge, a couple of pillars, a prisoner cage, some rocks, some machine gun nests (?) and a pile of candlesticks, plus an odd structure I’ve dubbed the “mystic gateway”.

As you can see from the picture above, the mix of figures was pretty random.  I got one rogue, three heroes, four orcs, and thirteen elves.

They also are not a bad match for the Accurate knight.  Unfortunately, with Toys R Us out of business, the molds are currently idle, so there’s no chance of acquiring more rogues or orcs.  

There’s more to follow on this, but I am enjoying considering whether I could finally have a 54mm D&D game...

(For the record, I am aware of Irregular Miniatures 54mm fantasy line...I may end up with some of those if I do get started on this; the humans tend to be rather taller than the Accurate figures, at least going by the Irregular 54mm medieval civilians I have for Medieival mayhem.)

“We’re sorry, all available Muses are busy inspiring other artists...

 ...Your inspiration is important to us.  Please be patient, and you will be inspired by the first available Muse.”

That’s what it has felt like this past month.  However, I mentioned in my Gencon post that I had the opportunity to play in a session of the Prince Valiant roleplaying game.  After the convention, I ordered a boxed set of the first three volumes of the Fantagraphic reprints of the Prince Valiant comic strips, covering the years 1937 to 1942.  When I reached Volume 2 and saw this cover...

...my call to the Muses was answered.  (I might note that I feel like this falls within Calliope’s portfolio for “epic” rather than Clio’s portfolio for “history”.)  In fact, my cup has overflowed slightly...

Last year at Barrage in September, I picked up a Zvezda “Royal Castle” model.  It was rather large and intimidating, so I went out looking over the usual sources for something a little smaller, and turned up one of these “Medieval Castle” models as well.  I have several boxes of Zvezda siege machines, inclujding two siege towers, a trebuchet, and four or five boxes of the smaller pieces, such as ballistas, rock throwers, rams, and mantlets, all in 1/72 scale, of which I have great store.

In fact, my son Norman recently posted about the Zvezda ballista he’s finished for his Mongol army.  So one possible route which the Prince Valiant inspiration could take me is down the path of expanding the 1/72 medieval/fantasy project to include the castle(s) and siege engines as scenario seeds.  I would not end up using the Prince Valiant background, but would translate this into the ongoing Northlands/Portable Fantasy Campaign.

However, there is another somewhat reasonable possibility for a more direct inspiration.  Back in the 1990s, when I was first gaming with large scale figures, I bought a bunch of 60mm knights and such, classic toys whose molds had been put back into production.  Most (all?) of them were Marx Robin Hood and Sheriff of Nottingham figures, and various Reamsa and Jecsan figures from Spain and France.  

This was a project which mostly did not pan out, mostly because the conceptual space for it ended up occupied by the Medieval Mayhem project.  I had at one point intended to get the kids involved, and painted character figures and retinues for each of them.  I think we got one game in before it got set aside. According to my game logs, I hosted one game for a HAWKs meeting in 2004.  I had, in fact, decided to sell them off a year or two ago, so I pulled out the two character figures for my sons, handed them off to them for display, and boxed up the rest, along with the stock of unpainted figures. However, nobody bought them, and I brought them home (all 60 foot figures, 2 mounted figures, and the unpainted stocks) and stowed them away again.

Now, Ross Macfarlane has his Prince Michael project using 40mm Elastolin figures, so I knew that Elastolin once had a license for Prince Valiant figures, which they made in 40mm and 70mm.  However, I also recalled that somewhere in my unpainted stock of 60mm figures, I had a Reamsa Prince Valiant figure. I have no idea whether it was a pirate copy, or whether they had a propoer license.  Anyway, I did a little basement archaeology, and found these two:

The Valiant figure, on the left, is not quite in the same pose as the Elastolin, but Sir Gawain is nearly identical.  So, it would appear to be possible to do something with those, in a skirmish line, given that I already have 60+ figures painted ... We’ll see what the future holds. 

Meanwhile, I’m into Volume 3, and a boxed set of Volumes 4-6 arrived this week.

Into Battle, Again

Inspired by the lack of success in the previous battle, and, more practically, by the fact that my son has to go back to school today, we did a reprise of the Egyptian/Hittite encounter on the same terrain last night. Here you can see the Sea People in action against a group of Hittite spearmen. We are using Warhammer Ancient Battles with house modifications to deal with multiple figure bases; these are still evolving. Tokens (unsightly, but as unobtrusive a color as I could find for this ground cloth) represent casualties.

The results were more satisfactory, from my point of view, although we were both set scrambling back to the painting table to provide dismounted versions of our generals, so that when their chariot is destroyed next time, they are not also removed (per the rules.)

When we were finished with the game, I had the not unusual experience of being ready to sit down with a brush and add some color to something. The project at the front of the bench was a squadron of semi-flat cavalry for Charge!, but more of that later...