Paul V's 1/72 scale Battlefield

Here's some ancient pics I managed to dredge up, Woodsy, showing the battlefield I once made. Not very large, sorry, they're scans I made ages ago from paper pics I've mislayed since... I should still have that field somewhere, with hills cut out and rest rolled up. :)

#1 shows construction: cheap wallpaper taped to floor of parent's living room while minding the house during said parent's holiday. Hills are filled with layers of stepped pieces of cardboard (from boxes collected at supermarket waste dump). Visible towards the rear are some game boards from Avalon Hill's Panzer Leader game, which I scaled up a bit (but nowhere to anything realistic).

Woods were made from styrofoam; houses are 4-5 basic buildings I drew up, photocopied and which we then coloured in with magic markers.

For rules we used the most basic ones from Panzer Leader. Having things in 3-D (as opposed to 2-D cardboard) means that things like "line of sight/line of fire" could easily be checked by eye instead of needing 2-3 pages of specific rules, and all the nonsense about troop morale was simplified to the morale of the players. :)  Unit strength &c we also got from the Panzer Leader game.

#2 shows a young P Vreede having set up the German side.

Reason I had some German troops is a good friend in college had a friend that staged massive battles and I wanted to participate. Friend's friend had a large Red Army, so to help my friend I made a reasonably self-contained (if unrealistically composed) German battle group. I never got to play with them for one reason or another, but it turned out handy when I discovered my best friend Lo (shown in #3) had enough American stuff to field against my little group. 

#4 shows my little Kampfgruppe, #5 and 6 are my rear/HQ area. Object of the game was to capture at least three enemy-held towns as well as the enemy HQ vehicle, which could be hidden. (you need an objective or else nothing much will happen).

#7 shows Lo's Task Force, posed for a patrol in #8. 

#9 - 11 are posed pictures of our troops.

#12 is from a real game (where so much was going on that we had to break up the normal turn system into individual little skirmish turns to manage the fighting and keep things both realistic and fair. :)  Red paper squares denote destroyed vehicles, orange means damaged for a turn. What we both lacked in equipment I quickly made out of paper: side and front silhouettes dovetailed together (also visible in last picture).

Et voilà.

--

Paul

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Paul originally sent me this post in 2016! This week I found it again in the drafts list.

Hold your Positions!

This looks like a good bit of plastic battle terrain by Atlantic of Italy.

 Did you have anything like this for your small soldiers?

Space Link

 

I like the look of Space link, tho I've never owned any. The space stationesque parts really conjure the taste for sci-fi toys in the seventies and eighties. 

Not sure if there were action figures with Space link. I recently saw a little figure in a boxed Robotix set, which I guess is a more modern version of Space Link. 

There's also a Capsela vibe to the construction above, which I saw online.

Are you familiar with SpaceLink, Robotix and Capsela? 

Bill wades in:
Its easier to show rather than tell, so here is my take on Capsela Spacelink. Originally made in the late seventies by Mitsubushi Pencil Co., Capsela was an ingenious engineering building system using capsule based components, containing motors, gears, electrical connections etc. It made building working models a simple task, as all the fiddly bits were enclosed in a plastic ball. The basic concept was in production until quite recently, from various companies, with Bandi being the latest owner. Play Jour extended the basic line into Spacelink, by adding space themed parts to attach to the capsules, such as wings and rockets and cockpits to fit inside, with a range of small figures called 'Capsenauts'.

You can see the scale of the Capsenaut figures in this line up of small figures and then running up to the Mattel Armageddon figure, which is about 8" high.

The Capsela range included remote control devices, simple computer control, infra red receivers and all manner of specialised parts.

Robotix by MB Games was a space themed building set using larger modular parts and a 3.5" figure. Although Robotix uses a similar hexagonal connector of around 20mm, it is rotated about 10 degrees, so attaching a capsule to a Robotix part meant that it was at an angle and would not sit right.

Robotix also had a few different owners over the years, with remote control parts and motors, but with an emphasis on more recognisably space module themed parts.

Cosmic Kidding

 An odd bunch I saw on auction.

Just what are Cosmic Kids?

Otley Vintage Toy Heaven

 

The Missus and me took time out from some serious childminding today and visited Otley near Leeds, a bustling town we frequent about once a year.

Always a treat, I get to go to my favourite vintage toy shop in these parts at the top of Kirkgate Arcade. An Aladdin's cave of vintage toys on both sides of the arcade, there's always tons to suit every generation, even old 'uns like me!

I saw so much I wanted take home. Action Man, Johnny West and Chief Cherokee, punching Mego Batman, Zowies, Rrrumblers, Transformers. Blimey! 

There must be a thousand old die-cast there and cabinets full of action figures and their vehicles. I even got to handle the big dome-fronted helicopter from the New Captain Scarlet. It's bigger than I thought. 

There's a fab cafe next to the toy shop too and we dined on a delicious small English.

Vintage toys and a cooked brekky. I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven! 

As soon as I get home from childminding duties tomorrow I'll photograph the twenty pounds worth of stuff I got.

Oh, and we visited the famous 20p second hand shop, where all the glorious tat is 20p each! 

Star Explorer or Copycat?

I like this cheapo Star Explorer car. 

It really rings a bell though.

There's another toy like it.

But what?

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Update!

I remembered!

The Terminator car!

Hellosaurus!

 I know this T.Rex Triceratops battle art on this box of toys.

This book cover is the same ...

But I'm sure there's a much older book cover from the Sixties.

Anyone know it?

Have you got favourite dino art?

DOK CARTON

These Japanese kit designs are out of this world.

I don't know the maker, DOK, but I like their box art! 

Do you?