The World of Model Soldiers

Part 5 : The 25 mm To 35 mm Range of Figures

And do remember that this tome was written many, many, years ago!

The war-gaming hobby underwent a tremendous surge in popularity in the early 1970s and almost every small toyshop began to stock 20 and 25 mm figures. This enthusiasm was accompanied by a proliferation of model-soldier and war-gaming magazines and the publication of new books, sets of rules, and the formation of a number of different war-gaming clubs. However, the would-be stockist of war-game figures soon found that the diversity that was being offered to his customers by the manufacturers was far greater than his financial capacity to stock. For example, there are about five major manufacturers of 25 mm figures, each making more than 1,000 different figures. The retailer is expected to stock all these figures in quantities of at least 100 of each figure. The stock holding required and cost is therefore enormous merely to fulfil, for example, the simple request for a Byzantine archer at the ready, two Napoleonic Austro-Hungarian grenadiers, and an artillery colonel of the Wehrmacht with binoculars.

Most of these shops have now given up and those that are still stocking small soldiers only do so on a very restricted scale: instead of stocking products by all the different manufacturers they have to narrow the field down to one or two and only keep figures that sell well. They would be disinclined to stock, say, the dozen or so different positions that are offered by just one manufacturer of a British Napoleonic line infantry private of 1812, selling only the one position of advancing, or on guard. All the other figures are still available by mail order direct from the manufacturers and the enthusiast is well advised to deal direct with them, having first obtained a copy of their catalogue. The mail-order services vary a great deal, but the majority of manufacturers are honest, if slightly artistic. Therefore, the prospective purchaser should be lenient with his supplier if the figures do not arrive within two or three weeks. If it were not for the artistic abilities of such people, the customer would not have the opportunity to order the figures!

There is a great deal of argument among war gamers as to the merits of the different sizes of model soldiers. It is the opinion of this author, however, that all the figures should be combined. One does not see a regiment of foot soldiers or even a squadron of cavalry where every man is the same height, the same build, and walks with exactly the same step, let alone where horses all put their left foot forward at the same time. It would therefore be more realistic to take all the figures of approximately 25 mm in height and, so long as they are wearing the same uniform and are in more or less the same position, assemble them in the same regiment. One would then have the short and the tall next to the fat and the thin, holding their muskets at a slightly higher or lower angle, as opposed to the regiments constantly seen where all the soldiers are marching stiffly forward, each looking exactly the same as his neighbour. Don’t tin soldiers ever lose their hats or their packs, or stuff loaves of bread in their knapsacks or bottles of wine in their back pockets, or hang half-eaten hams from their belt, or have skinned rabbits sticking out from their haversacks?

One of the most popular ways of starting a collection of 25 mm soldiers is to collect those produced by the firm of Airfix, which are made in England. These small figures are made in plastic, come in a variety of positions, and are sold in boxes of about 40 or 50 pieces for about the same price as three or four metal soldiers. They are generally excellent, but it must be pointed out that the manufacturers seem unwilling to take advice from humble model-soldier collectors and will often stubbornly go ahead and produce figures that are quite incorrect and out of period.

Another draw- back to collecting the Airfix plastic soldiers is that one is going to spend a lot of time painting them as, with playing, invariably the plastic will be bent and the paint will flake off. The muskets, arms, and ankles are the most flexible points of the figures, and this is where the paint comes off first. It is heartbreaking to have spent many hours producing miniature masterpieces, only to find that after playing with them half a dozen times they look like a collection of ragamuffins. The figures cannot be animated because there is no known solvent for the low-grade plastic from which they are moulded and the only way to change the position they are cast in is to use a heated tool or soldering iron. Metal figures can, of course be soldered or glued in order to give a variety of positions.