Mark at the Man of Tin made a blogpost on his blog 'Pound Store Plastic Warriors' about cheap and dreadful Matchbox copies fond in a local toy shop earlier this week. They were really cheap, and as you usually gets what you pay for, I didn't think they looked too awful. Not exactly great knock-offs, but not completely dreadful either. There must be something looking worse than those?
I vaguely remembered seeing some toy soldiers in a local toy store a couple of years back, looking so bad that I didn't even considered to buy them even if toy soldiers are rare to find in Norwegian stores these days. So I decided to pop by and have a look the next time I was at that department store. I did and they still had them for sale (!). I guess they just looked so awful that no one else wanted to buy them either. They weren't especially cheap either as they charged Nok 49,90,- or £ 3,63 or $ 4,99 or € 4,24.
So, slightly embarrassed by paying this price for a bag of so obviously shitty soldiers, I bought a bag to have look of what was inside.
For this, I must say, high price you get a bag of 'Super Combat Mission Armament' soldiers made in China:
The bag contains (only) 38 really sub level quality soldiers.
The size of the soldiers seems to be about 40mm:
They are flat and do not have good body proposition. The weapon sculpting is awful! These must be 'copies of the copies of the copies of the.......'
- copies of Matchbox American Infantry way back. Only the poses gives some resemblance:
While the rest seems just like copies of cheap army men copies:
These must undoubtedly be the worst ever toy soldiers made? -Especially to that price!!
It's a complete rip-off, and I'm convinced that these won't contribute to making the next generation wanna play with toy soldiers (again) nor experimenting with using them for wargaming.
I'm not sure what to use these soldiers for? It just feels too bad to throw them in the bin. Or like Mark says in his blog; My 'inner seven' like these too much even if they're bad. They're too small for using them as zombies with my other 54mm figures. Perhaps using them for plinking with my old pellets rifle like we did when we were kids (too bad many Airfix originals was wasted this way back then when the originals was easier to get than these cheapos). But this is how my 'inner seven' wargamed in the garden:
Or perhaps I could use some of them for another
Snowball-fight wargame again?
Only time will show if these figures will reappear in any future games or projects. Follow my blog to find out. If you have suggestions how to use them or have any worse soldiers than these please tell me in the comment-section.
Roger, Shocking to think the store must have employed someone with authority to decide what stock to sell. And that person accepted these! These figures were being sold in UK stores too, a few years back. Mind you, some very cheap medievals were being flogged about three years ago, and the bags included several figures which were very nice 54mm. I recruited over one hundred, dumping the rest.
ReplyDeleteMichael
They probably got them dead cheap, and thought they would make good money on them hence the retail price. -But They are not making any money on them if they doesn't manage to sell them. There is another Toy shop chain in Norway still offering better and cheaper figures:
Deletehttps://modelrailsandwargames.blogspot.com/2024/04/recruiting-new-super-cheap-troops-to.html
It's nice if you find something worth it in those bags, as you can recruit cheap. Here the all over quality was just bad so I don't know what to do with them yet.
Roger - Yes those figures really are bad, but interestingly they do have a role in The Wargamingpastor's Imagiverse (did I just make up a new word?)
ReplyDeletehttps://deathzap.co.uk/2025/06/19/melt28/
Nice (new-)word you invented!
DeleteI've been to his blog before, and tried to link it to my own, but it doesn't formatting very well on my blog and adds an enormous photo making my own blog setup looks strange. I hadn't seen this blogpost however. It's a pretty new one. -But that's looks exactly like the figures from my own blogpost. Interesting the way he painted them; 'Grimcandy'.
I have seen them carefully and interestingly painted and transformed somewhat, notably on the Death Zap site. Death Zap is noteworthy for its alien settings, alien conversions and way-out uniform color schemes. I am a big fan. On the other hand, I would have used different cheapo figures.
ReplyDeleteMy own criteria for getting toy soldiers are economy, sculpting, historical veracity or not. I have collected very cheap figures and painted them to stand alongside Britains, Armies in Plastic, Hat, Accurate, A Call to Arms and so on.
These particular figures are usually very cheap. However, they have lost most resemblance to the original nicely sculpted figures. But here is a confession; figures that have lost their original helmet shape, equipment and weapons definition I still find appealing as they then lend themselves more to imagi-nations invented uniforms.
But once they become anatomically distorted, like these ones, I generally draw the line. I have got a few distorted 60mm modern infantry that I painted white and then with a pink wash to represent aliens or synthetic men but even they were not as distorted as these ones.
Mind you some of my old made in England toy soldiers that have some collectability are rather strange in weapons, equipment and anatomy. My Cherilea UN and 8th Army troops come to mind. But they are not 'anorexic' like these ones. There are also old and new 'flats' in both plastic and metal, that can actually look quite nice (if viewed from the right angle). But these figures don't look that nice from any angle!
Interesting comment!
DeleteEven if being anatomically distorted I haven't completely written them off yet. I'll have to give them a closer consideration on if or how to use them. I could use them as 'zombies', but if so I can't use them in the regular scale I usually game as they would be too small. Converting some of them to snowball-fighters, perhaps??
I'm familiar with the Death Zap site, but didn't see his recent blogpost until now. He managed to find a use for them in his imaginary games. -And painting them made them kind of look less dreadfully. I've tried to link to this blog from my own, but there must be some formatting challenges because the blog won't show as thumbnails on my own, but with huge images making my blog look strange.
I was not familiar with Cherilea UN troops, so I had to Google them as I became curious as I've been wargaming with UN troops my self. They're kind of interesting. It looks like there are UN-troops and mercenaries, and I kind of get a Congo vibe to these. Looking strange, they looks like quality miniatures over the figures reviewed in this blogpost.