I had thought, for many years, that the Golden Age had been and gone again. The Golden Age of plastic / 20mm wargaming that is. Gone forever were those halcyon days of youth when the products of the Airfix company (Romans and Britons, ACW, WWI, WWII) jostled on the shelves with the offerings of Matchbox (a range of much more detailed WWII figures). Then, briefly, the ranges from Atlantic: Ancients, ACW, Wild West, WWII and more (siege engines, galleys, the coliseum itself.) filled the shelves and were then gone again in a couple of years, seemingly taking most of the Airfix and Matchbox stuff with them. There was, as I recall, a final fling from Airfix in the early 1980's - a previously small range of ready made military vehicles in soft plastic suddenly expanded - there were T-34's, Shermans, Tigers and many more - all perfect for WWII gaming with enough detail and not easily broken. These too soon disappeared. Around the same time the metal 20mm figures became increasingly hard to find - Hinton Hunt, Jacklex and so on all became unavailable as new cast figures. It seemed that 25mm had "won" in metal, and also that the plastic model manufacturers didn't care about their sales to wargamers. I recall reading in the Observation Post column of Military Modelling that Terry Wise (who wrote the column before Stuart Asquith) had been in contact with Airfix about figure availability and pose. Their response had been along the lines of "but these figures are children's toys - we don't care about the few wargamers who buy them." An attitude that I always thought was short sighted - anyone who had a sizable plastic ACW army of, say, 400 infantry and 100 cavalry, with perhaps a dozen guns had purchased probably 25 boxes of Airfix figures to get this. If they also bought Napoleonics and WWI and WWII figures, then they were buying a lot of boxes! Each plastic wargamer was buying as many figures as perhaps 10 or more children. So, all this great stuff disappeared, and the years rolled by. When Revell and ESCI started releasing figures in the early 1990's I bought just about everything that came along - on the basis that it wouldn't be around for long. In fact Revell went as far as producing all the figures needed for an army with their Thirty Years War range. In the 4 boxes making up this range were infantry (pike and musket), artillery, light and heavy horse. The figures were excellent too - different builds, and well detailed faces. This was something that hadn't been seen since the Airfix ACW and the Atlantic Romans disappeared. Then came box after box of Napoleonics from Italeri, HaT started up around the same time releasing even more Napoleonics, and many hard to find Airfix figures. In the last few months these two manufacturers have released an incredible assortment of ancients and medievals and we now have the situation where there are actually choices over whose Republican Romans or Ancient Greeks to buy! Also the old Atlantic sets are starting to reappear, although not any of the big sets, e.g. the galleys, so far. In fact it has reached the point that I've stopped thinking "hey, there are just about enough figures in this box to make a DBA army" and have replaced it with "the variety of figures is amazing I could do some more WRG Ancients armies with these". Yes, I still sometimes game WRG Ancients - and 5th edition at that! But I'm being clever this time - within the new armies will be enough figures based appropriately to make a DBA army. And by using a constant base scale, I can also use the same figures with Warhammer Ancient Battles. The wonderful thing is that any small shortfall in a particular figure (Cretan archers for example) can be made up with metal figures from a growing number of 20mm scale ranges - e.g. Newline, Qualiticast and the new ranges coming from Irregular (the early 18th century figures are superb). The Golden Age is Now! "Yeah, maybe it is," I hear the skeptic say, "but so what ? What's so great about plastic figures anyway ?". Well - they are the right size, not too small. You can base them as 15mm or 25mm figures. They don't cost much - my Hoplite army will cost about £ 9, and contain 150 figures. They have a very particular aesthetic appeal (which I realize some people hate!). They are easy to buy (sometimes too easy): most towns in the UK have a model shop of some description, only a few have a games shop that stocks many wargame figures. Up until they are painted they store away in a small space. OK, I admit that this can lead you to buying more figures than you strictly need, but then, buying and planning the armies is half the fun, right ? They are great for beginners, allowing a newcomer to the hobby to try gaming out without having to worry that a lot of money is being spent on a hobby they may find they don't enjoy. They are a good way to find out what sort of army suits you. Once you've got enough figures you start thinking about setting up a "Hyboria" type campaign to use them all in. For 18th century Europe onwards there is a great range of railway trackside buildings to the same scale, many pre-colored and painted. They are a useful project for a wargames club - use a few boxes to build up some standby DBA (or whatever - needn't be only ancients) armies. The figure painting can be farmed out to club members, a couple of DBA bases or a single regiment shouldn't be too much for anyone. I admit that a lot of the above could be boiled down to - they are cheap, look pretty good and you can buy lots and lots of armies. That's not a bad justification, is it ? Of course, the great thing really is that - whether you, like plastic figures or not - the truth is that the Golden Age of metal figures is also now - how lucky can we get ? If Minifigs would just bring their old Science Fiction and Fantasy ranges back into production my happiness would be complete! Back to MWAN #112 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com