Back in 1976 I was in the eight grade and our country was celebrating its’ Independence Bicentennial. I was already a wargamer and had read both Featerstone’s and Morchauser’s books on the topic of wargaming. My collection at the time consisted of MPC plastic 1/35 scale WWII and the tanks and trucks that came with them at the time. Most of my wargames armies came from the toy isle at the TG&Y dime store. I was reading comic books back then and I had seen the advertisements for the 204pc army in a box. I direct your attention to the following web site: http://home.att.net/~1.elliott/comicbooktoysoldiersintro.html Comic Book Armies c. 1976 from the collection of Ken Van Pelt. On this website you will see a dedication to the armies you could collect. I have read a portion of this site and was taken back to the old days of gaming and my first “Horse and Musket” army. I ordered the Revolutionary War set and when it arrived my brother and I began too divide the set up into two forces: British and Rebel and we even painted the figures to match a uniform reference book we had from the library. We were wargaming in earnest and had done all the necessary research and formation of a true miniature army. These were fantastic days and I will state that of all the figures I have collected the comic book armies had to have seen the most brutal and numerous campaigns. They had enlisted at the crucial time in a boy’s life when imagination, creativity, and long hours of free time coincided to produce a great amount of wargame charges and retreats, routs and victories! I remember these troops fondly and will post a picture of these old veterans because I still have the complete set. 201 veterans still report on roll call. Back to Table of Contents Penny Whistle #55 Back to Penny Whistle List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Lion's Den Publications. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com