What was your first set of 1/72 figures?

[Wiking]

My first figures at the age of around ten years was Airfix Hong Kong copy of japanese army and a copy of Airfix German soldier. I can`t remember how I get it.
I remember that in summer at school one time each year there was a flea market only for us kids.
There I bought my first Airfix figures. Not a complete set! Bits and fragments what mates find at home to sell. Some US civil war gunners, A few Indians and this and that.
My very first figures box was German soldier WW II from Esci. A few days earlier my friend bought the Esci Russian WWII. The other one the french WWII from Esci. The smoking penguin at the back side of the box was very funny to us at that time. Because he is doing so lazy with all this dangerous weapons around him.
We don`t know Atlantic or anything else. Painting the figures was done with overhead projector pencils.
Then we play what we see with the parents in the 8.00 pm news the next day. A time there only 3 program at TV are available.
The battle of Beirut.
We use the friends wooden bricks, matches some Lego stuff and what was useful.
The rules was easy. You shoot at only one figure. Take it around 15 cm high and let it drop down.
If the face is to the earth. A fallen soldier. The face look up to the sky, a second try, face to the ground he is wounded. Up to the sky. You miss him. Now the opponent is on turn.
The wounded soldier for example on Monday you can get only on next Monday! Each day you get only three new (ex fallen) soldier. Remember a Esci box contain around "only" 50 figures. If you attack one house you lost arond five figures. There was more negotiation you get this house then you give up that strong point and so on then hard battle. Hold the line and save your troops!
With arond 300 figures defender and builder of our 1/72 Beirut it was logic that my both friends attack me be cause I get the most figures. Day for day continues losses if you get attacked from the right and left side. And my red cross was full each day!
You read that I write a lot. Was a funny teenager time.

[FredG]

My first figures I believe were the Airfix French Cavalry (Cuirassiers) when they first came out in the early 1970s. They were quickly followed by the Imperial Guard and French Artillery. I finally gave those sets away in the 1980s to someone who wanted to try Wargaming.
The large cardboard boxes of sets that are in the attic and my habit of finding new ones to buy means that I'll have to be painting until I'm about 120. MrsG says if I pop my clogs before they're all finished she'll kill me.

[The Talking Horse]

At least there is someone else old enough to share with. My first set was The airfix guardsmen, The Band I still have, and the second lot of conversions to ACW St Louis Greys, The first conversions, adding tricornes to replace bearskins, have long long gone.
Thanks Airfix for setting me on this long road of oft frustrating pleasures.

[miniaturezone]

Great thread, interesting to see so many with fond memories of their first set.

I was very young when I got my first set of 1/72 figures, my grandparents got me the Marx Charge of the Light Brigade set at Christmas.

I still remember the figures, all prepainted and ready to game - the British in red with golden helmets, the Russians in blue. At the time there seemed to be hundreds of figures, tons of cannons, and a huge great plastic rock.

[Peter]

Thanks for sharing this with us guys!

The large cardboard boxes of sets that are in the attic and my habit of finding new ones to buy means that I'll have to be painting until I'm about 120. MrsG says if I pop my clogs before they're all finished she'll kill me.

I'll join you!

Picture from 2014!



At this moment....the room has become to small!

See more here: http://peterscave.blogspot.be/2014/01/p ... art-2.html

[FredG]

Thank you Peter and I'm sorry but MrsG just put you in the same category as me

[Peter]

Thank you Peter and I'm sorry but MrsG just put you in the same category as me

Then she must have been talking with my wife! She thinks just the same!

[Michael Robert]

Hello,
I throw in my lot ofchildhood memories.
My first set were purchased around 1974 or 75. They were Airfix (what else?) ACW Americans and Waterloo Scots. I went on buying all Airfix sets and playing with them in landscapes scupted in the garden (no painted soldiers). Later on I also collected the Atlantic sets. We were a club of youngsters then playing together and everybody had his armies. Later on, when I studies nearly all sets were discarded (given away) with the exception of Napoleonics. I started again around year 2002 when I needed some rest by doing Something (re)creative. So I started painting Napoleonics ad it started again. Alltogether a very different approach, but some remains of childhood are clearly active.
There are a lot of similar histories on this forum.

Greetings Michael

[Peter]

Thanks for your contribution in this topic Michael!

[Susofrick]

I think this must be the oldest topic still alive and well. I think I must correct myself because I do remember that we had Airfix WWII British infantry (the 1st version) http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=53 , but I don't know where they came from. Maybe my big brother, but he wasn't interested in such things. In the mid-80s I opened a can of Humbrol Enamel yellow paint and found the officer inside. He is all that remains and he is still yellow. And I also remember playing with Britain's Lilliput infantry some time, but I don't think we ever owned them.

[Traveller1865]

Mine was Esci Confederate infantry, not very useful today sadly. Back then quickshades and inks and such did not exist which made it very difficult if one wanted to paint them and make them look good. Also patience wasn't really there...

[Wiking]

Susofrick wrote:
In the mid-80s I opened a can of Humbrol Enamel yellow paint and found the officer inside.

Is´t such an unexpected find funny!

I know white, black and light grey as a primer. Yellow is new to me. Must be a Nordic specialty.

[Peter]

Susofrick wrote:
In the mid-80s I opened a can of Humbrol Enamel yellow paint and found the officer inside.

Is´t such an unexpected find funny!

I know white, black and light grey as a primer. Yellow is new to me. Must be a Nordic specialty.

And then you have to know that the figure was in yellow plastic!

[Susofrick]

Peter! They weren't in yellow plastic! Airfix WWII First version. For a while I used violet as a primer, came over a lot of Humbrol Acrylic paint for free and some of them were violet so I tried to use it as a primer and it worked quite nice.

[Peter]

Peter! They weren't in yellow plastic! Airfix WWII First version. For a while I used violet as a primer, came over a lot of Humbrol Acrylic paint for free and some of them were violet so I tried to use it as a primer and it worked quite nice.

[Rich W]

I got my first sets on holiday on the Isle of Man from a really old fashioned model shop in approx 1998. My dad bought them for me as a treat for 'behaving' whilst on the family holiday. They were Revell Imperial 30 yr war artillery and Revell ACW Confederate inf. When choosing them I thought they would be big toy soldiers/cannons for me to play with and I liked the box art!

[Graeme]

I always had 1/32 size toy soldiers in the toy box for as long as I can remember. Bought for 6d each from "Johnsons the Jewelers" in the village (obviously )

Then on a shopping trip to Redcar in 1960-something i came across Chas. Hunters Model Shop. The shop had one window that was filled with Airfix sets, and Alladin could not have been more astonished when he found the cave. I bought Japanese infantry (I liked the caps) and I couldn't quite believe that for 1/6 I was getting nearly 50 soldiers. Even with the plastic window in the back I didn't fully believe it till I got home and opened the box.

My dad was a bit disgruntled that I'd bought Japanes figures, so I had to go back to the shop and get the Eighth Army set as well

I bought nearly everything Airfix made over the years but, for me, Human civilisation had reached it's highest point the day i saw Airfix's Napoleonic Highlanders in the shop window. They were my first Napoleonic figures and are probably the reason why I'm here today, so now you know who to blame.

[sigtekorn]

Still new to this forum, but I can see that most of us share a somewhat similar backstory of using all of our allowances on new sets . Even when travelling I pestered my parents to go to hobby stores in whichever city we were visiting.

Back then I didn't paint my figures though. Maybe I was just a weird kid, but the only color I applied was blood. I always searched for sets having dead or wounded poses or I would try to remodel poses to fit the bill to create a realistic battlefield.

The lack of fallen/wounded poses still is a problem today when wanting to do a diorama.

[Redmao]

I didn't really grow up on toy soldiers. I had a bag of generic green army men, but most of my play time was spent with GI Joe figures. I became obsessed with miniatures in the 90's with Ral Partha's line of roll playing figures.

My first 1/72 set was Caesar's SAS. To this day, it's among my favorites. I really like the various poses and the obvious James Bond figure.

[Mai Strac]

Atlantic bersaglieri....year 19.......