54mm or so Toy Soldiers Project

I stumbled over a coffee can in the closet that was full of what I'd call 54mm toy soldier figures for the Civil War. I had completely forgotten that I had these. I think I found them at a grocery store in the toys section, right next to the cowboys and Indians, dinosaurs, farm animals and green army men. It may be that I bought two bags of them and poured them in this can before forgetting all about it.



Technically they are not even all exactly the same scale, some come out around 40-some millimeters and others over fifty, but they look okay together. They are meant to be toys, not prize-winning sculpts, but they are not half bad.

I guess I wasn't taking them seriously for wargaming, or I'd have at least remembered that I had some. These may be from two years ago.

But on the other hand there are some blogs out there talking about figures like these for some good-looking games, and for more than just the Civil War. Revolution, Alamo, Wild West, etc also are done. WW2 of course.

Also my best old wargaming buddy moved away to California quite a while back. He told me he has been playing Civil War lately with a fireman out there with 54mm figures. This would be in the Napa or Sonoma Valley area north of San Francisco. If anyone knows them, and sees this, please jump in. If there was a blog for them it would be great to see, but my friend doesn't much know about things like that, so he definitely doesn't have a blog, or even barely know what one is for that matter.

This friend unfortunately barely understands computers, except as necessary,  so he hasn't been around yet, but may show up sometime. Anyway I just figured out computers a few years ago, when I had to. He just hasn't had to yet.



His army was 20mm Thomas figures from K and L, a classic type from the 1950's era, Civil War of course, and he kept them like jewelry in padded boxes and tissue paper. Never would consider putting them on bases. They are individuals only. He would have 20 figures per regiment, with two figures per company.

I am not sure yet how they are doing the 54mm because now there are two minds involved and not just one, but I do know he thinks they are too big and they have to play outside on the ground in order to have enough room, because they make the table seem too small.

But now that I see I do have some of those after all, I think I may start collecting more of them.

Now they may seem 'silly' at first, after all they are meant for five-year-old kids, but they are really not that bad. The guns elevate, and will hook on to the trailer hitch on the limbers.  There just aren't enough horses, but that could be remedied.

So far there are 18 foot and two horsemen per side, plus four cannon, four limbers, and just four horses for the mounted generals. Each side has two color bearers with paper flags. The horses are the same type from the cowboys and Indians bags, so I think I could get more.

Since I have just been painting up 600 figures for the Civil War in 1/72 scale, it would be very easy to just switch gears and try painting up some of these huge two-inch tall figures. I saw that another store in town carries figures like this, so now I think I have another new project going