"Original figures" Topic

Here's one for you. Do you still have the original figure/unit that got you into wargaming in your collection today?

As for me, I have long since lost the Airfix Confederates and Yankees bought at a small store in Jackson, TN years ago.

No. My Marx ACW figures were lost long ago. They were played with by 3 generations though.

No, but I still have the first figure I ever painted from more than 50 years ago.

I still have my Marx 35mm figures from the mid-50s and my first painted Jack Scruby figs from 1961. Although I have no idea what happened to my Confederals from Scruby.

That depends on when I went from playing with Toy Soldiers to Wargaming with miniatures. I still have my Airfix French Foreign Legion and Bedoins. I also have my converted WWI Germans and Tarzan Nativies which were used for Colonial Skirmish Wargames.

Sadly I don't still have all those Citadel fantasy miniatures from the early 80s that started me off. I gave them away for next to nothing in the 90s. If I'd kept them they'd be worth a decent bit of money to the Oldhammer collectors now.

Still have some of my first Minifigs and Garrison miniatures from the mid 70s,

Tally Ho!

No. My first proper games were played with Airfix ACW and Napoleonics, long gone now.

First were D&D figures, hard to say which was first but all it and others are on a shelf in my shop

Yes. In a very short amount of time I purchased some Mini Fig Napoleonics, Ral Partha fantasy figures, and some spaceships.
Interestingly, some later figures through the years have been sold off, but not the originals

I still have my first figures. Minifigs D&D Dwarves. Still love them.

Yes – minifigs first Science Fiction range and Skytrex 1/300th WWII.

still have my Airfix ACW, Romans, Sherriff of Nottingham, AWI, WWI and Africa Corps, Japanese.

Metal Lamming, Hinton Hunt, Minifigs, early Hinchliffe,

Nope – like the first post, Airfix ACW troops (in my case, bought by my dad), long lost in the mists of time

One or two of my original Airfix soldiers survive in bits n bobs boxes.
In 1980 I sent off for a random selection of Citadel Miniatures which looked intriguing in the pages of a magazine, the beginning of a long obsession, and I still have those.

Yes, I have a handful of custom cast LOTR figs from my first visit to a game store in the early 70s. My Airfix from before that weren't really used for gaming. I have some of those too.

Thanks

John

Maybe not my exact first, but I still have my Airfix Waterloo Highlander unit that I painted with big brushes and toothpicks in early 1971. Some years ago I tried to remove them from the balsa wood bases to remount them as a diorama but the plastic was so brittle that the first ones broke so I immediately stopped.

Here's the mounted officer figure who doubles as my Napoleonic British alter ego – Col Campbell, along with a couple of Der Kriegspieler figures.

Jim

The old Marx sets were destroyed by a brother while I was in graduate school. But my first real metal toy soldier is still part of a horse artillery battery. (He'd been a general, but the wargamer who kept the 30's for me while I was in the Army and then DC reorganized them a bit. What happens when you leave them unsupervised for 20+ years.)

Nope. My old Mini Fig British infantry was sold when I shifted from true 25s to 28s many years ago. They were snapped up at the Historicon Flea Market.

Do you still have the original figure/unit that got you into wargaming in your collection today?

The things that got me into wargaming were not mine: a friend's copy of Tactics II and a 25mm Hinchcliffe (I think) miniature that represented my first D&D character.

My Peter Laing and Airfix figures are long gone now!
My oldest figure is a Dragon from my D+D days in the 80's

Yes. A unit of British Regulars for Sword and the Flame. Ral Partha figures.

No. 1/72 plastics that I am sure I threw away at some point in time.

Yes indeed. Airfix Brits and Matchbox Germans OO/HO still going strong after 40 plus years. First metals were some odds and ends of Minifigs I got for D&D and a few Citadel pre-slottas. They've all done sterling service over the decades.

Long lost are the Airfix WW1 and Marx Civil War figures of my youth, but the first metal wargame figures I ever bought (Mikes Models ECW in 1987) are still proudly anchoring my Parliamentarian and Royalist battle line.

All my Airfix figures crumbled to dust. I had a few quite reasonably painted too (along with most poorly painted).

Yes, it's a 16 figure unit of ACW Union troops. They are Custom Cast true scale 25mm Confederals.

I still have a shoebox full of Airfix Waterloo figures, poorly painted with Testors enamels in the 1970s. They were the first figures I ever used for a "proper" wargame with actual rules, etc. They only saw a handful of games because I soon switched to 15mm metals.

Yes. I sell stuff very rarely. First historical figs are 15mm Minifig Macedonians.

They're all long gone.

When Mum was moving to a new house one of my sisters gave away or dumped all the figures, models, magazines and books I'd left at home. I didn't have room in barracks for figures, so I went to board games- my oldest figures only date back to the mid-80's.

My Mum never liked my Airfix, and they got thrown out one day. It wasn't long before I started buying more, though.
I still have my first metal figures, still unpainted, of course.

My first metal were old K&L from Gilbert's hobby shop on Gettysburg – still have a few. My first 25mm were fantasy for D&D – still have them and have been doing upgrades. Not near as Likely to add to the collection since eBay prices are so high, however, they still can be found at swap meets at a reasonable price.

I still have the Minifigs-painted set of Hungarian Grenadiers and their red box from the late 60s. I am currently rebasing them for DBN.

Like Chuckaroobob I still have my first units that I painted and they are 15mm Minifig Macedonians.

First 'real' figures were Heroics and Ros 1/300th ECW which were so mangled up (pikes turned to overcooked spaghetti) that they went in the bin about 15 years ago. A close second, some Heritage French Napoleonics still form the nucleus of my Napoleonic armies (since been supplemented with Naismith British, more French, Bavarians, Wurtembergers, Hanoverians, Swedes, Prussians, Austrians, Russians, Poles, Confederation of the Rhine, Dutch, Brunswickers etc etc ).

My original Napoleonics had a sprinkling of Jacobite Miniatures who almost to a man snapped at the ankles, so they went in the bin a long time ago.

Still have my WWII Marx and MPC – but long gone are one of the knights, western and other early plastics – particularly in smaller scales.

Still have few dozen 25mm Napoleonic figures from Hinchcliffe – where I started painting figures – other then a highlight on plastic here and there

Yes. Washington's Army & British Grenadiers but only 36 remaining from the two sets

I've still got Airfix Germans and US Marines I painted up for Charles Grants 'Battle' a very, very long time ago. The Enamel paint is still sticking on remarkably well.

Ive also still got all my original H&R Napoleonics and my old Lancashire and Skytrex micro armour. The latter are shapeless blobs by modern standards.

Oh yes I do, although some have been mixed into other units. Mine are Airfix, yes their ankles are weak and when they sprain an ankle I try to epoxy them to the base and then disguise the puddle of glue as high grass.

Those veterans never surrender – never quit.

Started with Airfix figs in Scotland, came to vbisit my aunt in New York for Christmas 1960, afteer I got my green card never went back. Grandmother threy put thew figs "nobody wanted them"