The recent Disney animated movie Atlantis has predictably spun off a line of related toys, in three different "sizes." Gamers may find these toys of interest, as some of the models come close to wargaming scales.
Of most interest will be the "smallest" line of toys, which we found on sale for $1.49 USD at Big Lots, a discount retail chain (known elsewhere in the U.S. as MacFrugal). All of the die-cast metal toys are roughly the same size (3" long), though scale differs...
For instance, the Troop Transport is a truck with an open bed and benches for troops. There is a winch on the front bumper, and one rifle is strapped to each of the sides. The wheels roll but are not steerable. The cab includes a seat, but no driver figure or controls. The wheels, driver's seat, benches, wheels, and chassis are plastic; everything else is metal. The paint is pearlescent.
What scale is it? The cab's door frame is just a bit taller than a 15mm figure, so the truck could be comfortably used for 15mm or 20mm gaming.
Also available in this series is the Digger, which may be familiar to U.S. readers from its appearance in a current series of fast-food commercials. The locomotive-like body and front treads are die-cast metal; the rear wheels, drilling nose, and underbody are hard plastic; and the rear smokestacks are soft plastic.
Judging by the size of the exterior steps and door frame, the Digger looks to be 6mm scale (1/285 or 1/300 scales).
Also in this series:
- Leviathan (mechanical crustacean)
- Subpod (submersible)
- Aktirak (mechanical hammerhead shark)
- Ketak (fish-like vehicle)
- Martag (another fish-like vehicle)
Space gamers might want to mount some of these on flight stands, and use them as spacecraft for fishy aliens.
There are also two larger sizes. The largest size, which we saw retailing as low as $5.99 USD, looks to be 25-30mm scale and comprises several vehicles: an ammo truck, a cook wagon, a fish-like speeder, and a command vehicle (with roof-mounted machinegun). All have an action switch that causes a state change and a sound effect to play (for instance, the driver moves to the gunner position and a gun sfx plays). All of these toys seem to be in the same scale.
The third series which we saw on the discount racks are boxed figures from the movies. These were 3-4" tall - a bit large for most wargaming. | 
is getting a lot of mileage from repurposed pre-painted fantasy figs.
