I was pleased to read about about the good fortune of Tony at The Good Soldier Svjek / Tin Soldiering On Blog in securing a fine group of Britain’s hollowcast Cavalry for an affordable price in an online bid that no one else bid on.
https://tonystoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2023/11/just-when-you-thought-it-was-safe-to-go.html
There seem to be very few affordable 54mm space figures around in the UK, as I build up my Forces for my Close Little Space Wars Project.
3D printing is throwing up tantalising figures but at £15 to £20 a pop, but it is hard to build up space crews or space units or populating a “Hive of Scum and Villainy” in an affordable way from this source.
Which is why I was very pleased to bid and win each of these lots or sets for £20 a piece, the original opening bid price.
The same for a second lot at £20 with minimal UK post and packing cost.
I was curious about their bright, bold (or bad) painting style – did this hold people back from buying what to me were bargain prices? There were no others bidders, I got these for the original bid price.
In the feedback I asked Steve the seller about the paint scheme:
Steve the seller mentioned “Brightly coloured … must have been done by someone with a vivid imagination which we probably all had at a young age!!”
Etsy and EBay do feature such figures for sale but as soon as a box or bag packaging is involved (which I don’t collect anyway, I found a digital image instead) the price quickly goes up, aided by their ‘rare’ status and limited production dates.
You could easily spend £20 on a couple of these ‘rare’ figures. To be fair, such overpriced couple of figures rarely sell and can sit on eBay or Etsy for months and even for years.
This gives me 38 more Space Warriors or almost three more boxes to add to my existing units, once repainted.
However they are impounded in the Christmas cupboard for the next few weeks.
The bright painted colours are no surprise when you look at the Airfix box art and the Britain’s catalogue
I’m sure the colour scheme of yellow figures with long red weapons might have inspired by Britain’s Star Guard and Cyborg series – similar colour scheme?
Blog posted by Mark Man Of TIN, 18 / 19 November 2023
Man of TIN blog two 
Nice pick up Mark. Always great when a plan comes together.
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Thanks Guru Pig – It repays the many hours searching for toy soldiers online!
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Glad to hear you managed to get these figures at a sensible price , I rather like the colour scheme.
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Thanks – I may well keep some of the colour schemes.
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Excellent purchase . There is nothing like a bargain and a successful dérive through EBay. Your forces are gathering for a big cinematic battle…
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Yes, it’s moving into big Skirmish mode. It repays the many happy hours looking at toy soldiers on eBay and Etsy, the curse of international shipping etc. For everything else there’s always conversions …
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I do recall seeing those figures on eBay but the only thing I after in Space Warriors now is the heroine in silver plastic.
I’m sure the figures will look much better once you give them a do over with your paint brush.
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The Space Princess Figure from Airfix (one of their few female figures, esp. in 1:32 scale) does turn up on eBay from time to time. I look forward to painting these few more next year.
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Yes, she turns up in grey plastic quite often and I have five of her in that and have been exercising restraint in not getting any more (unless I come up with a colour scheme I really have to paint her in). In silver plastic not so much.
When you said next year, my first thought was that was a long way off, then I realised next year is only a month away.
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Airfix 1981 Space Warriors: Grey plastic seems genarallh to be the 1980s boxed plastic, the shiny silver plastic seems to be the 90s mini bags? Having several copies means you can have several different skin tones from green and blue through flesh tones to metallic unless you want an identical unit.
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Before we know it, we will be making New Gaming Year Resolutions.
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