April 2025 – Pound Store Plastic Warriors

Firestorm Games online April 2025 – HGL Airfix British Para copies

An occasional foray online and in toy shops – a recce flight – to see what affordable plastic toy soldier figures are around in mid April 2025

and how they are warping and thinning from their original designs to provide pocket money or party bag quantity rather than quality.

Toy soldiers for a few pence – pocket money stuff. It keeps both my inner seven year old and my inner ‘trash panda’ very happy!

Fred Aldous April 2025 – more Airfix British Para copies

Back Alley Army Store April 2025 – a strange range of Matchbox WW2 Infantry figures and an excess of German officers with pistols? American, German, British 8th Army figures amongst others.

You can see the former Matchbox groups of figures thinning plastic before your eyes …

‘Kombat Kids’ seems to be a popular brand at the moment.

Kombat Kids packs available in different sizes

https://www.kombatuk.com/product/toy-soldiers-bag-of-108/

Same company, different colourful header …

Kombat Kid packaging design branding also seen here

Oddly wilting morphing Black Hawk Down US figures – also seen in my recent 2025 blog post here

More repackaging for the ‘WW2’ old Poundland **‘penny dreadfuls**’

These penny / now often 5p figures are great for conversions – here are some of my examples:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/capture-the-camouflaged-flag-pound-store-plastic-soldier-penny-dreadfuls-100-figures-for-1/

Finally who doesn’t love the slightly oddly worded description with all the possibilities of play

“Whether staging intense battles, defending fortresses or strategising military manoeuvres, these miniature soldiers are sure to inspire hours of imaginative play and excitement.”

Who can ask for more?

I think I saw this style of figures and mini tank back in 2023 in my blog post. A few packs of these useful ‘Soldiers of the Combat’ playsets are still available from various sources online.

As my fellow blogger DeathZap! Points out, “anyone can afford” to get started in war games as a hobby if you look at pound store plastics online or in the shops.

So, I hope you enjoyed my April 2025 recce of current offerings of strangely morphing toy soldier figures and their header art and (breathless) inexpensive epic description, showing you can still get a good old fashioned shiny toy soldier game (Wells’ Little Wars, Featherstone) with cheap plastic figures, especially if you give them the gloss paint treatment (see below) …

or if you prefer you can knock up a modern khaki grunge skirmish.

My ‘Land of Counterpane’ game in 2021 (inspired by early gamer Robert Louis Stevenson or RLS) with cheap and cheerful pound store plastic warriors in full gloss colourful shiny paint!