ACW 1/32 Britains Plastics

When I was wee the last of the Britains series I collected was the ACW range. I tended to use them to bolster my few 7th Cavalry against the Indians. I didn't have the full sets of the Cavalry but I did have most of the infantry, only one of each pose. If I remember right by the mid eighties they were 60p per foot and about £1.20 for mounted, I may have paid as much as £1.75 for mounted. By I had started secondary school in 1986 Britains had all but stopped doing their pre-painted plastic, at least they were not available in the high street. I remeber the counter packs being kept in the glass counters of the toy shops. It was one of the highlights of my childhood to choose which troops I wanted browsing the poses under the counter. The possibility of buying the whole counter pack was never an option until later life and I've been meaning to get hold of a few for the last few years. You can pick up these counter packs for around £60, mounted packs work out at about £3 per figure, which is pretty good value for what you get. The paint job is more historically accurate for the ACW, the Confederates are more random and not all in grey, some brown coats here and there. They are a different kind of plastic to the old fugures, its much softer due to new regulations for toys but this means you can safely give them to anyone not likely to just eat them. I got this mounted pack from ebay, I had enquired at the local model shop but their suppliers only had infantry packs so I ordered two packs to give a nice mix of cavalry and foot. Once they are here I'll start putting togther some Horse and Musket rules to add to our existing WW2 rules. I'm very tempted to get a box of British and Germans in this range, much better to give these figures to kids at participation games than my lovingly painted Airfix!