My Goodness! Mistakes Were Made.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Melbourne and spend a day gaming with my friend Mark N. We had long discussed us playing All The Kings Men, a set of rules from the US toy soldier company of the same name. As the name implies, it is a Toy Soldier company specialising in 54mm old style figures.
Mark's particular obsession is the War of 1812 so we had a game set loosely in that period, not a recreation of a real battle, just a bunch of toys on the table.

The field of battle

The toy soldiers are deployed in four types of unit; Infantry in 12 privates + Officer + Ensign, Skirmishers 6+O+E, Cavalry 6 + O +E and Artillery 4 gunners + O + E.
The rules are simple enough, with activation by random playing card draws, red for one side, black the other. Certain cards give you the ability to make special moves. Each play through of the (shortened) deck can allow your units of figures to make multiple moves in a full turn. However each move degrades their quality level from green to yellow to red. Green is good, yellow is ok, red is bad.

Get 'em lads, they is on red!

Battles are resolved with a simple roll of D6s, the number required for success grower higher with each drop down the colour scale.
As I said, rules were simple, toys were on the table and battle was rollicking. We played until the last toy standing and due to a good run of activation cards towards the end, and some lucky dice rolling, I emerged victorious.
This is not a game for anyone to take seriously but for a fun few hours or perhaps a light-hearted club night game, this fits the bill.

What? These old things? Had 'em for ages.

In fact, given my constant moaning about not being able to see 15mm figures to paint them, and the simple style inherent with toy soldiers, mistakes were made.
I spent the evening with Mark and his wife eating, drinking and discussing the idea of doing the game in Napoleonics. And now this huge box of figures have turned up at my house. I wonder where they came from? Looks like it's time to start painting old school.