Collecting Toy Soldiers American History Summer Camp

I had a great week at Barstow Summer Camp with a group of kids that I got the opportunity to share the hobby of collecting toy soldiers.

This week long summer camp featured the American Civil War as our topic of discussion and gaming.  I used the BMC civil war plastic 54mm troops to explore the collection aspect of the hobby and to teach the kids to paint miniatures.

We set up a simple map campaign game.  Each student got to be an army commander.  I had 12 students during the week.

The campaign map.  Click to see a larger image.  I have used this map for three summers.

The battle of Quincy Crossing.  An encounter that occurred on the campaign map.

The miniatures started out as unpainted plastic obviously, but we explored the painting part of the hobby.  The students engaged in this at their discretion and some developed an interest in this part of the hobby.

At the end of the week we had a battle royale with all of the commanders take home army on the map.

Collecting Toy Soldiers Summer Camp

If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.

My summer job epitomizes that oft quoted line.  I am very fortunate to be involved with Barstow School's Summer Program.  The images in this post are all from events that happened in the summer of 2015.

Soccer Guys on a gridded pitch.  Using Soccer World Tactics game rules and miniaturizing the game of soccer.  I used this in a Chess camp to show the ability to recognize moves from a variety of angles and distances.  Looked pretty cool and the kids hopefully transferred some of the skills.

We called it Soccer Chess.

Working with the very young.

Collecting Toy Soldiers Camp.  

I put together a one week half day experience for grades 3-8 students that wanted to see into the hobby of collecting toy soldiers and gaming with them.

We discussed being drawn into the world of miniatures and I told the parents that this camp session should come with a warning label "This hobby may last into their adult years, consume all of their time, and develop lifelong friendships."

We covered WWII as a look into skirmish gaming.  Prior to this scenario the whole week was spent on Horse and Musket era troops and tactics.

All miniatures are 54mm bucket of soldier variety.  Terrain in all cases is made from corrugated cardboard.  This is cheap and can be made very serviceable for all ages gaming.

I have been at Barstow now for five years and knew that I would be teaching on the top of student desks.  If you look under most of the setups the desks are small pushed together variety of student seating.  Prior to camp I made 3 foot x 3 foot plus cardboard "battle boards."  These are from a futon carton that I found in my neighborhood.  I roll painted green and brown and black latex house paint onto these to make a quick terrain.

In this image you can see our American Civil War campaign map.  Also just visible is my week outline.  We covered: Miniatures, Order of Battle, Rules for moving, firing and skirmishing with troops and how this differed from "sandbox" play.  We built terrain and I showed them how to make a quick fold and cut house that served well for general buildings in the civil war.  We discussed and demonstrated map movement and then placement from the map onto a tabletop battlefield.  We also kept track of force damage from turn to turn to reflect a campaign setting.

Quite possibly a Quincy Crossing battle.

This is one of the battles fought at Brown's Ford.

I used Joseph Morschauser's rules for Horse and Musket.  The battleboards however were built with One Hour Wargames in mind.  I am also using them for a Mechwarrior campaign.

More ACW action.

When we discussed miniatures we talked about creating units that represented historical opponents.  There was a lot of painting during the week with painted troops taking part in a battle the next day.

Next summer the camp will morph into one week of American Revolution, one week of American Civil War, and one week of World War II.  Is it silly to be anticipating next summer already?

Thanks for looking in.  Leave a comment for encouragement.

54mm Pass in Review II

The Balance of the Collection

Our tour of the collection resumes with the Confederates first this time.  What follows is the toy soldiers added to my MARX collection.  As 54mm plastic figures started being released for this war, I began adding to my collection and really committed to becoming a 54mm wargamer.  In the 90's Accurate brand began releasing a set of 54mm figures in boxes of twenty.  I did the math and figured out how many boxes I needed to create sets of 20 "like" poses to create my regiments.  I think it was 10 boxes would get you 20 of the same pose, with a lot of command and officers left over.  So I dove in and invited the local gaming community to join me in painting up a regiment for a VBACW game to be held at the local HAHMGS convention.  This was an anchor event in the history of my ACW collection.  I would guarantee to paint the opposition of any troops that fellow gamers would paint.  This was taken up by 5 enthusiasts and I will share some of their work that is now in my collection.

 

 

The first wargamer that I want to highlight is the late, Greg Nichols.  Here we see his three Confederate regiments that were painted to play in the great VBACW game at the Kansas City Heart of America Historical Miniature Games Society convention.  This is a Louisiana Regiment and I show the hand painted flag in reverse below. 

These three regiments were willed to me upon Greg's death.

Painted by Greg Nichols.

Accurate figures in regiments of 23 figures on 3x3 stand.  Painted by Greg Nichols.

 

(Image unavailable)

Charbens figures painted by Kenneth Van Pelt

Mike Polsen's Confederates painted for the VBACW game.

A very nice set of Accurate Calvary given to me by Ted Conn. Intentional spelling and pronunciation.

My Confederate artillery with Accurate figures manning the Dulcop guns.

The general Robert E. Lee and an officer.

 

 

The Union Parades by in the Pass in Review

German troops out of St. Louis.  These troops are painted in the uniform colors of the 1st Missouri and fought with General Lyon at the battle of Wilson's Creek.   These miniatures have been to the actual battlefield and were used in a Boy's Scout demonstration game on the actual battlefield.

 Grey clad Union troops.

7th NY. Painted by Jon Mark Haworth.  These were painted for the VBACW game.

Accurate figures painted for VBACW in the 1990's.

Accurate figures.

BMC miniatures.  Later in the 2000's I started getting more ACW miniatures and these while of lesser quality belong in a collection when they are painted well and based they can certainly be used for wargaming especially at conventions where rough treatment is the norm.

A caisson by Accurate  IMEX pulling a cast metal cannon.  These were painted by my high school students at Southwest Early College Campus.

Thanks for looking in once again.  I hope you have enjoyed the collection.  There is more to come.

I will be playing these figures in several Gettysburg related scenarios at the upcoming Recruits Convention in Lee's Summit, Missouri.  The convention takes place at the local high school and is very inexpensive to attend and has been a great show the last 10 years or so.