The World of Toy Soldiers

Amongst the greatest aces of World War Two, we can find the German pilot Josef “Pips” Priller (1915-1961) with his total of 101 victories. This month, John Jenkins announced the release of one of Priller’s planes. So it’s time to look at the JJ-ACE-209 - Priller's FW 190 A-8.

This month, King and Country gave us the VN128 - Wounded!, a set that is a tribute to McCullin’s work. However, their official description for the product is a bit short. It is time to add more details…

Every year, toy soldiers manufacturers come with tons of new releases. With the end of 2021, I figured that it would be nice to look at what was new and amazing, just to highlight the most interesting points of the last 12 months.

This month, the Armies And Enemies Of Ancient Greece And Macedonia collection by John Jenkins Designs is opening a new front with the addition of the JJ-SY-01 - Scythian King. This figure is the first of this sub-collection covering one of the most intriguing civilizations of Antiquity. But first, let’s summarize what we know about the Scythian to better appreciate this figure and start this new series.

Back in 2016, when celebrating the 10th anniversary of his business, John Jenkins came with several booster sets. Those limited edition products contained massive quantities of figures for a ridiculously low price. For January 2022, John Jenkins came with two new booster sets for the Armies And Enemies Of Ancient Rome. Let’s look at the JJ-AGBS-A - Cherusci Warriors set before it disappears!

The first goal of collecting toy soldiers is to have fun and King and Country understood that quite well. So even if they gave themselves rules to follow in their collections, they will still cheat those rules once in a while to add a fun piece that otherwise would not exist. Such is the case with the recent AE086 - Discovering Tutankhamun set.

Earlier this month, on December 8th, a blog entry was published covering the Canadians at the Battle of Hong Kong. This date was chosen as it was the same day as the beginning of the battle. To close that battle, which ended on December 25th, it would be good to look at one Japanese piece (JN070 - Japanese Sergeant With Sword) and talk about one “Christmas” POW movie.

One of the most impressive and marking piece ever produced by John Jenkins Designs certainly was the JJ-QB-45 - Woodland Indian Attacking Line Infantry #2. Not only is it a beautiful piece but, when it was released in 2014, it marked the start of a new style of figure within the Jenkins’ collections.

The Crusaders & Saracens collection by King and Country is certainly one of their most popular collections. Anything related to crusaders will find its place there. Ranging from 1095-1291, such timelapse gives a lot of potential for new pieces. The latest addition in this collection is the MK219 - The Emperor Barbarossa, straight out from the Third Crusade.

During World War Two, Hong Kong, which was a British colony at the time, found itself threatened by the Japanese forces. The war between Great Britain and Japan had not officially started, but signs of a possible attack were there. So troops from Britain, India and Canada were sent there to garnison the city with the local forces. In total 14 564 troops were gathered for this task. With the war raging in Europe, this was quite an achievement to find so many men. Amongst the Canadian troops sent to Hong Kong were the Royal Rifles of Canada from Québec City and the Winnipeg Grenadiers from Manitoba.