My regular Three Man Patrols in the Back Yarden have become Three Kid Patrols, thanks to Backyard Battalions – Meet Binocular Boy, Radio Boy and Girl Sniper?
Alan Gruber, he of the Duchy Of Tradgardland Blog, contacted me a week or two ago to ask if I had seen these new plastic figures reviewed in Toy Soldier Collector and Historical Figures (TSCHF) No. 116 April / May 2024.
Oddly I had as it’s one of the few magazines for which I have a (postal) subscription, apart from Lone Warrior the online magazine for solo gamers.
Backyard Battalion figures are currently only easily available from their designer creator Reis OBrien via his online shop in America, although the web site mentioned overseas buyers could email him to work out shipping.
https://www.backyardbattalion.com
This is what Alan and I did, combined our order for a two bag bundle each and so split the shipping cost to the UK between us. UPS delivery took just over a week.
These fIgures are created and designed by Reis O’Brien and sculpted by James Olley. They are 40-54mm high and in hard plastic, cartoon style. Like green army men playsets the Series 1 figures come in Olive Green or Tan (Dusty Tan).
Look at the tiny ‘green army men’ on the packaging! Great details on the playmat too.
As well as some snazzy UK Home Office Border Force tape after examining the contents, there was also some great fun inclusions such as a couple of stickers and pin badges.
A coaster / beer mat type ‘Home Base’ inclusion – with great details with a few more toy soldiers and an R2D2 action figure
As well as the interview / review article in Toy Soldier Collector by Kent Welch, there is the engaging and enthusiastic (!!!) web text by Reis O’Brien which gives you an idea of some of the figures, poses and weaponry:
Backyard Battalions – Toy soldiers with a nostalgic twist!
“Celebrating the days of playing “war” with your friends outside, the Backyard Battalion are ready for adventure, complete with sticks for guns, pine cones for chucking and old pie plates for land mines!
We have medics (ready with a band-aid or a refreshing juice box),
communications officers (with their trusty can on a string),
cardboard tube bazooka soldiers,
machine gunners (wiffle-ball bats with clothespin sights),
even a loyal dog to help retrieve thrown tennis balls!
Everything you need for an epic battle that’ll last until mom yells for them to come inside and have a grilled cheese!
Each pack contains 14 pieces and a 20” x 20” vinyl playmat!
Free cut-out tent on the back of the header card!
This bundle comes with one pack of each color!
Perfect for starting a backyard battle!
Limited edition of 500 pieces per colour! Get ‘em before they’re gone!” (Reis O’Brien)
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Amusingly, these are listed on the header card as “Adult Collectible Not a Toy“.
Who doesn’t love a good plastic games mat! Such great little cartoon details.
There are some girls amongst the figures, one of the medics with the stretcher and possibly the sniper.
Sticks for Guns? War Toys?
The stick for a gun ‘war toys’ of our childhoods features not only in Backyard Battalions figures but also in the V&A childhood collection at Bethnal Green, mentioned in my blog post on the War Games exhibition (at the old Plymouth City Museum, 2016). https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/12/06/man-of-tin-advent-calendar-2019-day-6-war-games-v-a-exhibition-plymouth-2016/
which has a link to a blog review by yesthatphil mentioning that “Children denied toy guns use conveniently shaped sticks instead.”
Rules for Back Yarden Wars As readers of Harry Pearson’s memoir of his postwar Airfix Kid and Action Man childhood Achtung Schweinhund! will recognise, WW2 was still around and still going on when I was growing up, albeit in the playground, on telly and the tabletop or floor, well into the late 60s and early 70s, a generation and three decades after it officially finished.
Around 1977 78 our playground games of knights, cowboy shoot outs, secret agents or Action Man changed. Our pistols and rifles, ranging from plastic toy guns at home or park to school playground pistol-packing finger pointing, became space lasers. (By the way whose job was it to go round and remove all the useful gnarly sticks from the playground?)
Pew Pew Pew or Peow (ricochet) and Dakka Dakka Dakka quickly became the harder to mouth or master laser pistol sounds (??? !)
There was extra kid kudos (kidos?) if you could die a noisy and impressive “He got me!” long drawn out dramatic death,
less kidos or kudos if you staggered to a nearby bench or wall to die (less muddy)
and scorn for those kids who would not die even if shot multiple times.
Who shot who and how this was all organised (including ‘coming back to life’) and remains one of those childhood mysteries.
It will be an interesting challenge to translate this to the tabletop or garden game and create some simple Back Yarden rules for “imaginary combat”, ones that incorporate the Scouting Wide Games ideas elsewhere on this blog of returning or renewing a game life (resurrection) after so many turns or a correct dice throw?
As with the snowball games, a diced for ‘call home’ by higher authorities (Mom) might end the game prematurely.
These figures intersect several non-lethal projects that have been slowly working on – snowballers, splafiti, etc.
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I have patched this blog post together over several days. Anyway once my antibiotics have put paid to a head and chest full of cough and phlegm (so no work or play this week), I shall photograph the different poses and start thinking about painting these figures.
Colour with inked in lines like my 54mm skateboarders or as a strip cartoon of white with inked black cartoon lines?
Some past inspiration on my blog …
1,2, 3, 4 – I declare Imaginary War!
One of the great components of role play ‘imaginary war’ or war in your head is Snoopy in Charles Schulz’ Peanuts cartoons, another chunk of my 70s childhood.
These might mix well with my Snoopy Peanuts and Charlie Brown Schleich Figures or cheap China made cake toppers in my collection. They are close in size but slightly larger than Backyard Battalions Figures but kids come in all shapes and sizes.
Terrain beyond the playmat – maybe my wooden toy houses?
https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2023/02/07/forgotten-georgia-cottage/
And my MDF toy model houses for suitable Backyard houses.
Add the odd tree house or collected from the back garden features. Lots of possibilities … I look forward to seeing what Alan does with his Figures.
So hooray for the Three Kid Patrol and Backyard Battalions! thanks Reis.
Blog post by Mark Man Of TIN 24/ 25 April 2024
Scouting Wide Games for the Tabletop and Garden 