Feasible to add new boards: 54mm (all inclusive) and/or plastic Army Men?

[SgtSlag]

First off, I understand the name of this forum site is "Lead Adventure Forum,", but lead hasn't been used to make gaming miniatures since the Great Lead Scare of the late 1990's.  More Modern gaming figures are made of diverse plastic materials and resins, than are made from lead-free metals.  It seems like the name is losing more validity every year.   

I am a huge fan of 54mm plastic figures for gaming.  I also play war-games with green and tan Army Men figures (mounted on MDF square bases to avoid them falling over all the time...).  Wondering if there is any interest in forming separate forums for any of the various 54mm plastic figure genres?

There are sooo many figure types made:  Cave Men (along with Dino's, of course); Vikings and Medieval Knights; black powder era figures (FIW, American Revolutionary War, Pirates, others?); American Civil War; WW II/modern Army Men; Monsters (Frankenstein, Werewolf, etc.); Sci-Fi [Space Men, Aliens (from the movie series, and others)]; and likely others I have not mentioned.   

Just testing the waters.

Back in the early 2000's, there were active gamer forums on Yahoo, for green and tan Army Men.  I know of none, currently.  I have seen numerous posts on other war-gaming sites about 54mm games and gamers -- might be a missed opportunity for this forum.  Cheers!

[jhonpog]

Just stumbled across this post SgtSlag.

Yeah I'm a big fan of this scale too.  I keep finding my way back to this size; not sure why.

Anyway I would like to second your request for a 54mm child board; somewhere to discuss this scale regardless of period genre.

In fairness this should be offered to the other scales too!

 

[modelwarrior]

Would love to see a 54mm board. Reference the "Lead Adventure" name surely it gives a sense of nostalgia plus some us on here were born well before the Great Lead scare of the 90s and I am sure some of crayons I use to eat in school in the 70s contained lead. Never did me any harm

[Hobgoblin]

The board sound a good idea (there are lots of great 54mm and fantasy/sf conversions made from Army Men out there ...). But just on a point of information ...

First off, I understand the name of this forum site is "Lead Adventure Forum,", but lead hasn't been used to make gaming miniatures since the Great Lead Scare of the late 1990's.  More Modern gaming figures are made of diverse plastic materials and resins, than are made from lead-free metals.  It seems like the name is losing more validity every year.   

There are lots and lots of companies that still make miniatures with lead in them - hence all the warnings on the websites! This, from Essex, is representative: "Metal miniatures contain lead and are unsuitable for children under the age of 14."

[black hat miniatures]

Hobgoblin is completely corrct.

Lead never went away from miniatures - it might have reduced from the pure lead used in pre-war Britains figures but many of us use/used alloys with up to 37% lead in them.

The fact that people distinguish between lead-free and normal pewter should be an indication...

[Moriarty]

I would third a ‘Plastic Army Men’ board.

[Cat]

That would probably be low-traffic, but useful for finding a central repository of tips.  Nested under 'Other Adventures' would be a likely home.

I use More Plastic Cosmonauts (MPC spacemen) with some Giant brand Little Green Men (and Pink and Brown) for Lunar.  Will keep posting on that topic under Sci-Fi when it resumes progress.  But I could certainly pop some 'how to work with that darn polyethylene' questions and answers in a dedicated board

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

I would welcome a 54mm board (also with 1/32 or 1/35 scale Tamiya plastic infantry models).  Yet another temptation to buy into when i see those well painted figures! Just keep those pipsqueak, can’t-make-up-their-minds-to-be-either-28-or-54,  40mm figures out of it!

[black hat miniatures]

For those not aware, I run a 54mm (and 40mm) wargaming forum here:


https://littlewarsrevisited.boards.net/

[SgtSlag]

Thanks, everyone, for the responses.  I had given up on the idea due to zero responses -- until today!

I was under the impression that everyone had given up using lead in their figures.  The Great Lead Scare was so overblown, way back when, it seemed as though every company raced to comply -- I thought everyone had capitulated.  I have not noticed any web store warnings about their products containing lead...  I learned something quite interesting, today.  Thanks for that!

It seems as though plastic, and 3D printing resins, are taking over the miniatures wargaming hobbies.  I am surprised there are not more boards dedicated to the nuances of working with plastic/resins.

I'm a plastic Army Men gamer.  I love gaming with 54mm-60mm Army Men figures.  I even wrote my own rules, self-publishing them 1998-2007.  I'm actually preparing to re-publish them through Pacific Sky Games, as a POD book.  I would love to game with other genres, using 54mm figures, when I retire from work -- the sooner the better!

Anyway, to add fuel to this smoldering fire, here is a link to a folder of photos of my last big Army Men game, in 2019.  The gaming table depicted, was 12 feet wide by 30 feet long, with an opening up the middle, to reach the center of the tables.  It was the largest Army Men game I've ever played, and it was more fun than a human being ought to be allowed to have...

I've struggled to keep paint adhered to the LDPE plastic which Army Men figures are made of.  For that reason, I stopped panting them:  the one's I have painted, lose their paint too easily, too often.  They do look much better painted, than unpainted.  I've switched to "priming" them with Rustoleum Paint for Plastic, Paint + Primer, covering them in either Green, or Tan, then painting the rest of the figures.  Haven't been at it long enough to know whether this Paint for Plastic will adhere, long term, or not.

I obviously don't take my Army Men games overly serious, not like I do my 28mm fantasy games, anyway.  I just love how inexpensive Army Men games are, as well as enjoying gaming in such a large scale.  I am working on putting together MDF buildings, to run a city battle, from building to building, street to street.  The gaming table for this battle, will be 5 feet by 18 feet only.  Lots of work yet to be done on the buildings before I can launch the game.  Hoping to play it out before December.

Any suggestions where to post on it, since there is currently no 54mm/Army Men board?  Cheers!

[Cat]

There was a convoluted political/religious story behind the NY ordinance that triggered the lead scare.  The industry won the lawsuit to overturn it, but then most all the US manufacturers dropped lead just because they could not afford the legal fees if a refight popped up.
 
With the major US players having dropped lead, smaller operations were safe to keep going under the radar.

[SgtSlag]

Wow.  The Great Lead Scare was about as complicated, and twisted, as the Great Satanic Panic over Dungeons & Dragons.  Unfortunately, I lived through both events, with the vibrant memories of each still easy to recall.

They both seem to linger on, today, but the Satanic Panic has a longer reach.  Some people still believe those lies, 40 years later...  I ran afoul of it, again, in the early 2000's.

I can laugh about both of them, today, but in the thick of each event, they were truly frustrating and annoying:  the D&D nonsense was really frustrating because it was a complete scam and a bald-faced lie; the Lead Scare hit my pocket book as I was in the early stages of collecting figures for my fantasy armies.  It did force me to be more selective, which was a good thing.

The great thing about gaming with Army Men figures?  Neither the Satanic Panic, nor the Lead Scare, ever impacted them.     Cheers!

[Hobgoblin]

One thing a 54mm board could be handy for is harvesting ideas for use in other scales - like Gygax's D&D giants and ogres, which were made from large-scale figures used with 25s or 28s or whatever.

I proposed an idea on this forum a while back about using 54mm soft-plastic landsknechts as D&D fire giants - still something I'm tempted to do, as I think they could look amazing with a suitable paint job ...

[Captain Blood]

Feasible, yes, but we’re not going to do it

Since its inception almost 20 years ago, Lead Adventure has been organised by wargaming genres / periods.
We are, and have always been, scale agnostic - despite the overwhelming preference of most here for 28mm.

If we have a 54mm board, we’ll then get ‘why isn’t there a 6mm / 10mm /12mm / 15mm / 18mm / 20mm / 40mm (and so on) board?’ And we don’t need further category proliferation / fragmentation of content. It’s quite a long menu already.

So just find the appropriate ‘period’ board for your plastic army soldiers (presumably WWII) and post them there

Thanks.

[Spinal Tap]

If there's plenty of action then I think it's a great idea (not a 54mm user myself) but would add one note of caution.

Some of the child boards seem very underpopulated and it might be a concern for another niche.