Schleich Acquisitions

 I had a couple of Schleich figures but never went out of my way to acquire them, until now.

 This morning I had a phone call from Ken, the local Games Workshop and other kits shop owner. He knew I liked medieval and collected in a bigger scale than GW. A man connected to a local op shop had come into Ken's shop to tell him he had a swag of medieval knights and a castle and did he know anyone interested. I almost passed on it because Ken told me the figures were about 9cm and I was still in bed. (It was 11AM but I had had a late-night binge watching The Man in the High Castle). However, I was interested in the castle (not because aforesaid Amazon Prime TV series had one in its title).

Here is the castle.  It looks just like a front of a castle so I don't know if it is complete. Maybe it is meant to be like that.

   I placed a 60 mm made in Russia figure, to show how it would work in my smaller scale. The battlements look just the right height!

The towers impressed me as being very roomy at the top - plenty of room for archers or artillery. However, some of the blocks are missing.

                   Here is a comparison to the tower in my wooden castle. It is a little bigger.

                   Here is another figure for scale, a Call to Arms ECW 54mm musketeer.

                                                       And here is the less roomy wooden one.

        But here is the poorer comparison - the walls are much lower than my wooden walls.

   The catapult is fine for the Schleich knights but a bit out of scale for 54mm, even though siege weapons did vary in size.

                  There are 25 foot figures of which I like the jester and female warrior the best.

                        There are 16 or 17 mounted figures, including a Saracen on a camel. Unfortunately, one of them is missing an arm; this is the one in white robes and metal face mask. I believe that it is based on a Crusader leader from the movie called, I think, Kingdom of Heaven. the character was a leper and always kept his face covered.

I am very tempted to keep the figures as they are well sculpted and painted. They also are designed for children to play with as they are vinyl plastic with, presumably, vinyl paints that bond with the plastic.

On the other hand, I have enough to keep me busy with my 54mm figures and don't really want to wargame in this even larger scale. I shall probably take them to a Melbourne market to sell them individually or I might sell them together.

The castle and battering ram, I am going to keep. I might use the towers separately as Mat and I have provision for building towers in our campaigns. They are the poor man's castle. I would be inclined to cover the larger windows with card and put some smaller slit windows in their place. I already have a couple of Warhammer towers but this could be yet another variation. I expect that a mini moat might be an additional points investment, especially as the door would be a weak spot.

Here are some additional photos of the tower and gate details: The trap door is missing and the opening rather large but could be covered with balsa, card or icy-pole stick cover.

  The stone leadup to the entrance is rather nice and could also be employed with my other castles.

           The drawbridge is also nifty although not entirely attached with the chains.

  The battering ram is also not attached to the frame, but I like the way the fire-resistant hides are painted.