1981 [Sci-Fi] Space Warriors, 51577-3 / 9 51577 / 5170NB - 1:32nd Scale (54mm)

Coming shortly after the medievals (in my memory) just as childhood gave way to teenage pursuits, we never had these as kids, although we did have two sets of the medievals and made-up some rules for them which we . . . I'll tell this one on their page! It's immaterial anyway as by 1980, my brother had taken command of all large scale and I had the small scale stash!

I did manage to pick-up a set in a car-boot lot in the late-1990's and while later passing-on the rest of the bag, had already painted these up and stuck them in (on) the 'cabinet of curiosities' where we looked at them briefly (and fuzzily) about ten years ago; we'll be looking at them again, in a minute, below.

I should have an undecorated human male, but can't find him so for now it'll have to be Ensign Jeffrey standing in. Seven poses, and they were an odd selection, seeming a bit dated, yet actually referencing various tropes (or troops!) that were in the public or cultural conscience in the late 1970's or early 1980's.

This is the numbered contents of a set, and numbering is pretty clear on all sculpts on the upper side of the bases, so anyone buying a boxed-set described as 'mint' or complete, but lacking the sealed, poly-foil outer wrapping needs to have one each of all the above; numbered as above.

Examples of base numbering on figures 5, 7 and 13, you can see how clear they are and all 14 will be needed to 'make' a set. Equally a set needs to be either grey (early, getting scarcer), and matched-grey at that, or silver (later, commoner), not mixed together!

The pose quantities were also a bit odd, as it's no lie to state the two worst poses are the 3x's (padded cricket/baseball body-armour and 'Frisbee' man) while the two single issues (Romanesque humans) are among the best sculpts, with a fourteen-count, two of each would have been the best way to go, indeed - the obvious way to go!

Playing with a mirror, not as easy as it looks, you have to hold the 'background' (which is actually between you and the camera) in one hand, aim and fire the camera with the other hand and ensure the flash-reflection doesn't show; you can see it slightly in the top left corner of a couple of the shots!

You also have to keep one eye on the camera's screen which is away from you and held at an odd angle, to ensure the 'background sheet' covers the whole of the figure/likely crop-area. Weirdly; the mirror steals some of the light, so the reflections are a bit darker, and not because it's the back-side, the bases are darker too?

We'll start with a look at each pose, begining with the 'Disney' characters!

Ensign Jeffrey

He's adequate enough if you're looking for an over-enthusiastic junior officer to blame in a crisis, but you don't want to be relying on him in an emergency; what he carries in geldt he pays for in missing 'grey-matter' if you know what I mean.

He's a bit of a clicktivist, more interested in his comm's gadgets than his guns; his father was Lord Hetherington Fothergill Cholmondeley-Fahqquar-Popinjay (two 'Q's, no e, hyphens added to inherit), the third Earth Emissary to Alpha Centuri, which explains everything!

[Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Lando Calrisian (was later?), Blake's Seven?]

Grace

Sexy, spunky, space-babe, what's not to like? And she's a better shot that Jeffrey!!

[Wilma Deering, Princess Leia, Blake's Seven, Logans Run?]

Busso Bad Bot

That's all you need to know, isn't it? He's not called Busso Bad Bot for nothing! He's as mean as his sheen and can use that Mk.4 sonic-katana to carve an ice-swan or a butterfly from a watermelon in 2.6 seconds, but he'd rather carve something out of your head.

He's wanted on seventeen alien worlds, forty-seven Terran-fed worlds, and sixty-two independent or non-aligned human worlds, he's also being hunted by five of the six largest crime syndicates. His rap-sheet has no empty tick-boxes and his last (empty when found) hideaway was located in the outer mantle of a large star.

[Features of any number of bots, Shogun?]

Darth Gaylord Condominit

His suit of the finest pharmaceutical grade Dildastatesman silicon, his hood manufactured from hypo-allergenic synthetic latex with built-in gimp-mask, he's armed with the very latest vaginator upgrade for his Penetrator Parabellum, which is tooled in Venusian jade-crystal, he fights for Luurve against the haters of Hate, the Walrus of War cums to save us from ourselves!

[Darth Vader, Blake's Seven?]

Grod from Krud

Unspeakably awful, but a very useful mercenary, his diet is basically carrion, but he will fall back on other animal's droppings if he gets really hungry and he's not fussy as to species, consequently feeding an army of them is not much of a problem, cost wise, indeed the more fighting's involved, the lower the messing-bill!

Which brings me to their motto; "Kill them all!" you won't be surprised to hear this means they are quite easy to hire, at the lower end of the budgetary-constraint scale, for jobs that are likely to include a lot of killing, but they aren't the brightest buttons in the box, so no complicated missions - they are best employed on slash & burn or full planetary-invasions. However they do need to be barracked a long way from other buildings, preferably - off-world . . . the smell, you see.

['V', Dr Who?]

Clonecorpsman

The galaxy's sonic-cannon fodder, genetically engineered to do what they are told, you can send them as fast as you can grow them until the job's done or you find something more interesting to do elsewhere! Basic sonic-lance, basic body-armour with basic HUD, basic breather-kit . . . very expendable - but they just don't mind!

[Dr Who?]

Chinpol Interplanetary Investigator

Once Trump had taken the US off the world stage, and following the Sino-Russia war of '37, China became first the world's policemen and then the Galaxy's main police force. These interplanetary officers are fully trained (brain-jack immersion-learning) in sixteen martial arts and are to be found throughout Terra's spiral arm, operating in the Galactic core, providing support on most transit routes and the intermediaries or hubs, as well as operating in small teams out on the rim, hunting down the Galaxy's most wanted.

[THX1138, Dr Who?]

Scale comparator with the contemporary Britains-killer; they all match-up, if the Airfix are all given the same idiot-base the Britains figures have. You can also - of course - take the idiot-bases off the Britains figures, but then they are left with very silly shoes! The idea that the range may have contributed to the demise of Britains is no surprise really, when you think about it!

I will get a load more comparisons done in the fullness of time; the beauty of sci-fi/fantasy is that anything can technically go with anything else. While, less wacky or outrageous pairings can be achieved between most other sets and - at least one of - the Airfix sculpts, given the spread of subjects/genres covered by the seven sculpts.

Some old evilBay sales images of mine from the Berkshire days I found and used for playing with the heat-map tool in Picasa - 1970's psychedelia - groovy man!

Single-figure comparison between a late, probably Poplar Plastic Products polyethylene figure (ex-Thomas Toys tooling) and the Airfix reveals a slight smallness on the part of the later figures.

The Terran Federation's Security Service worked closely with other agencies to keep the developed universe as safe as possible (when organised crime could base itself on uncharted planets) and here we see two agents on exchange/secondment going through one-to-one mentored refresher training in urban CQB, at Spectrum's HQ in leafy Surrey!

While a lot of sci-fi styling is 'of its time' and can become quite dated, the Captain Scarlet uniforms still manage a futuristic look - here from Timpo - years after they left the popular stage, to join the nostalgia club! The gull-winged jerkin with side zip and bi-coloured lumber-jack cap being still quite distinctive; not so sure about the Mary Quant booties though!

Lik Be (LB, formally 'LP')'s spacemen/astronauts look a bit out of place next to the Airfix figures, taller, less animated and slightly underfed, they are doing a good impression of gawky kids on the dance-floor where the guys from Haldane Place have popped an E, downed a few shots and let go! Wer-wer-wer-whyyyype'ouut!

Robo-friends and fem-bots; The [possibly/probably] Hing Fat figures of the believed 'BraveStarr' Galaxy Rangers robot 'Cowboys & Sheriffs' (link to the home-blog post) are a little small, but being robotic can be any size, a minor stretch of the imagination and they can be quite-compatible!

Definitely Hing Fat on the right, generics on the left and surprisingly not as small as I thought they'd be, nor that incompatible animation-wise (as I was also expecting) when placed side-by-side with the Airfix, so really only styling which keeps them in separate universes!

Torgano's figures are huge, but style-wise fit in quite well, albeit with a slight two-dimensionality. These are I believe - the third version of this Italian maker's figures which began with a polystyrene iteration glued to separate bases, then an integrated base design (which may be someone-else's copies) and finally; these heavier, softer polyethylene sculpts.

Also from Italy and produced around, what; thirty years earlier (?) than the Airfix release; Chromoplast's synthetic PVC-rubber figures are quite similar (ignoring the leery paint-job) fashion/style-wise, but thinner, taller and a bit two-dimensional.

I've posed two pairs with similar features, 'hood, gloves & cloak' on the right, with - on the left - several similarities from the Roman Gladiatorial'esque 'Thracian helmet' and heavy collar, through to the bulgy-weapon with weird disc feature, via the padded-underpants/leotard.

A couple of the Airfix figures giving size to two Marx which I think are US issue/Reissue on the left and Swansea production in metallic blue? Also one of the really rather daft figures from Cherilea!

The Remco diver is from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea movie tie-ins, the same figure was employed in the Lost in Space board game, without the package locating-spike, which is how a diver gets here! The pink colossus is a Gort figure from Argentina, main character from the old Black White movie - The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Two Bonux premiums from France tower over the Airfix figures, available in black or silver, there are some smaller other-coloured copies somewhere-else in Europe, I think . . . I can't remember!

Cereal premium on the left, Klutz spaceman on the right, the NASA type was issued with Weetabix 'Weetos' in 1994 while the Klutz figure added playability to an interactive card construction book/toy more recently.

1971; [Civil/Space] Astronauts, 01741 / 01741-7 - HO/OO

One of the only Airfix sets which had no counterpart sets or 'enemy'. By going down the NASA route and using non-warlike designs based on actual or planned equipment from the real-world Airfix lost the possibility of adding vicious space-alien sets and expanding the range exponentially, had they done so, we might never have heard of Games Workshop and White Dwarf might have remained the interesting and eclectic magazine it was for its first few issues!!

Instead, GW became the 'Evil Empire' even as Airfix folded.

However, it was still a great favourite at the time, men had walked on the moon the year before this set was issued, and with all the little plug-together accessories there was play-value, the cameraman clearly had a ray-gun, the bloke carrying stuff was obviously carrying charges - nuclear charges!!

The chap with the probe was undoubtedly doing something horrible to the dustbin-lid entries on the Clanger's underground complex while the hover-platform men carried two para-munitions either side of the platform...what? You actually played 'NASA' exploration?...There's some'in wrong wi'yer!

The moon-buggy, a lovely piece, not that accurate but there were so many pre-production prototypes it would have been hard for the Airfix pattern-makers to get it right, without the limitations of production methods and budget to boot.

Word of warning to collectors - Like the Waterloo French Artillery wheels, these are now very hard to remove without pulling the mounting spigot/axle off and ruining the thing for all time, so its best to either keep them on or use a tooth-pick or other soft'ish, blunt'ish thin-thing to push the spigot/rod through the wheel, rather than pulling on the wheel itself.

The 'hover platform', not something that actually saw service, but like assault infantry backpacks; something that was experimented with from the 1950's through to the 70's! This 'Fleep' (flying Jeep) actually looks more like the next one down!

The 'Lander'...no...I haven't the faintest idea...I'm hoping one of the boys from Moonbase Central will visit here and put me right on this one!! [Thanks to JFBen (see comments) we now know it's a Bell Aeronautics LFV or Lunar Flying Device, there was a one-man version that looked similar]

But...clearly a powerful weapon system for engaging the Giant space aliens or the evil - scaling-out to - 7-foot-something LP/Triang humanoids!!

The rear view also shows the (power cable?) difference in back-packs for the moon-buggy crew, these push into the floor-pan of the buggy to aid stability, all the other figures get a normal pack.

Artwork from late catalogues, these seem to be the illustrations from the Long Boxes and look to be very nice watercolours when enlarged. The 1982 image is from the German language version of the catalogue.

For those interested - the font I've used for the dates is a free download called TR2N (ie; TRON) and can be found here Dafont - TR2N.

OBE's - Once more; I don't have many of these, but they give an idea of the two camps...NASA realists against militarised warmongers (Me sir! Me!). I think a couple of them have the Space 1999 schemes? And...more Airfix matt vermilion! (see; High Chaparral).

Re-issued a few years ago in a silver plastic, that's the only real variant for these, there were two hard styrene plastic ones in the Eagle-Lander Module kit which I will add here when time allows.

We've found a monolith on the dark side sir!

Is it a big oblong box-like structure made of something too hard to penetrate and unknown to man, emanating the cry of the universal God-child?

No sir, it's hollow and has Bon-bon Buddies on the underside!

2013 - A Space Oddity!! A complete set congregate round a capsule-egg, to see if there is anything sugery left...

The breakdown of a complete set, the little balls (gyroscopic levellers? They should have had Segways!) for the hover platform are 'the bugger' with this set, being often overlooked at the de-sprueing phase, or easily lost.

 

Someone wrote the amounts on these sheets (photocopies), unmarked originals, and the newer layout, are both further down the page.

 

Thanks to Greek follower of the blog Kostas, we have this collage of the box-art and blurb from the 1975 catalogue, the rover here has much larger rubber-tyred wheels than the contents of the box, and seems to have a raised battery on the front deck, the actual one had sort of tension/compression-stressed wire-basket wheels.

We've looked at these over on the other blog, and they appeared on Moonbase, but they need to be here too! Montaplex; from the vehicle range, they came with a sea-plane/float-plane and a 54mm scaled moped/scooter. The astronaut is larger, while the alien (?) crew of the saucer are much smaller.

Montaplex also produced a set of vaguely HO scale spacemen (or Aliens, the detail is poor!) which included an odd-looking rubber-boat like transporter with seated figures and these small chaps and chapesses. I tend to think they are the children of an Earth colony, helping/learning how to wreak another planet!

Comparisons with other makes/brands: the top shot is of vuagly 25mm vinyl monster aliens, somewhere - in styling - between Games Workshop's Tyranids and Bluebird Havok's Pteravore, anyone know who/what/where on them?

2nd shot down is the Jean astronauts, sort of the right era clothing, but definitely the wrong size!

3rd lot are generic rack-toy scale-ups of the Galoob Expanders line, again too big, but what's scale when you're dealing with giant alien attack-fleet marines from the low-grav sector three rim-worlds?

Final line-up compares the Airfix bods with three random figures from (left to right) unknown recent play-set, Kinder and a gum-ball spacewoman

More comparisons; LP LB spaceman and robot top-left, then clockwise;  unknown (but known somewhere in the files - much, much later; MB (Milton Bradley) 'Star Bird' figures) astronaut, gum-ball robots and the X-30..."You can take the helmet off mate, th'dog's fine!"

Top, gum-ball trolls (sans hair), middle the TSR Buck Rogers Battle for the 25th Century board-game pieces and at the bottom the Galanites from Coma...waaaay too big really!

The chap on the left came in a pocket play-set and I keep ID'ing him and then losing the reference...last time was about a week ago! The other is a gum-ball witch, just the sort of thing you might encounter on the dark side...

 Bits of a Payton spaceman's 'Missile Helmet' make the surface station, various other space toys arranged to give the Airfix chaps (who are otherwise a bit boring!) something to do!

The LB (Lik Be, formally LP) small scale as supplied to Tri-Ang (Spacex) and MPC (Golden Astronauts) in gold-chrome, but seen here in their LB Carded/Boxed set or Culpitt's cake-decoration versions - top and undecorated in the middle - with the smaller, later MPC clones (for which they probably didn’t have the necessary permission) at the bottom.

LB later added a pair of more recognisable NASA-Apollo type astronauts to their range and these are they, they get a slightly sub-scale 'landing module'; Eagle, and a small flag.

MPC weren’t the only ones to copy LB's originals, these are Hong Kong generics, and being smaller are pretty-much in scale with the Airfix, but wearing the suits of the Gemini/Mercury programs.

K&M issued this rover with a set of larger 45/50mm figures, modern PVC (probably PVC-substitute) and with non-working wheels, it's still a bit too large to be recruited into the Airfix space program!

 

Other moon buggies/rovers; here from the left, and after the Airfix are - Safari's smaller offering, similar to the K&M one, Realtoy (probably made by Pioneer), the similar but more detailed/accurate model from New Ray's 'Moon Adventure' set and a premium/freebie giveaway from the US powdered drinks giant Tang, which has a simple wind-up elastic motor, leaving a dragging arm visible on the rear right wheel and two studs on the rear left.
 

The same four machines from the side, obviously the Realtoy and New Ray versions are closest to the original machines, the other two are quite simplified and toy-like, but the Tang has some features in common with the Airfix rendering, leaving me more sure some prototype with a clear front deck might have been consulted for some of these, or Airfix end-up with the Worst Model award!

Peter Pan Plaything's' provide some near-compatible space marines in their Operation Aliens board game, along with a bunch of aliens who must be in scale, as they can be any-scale from multi-legged dog size to around ten-foot tall! Airfix's chaps wouldn't last long with a camera and a sample-probe! 

A better line-up of the Jean Höffler, and three Giant Plastic Corp. clones, issued as generics and by Woolbro, these are probably the 2nd generation copies and a flat red iteration also exists - which probably means other colours are out there?

These are miniaturised versions of the old Wing Mau/Hing Fat sculpts, or at least three of them, and they were issued in various generic sets carried by importers such as JE Toys, PMS and Fancy It Agencies, maker unknown, but they are soft PVC which puts both Pioneer and Supreme in the frame.

I wondered if the NASA official press-release image on the right, which was used a lot - back in the day - and is often found in books on the moon-landings/space race, might be the starting point for the oddly-angled, drunk-looking Airfix pose?

Here's a similar shot, but he's leaning the other way, clearly this is the 'moon stance' - a combination of the low gravity, the weight of his equipment, the way the life-support pack's center of gravity shifts as he walks and finally; the sheer bulk of the multiple layers he's wearing?

The Fame Master 4D puzzle, clip-together, rigid-PVC or similar material Eagle Lander model is a tad on the small size, but looks the part with the Airfix figures!

Giant/Toy House alien and a poor-quality clone (both now on the But Is It Giant Blog), with the newest (2019) version of Airfix astronaut for comparison, they are a bit small; but have deadly ray-guns!

Couple of 'Astronits', the R&L fans credit them to Rosenhain and Lipmann, the Euro-premium fans credit them to Dunkin (et al), as they are not clip-together kits and are manufactured in softer ethylene, it's not a call I'm going to make, but they are Airfix size-ready!

For the 50th anniversary of the first moon-landing, Airfix re-issued them in a white plastic and I've seen threads on forums banging on about them being too soft, but they are (or mine are...) pretty-much the same polyethylene Airfix have always used for their figure sets. Now in a pure white like the old farm animals set!

The odd looking Bell Aeronautics 'Hopper' thingy actually went together better than I ever remember the original doing, possibly because I'm older and have done the exercise more often than I ever needed to!

Overall, this issue is a bit flashy compared to the original and you can see one of the Fleep platforms has two failed pins in the tool, resulting in a pair of long protrusions which have to be carefully removed without damaging the fine edge of the platform's lower ring.

The re-issue is under the 'Vintage Classics' program, which is more of a marketing exercise than anything else, but when you're wanting to charge full-whack for decades old tool-production, I guess you have to get inventive!

The 41 suffix is retained within the stock-code, but the whole code is in a new format: A00741V. Also, the given-scale (1:76^th) is both specific and accurate for the first time in those nearly fifty years - the set was first issued in 1971!

Oddly - having had a silver issue at some point - the art room were given an old cream-yellow set to work with, on the packaging?

Again; with a thumbnail history of the set, including a credit for the original artwork but not the sculptor!

The new insert is a tad more cluttered than the old one, which will appear here if I ever get the Airfix box liberated from one storage unit or another!

Polish copies come to us via Lew Prokolijew (Lev Prokoliev), Lew/Lev translates literally as Lion, but I don't know if that was used/they were branded/known as such? The artwork gives away the clone nature of the contents even before you turn it over to view the figures, although there's more excitement in the backgound, that ship's about to hit the dirt with a force of a small A-bomb!

The control column hole is filled with flash from another failed-pin in the tool (different country, different tool, same tech' problems!), and I'm won't to drill it out given the age and rarity of the set, which came from Chris Smith, a regular contributor to the Small Scale World Home Blog. Also; camera-guy has no backpack (it's in the bag) as his receiving hole is blocked with the remains of the locating-stud - another reason for not taking a drill to the Luna Rover.

Eh-Hayyyy! Flag-waving competition! From the left: Airfix original, larger figure I'm pretty-sure now is Pioneer-for-Realtoy, Galoob Micromachines, Airfix again, Airfix new and Lew Prokolijew copy.

Both sides of the first version (or "White") long-box, done in a nice sky-blue and with the little painting guide 'thumbnails', not that they were called that then!

Both sides of the earlier instruction sheet, much clearer that the current one (some shots above), and it's worth repeating; be very careful pulling the wheels off, push the locating-stud/axle back through first with a fingernail or toothpick (or something similarly gentle) or you may break them off, I have no advise for the Bell two-man lander thing, the current re-issue seems to work better than it ever did when I was a kid!

My box also has a complaints slip in a rather fetching green, the complaints slip seems to have been phased-out during the run of these box types (and the move to France under CPG/General Mills/MPC), probably! I might have said; UK box = slip, French box = no slip, but I don't know where British boxes with a French sticker stand in that - admitted - guesswork! In fact I did say that, but then quickly edited it, as this is a French box, so that's not a theory, it's not even sensible thinking out loud!

 

Just a bit of fun, but the 1970 issue of the catalogue had this on the cover, promoting the model kit, the model as photographed is a master with much finer detail than the finished kit tool, and the figures haven't even been borrowed from the set being looked at here (as they were, for the finished tool), but are apparently hand-made maquettes?

 

But it wasn't actually in the catalogue (the 'Seventh'), being only announced in the '1970 Construction Kits' leaflet/flyer, later in the year, alongside the moon-landing related Sea King (tranfers and paint instuctions) helicopter and the Apollo-Saturn launcher (1:144th scale) kits.
 

Links 

ATF Listing Page
ATF Discussion Page Including 'Bods' Paul's Sample
Bob's Nicely Painted Sample
Phil's Workbench - Brit'nauts!
Plastic Soldier Review
Proper Monolith!