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So browsing through Facebook earlier I was aware of the existence of the following :






which hitherto one was entirely unaware of.

It seems that they released a fair few of these sort of sets


http://fantasytoysoldiers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/dfc-dragonriders-of-styx-playsets.html

DFC produced 5 playsets, Dragonrider of the Styx, the Dungeons of Castlelon, the Tower of the Night, the Fires of Shandarr, the Forest of Doom and a mini playset that is just called Fantasy Playset. Multi Toy added two playsets, The Demons of Castlelon and the Giant Castle Playset. The Dungeons of Castlelon was pulled from stores thanks to TSR and was replaced with the Demons of Castlelon. Both of the Castlelon playsets are very rare.

From what one can gather these were pretty much USA only , at least no one from outside the USA had heard of them.

How popular were these then and did they act as a similar "gateway drug" for Dakka members, in much the same way as Heroquest did later on ?

After a little digging one was quite surprised at the sheer variety of fantasy themed models/games released


http://fantasytoysoldiers.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/fantasy-playsets-for-sale.html

With the exeption of the thing at the bottom I had never seen those other games before. They look like good fun for both kids and older players(yes I am somewhat soft for these things). Makes me wonder if anything like this was avalibal when I was but a youngling

I'd never seen these before, I had to make do with plastic knights in armour, a wooden castle that my Granddad made for me and use dinosaur models for dragons.
A little later on I got a Playmobile castle but iirc that was purely medieval stuff with no dragons, the dinosaurs still made an appearance though.
After that it was Crossbows and Catapults which I still have a copy of and break out occasionally.
Then Heroquest sealed the deal.

I like the art style, really colourful and as a young kid that would have really captured my imagination.
It's so wacky and bad that it's good.
My particular favourite are the constant boasts of 'Lifelike Dragons'.

Would happily have these on display in my games room.
10 bushy beards, yellow aviators and corduroy flares out of 10.

I love how uninterested everyone/everything looks on the box art.

A gateway game for me was Crossbows and Catapults.

It had little plastic guys you could put out in front of the castles to disrupt an incoming shot. One side was little brown vikings, and the other was light brown guys in armor. I played with those guys and there little castles soooooo much.

i had a few of those sets...
i was crazy about the models as a little kid...
the Dungeons of Castlelon one sticks in my brain the most, because i remember how freaky the the worm guys were...

i wouldn't say they were a gateway for me in the same sense that Heroquest was...
Heroquest was the first era of the hobby being promoted as something you paint, instead of just play...
once i discovered miniature painting at 10 years old, both scale models and games went right out the window...

Crossbows and Catapults was a hell of a lot of fun, before i chained myself to the painting table, though...

i still hate those damn worm guys, too...
nasty looking buggers...

nice trip down memory lane, red...

cheers
jah

I find the images of the dragon to not be very lifelike. A bit misleading, honestly.

Which brings me to another question... how many freaking gargoyles can someone really need?

I've never seen those, but they would have been awesome as a kid. And probably cheaper than the Gi Joe I was fond of.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
. how many freaking gargoyles can someone really need?.

All of them?

 insaniak wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
. how many freaking gargoyles can someone really need?.

All of them?

Just look at the art of 40k! One needs gargoyels ontop of ones Gargoyle decorated gargoyle art

I hadn't seen these before, thanks for bringing them to my attention!

Much like the old Transformers cardboard Ark playset, I'd love to have a complete version of that Giant Castle.

Really, I'd love to have any of these.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Huh, there was apparently an action figure line for this, too.