by Pierre-Jacques Ober
It was 1970 in Agen, a garrison town in the south-west of France. I was 12 at the time and it was totally life changing. I mean imaginary life changing !

Being an army kid, I had always been surrounded by real soldiers, trucks and tanks and totally immersed in playing battles with little soldiers in my room. Making no distinction between indians, paratroopers or knights. It was pure battle between my randomly chosen good and evil.

But until that amazing day, I was playing with the traditional little soldiers. They were actually big (54mm) and expensive. So between price and size, we could not possess many of them.

It is easy to imagine the excitement it represented when suddenly I was given 48 figures in a box. It must have also been enjoyable for my parents to be given the opportunity to offer me 48 little soldiers for the price of 1 ! Their small size transformed my little room in a huge battlefield full of possibilities for complex scenarios. My imagination was multiplied …

Since then these little soldiers have been an integral part of my life.