Honestly, I hope you're using proper 'battlefields' like the kitchen, the living room floor, the dirt (complete with ant attacks).

Quote from: RustyDM;922887If anyone has a couple of hours and wants to find out just about everything there is to know about plastic "army men," check out "The Army Men Home Page" at http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/. That site has links to pictures of just about every type of plastic army men that were every made.

I used to own thousands of those army men, but now only have a handful left.

--Rusty DM

I love that website!

When I was a kid, my friends and I would use every conceivable surface as a battleground for our army men. We used to dig trenches and fortifications for our army men in my mother's flower beds, until she scolded me severely. Eventually, we reached a deal. If I would ensure that all of the flower beds were free of weeds, I could use parts of the flower beds for our battlefields. We would even have army men crossing rivers (had to keep the hose running to keep the water flowing, else the water quickly soaked into the dirt) in boats, then the other side would launch clods of dirt using mortar trajectories in an attempt to sink those boats.

One friend had a sister who was diabetic and who had to give herself shots of insulin daily. We used to use the discarded syringes (minus the needles), then fill them with water from a cup, and then squirt the water at the enemy troops to try to knock them down (outdoors only). Inside the house, we would cover random pillows with blankets to simulate hills for battlefields. Also indoors, we would use "elastics" (a fancy name for "rubber bands) to knock over enemy troops.

One friend had a slot car table. We would set our respective armies of army men up on that table, then let the friend's pet hamster loose to wander, knocking over army men all over the place.

But probably our finest hour was when we used my sister's Barbie doll to fight our army men. A couple of buddies and I had just watched "Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman" on TV, so Barbie became the 50 ft. woman. We could raise Barbie's arms over her head, place an army man in them, then flick her arms so the army man went flying! We also could use Barbie's legs to kick army men all over the place! It was great fun, until my sister caught on and complained to our mother, who then put a stop to the fun. But it was a memorable moment.

Just about any war movie battle we watched on TV could be simulated with our army men. We also had German and Japanese army men, so we had proper opponents for our American-style army men. We even eventually got some WWII British troops.

A cool thing today.... I work in computer networking, and when we purchase new network gear from a particular vendor, they throw a handful of army men in every box they ship to us! Those army men come in some weird colors, like dark blue and orange, besides the usual green. So we have army men set up all over the place, "guarding" our network gear.

-- Rusty DM

Quote from: RustyDM;922887If anyone has a couple of hours and wants to find out just about everything there is to know about plastic "army men," check out "The Army Men Home Page" at http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/. That site has links to pictures of just about every type of plastic army men that were every made.

I used to own thousands of those army men, but now only have a handful left.

--Rusty DM

Nice site. It doesn't have all of them, as I had a few types they don't show yet.

Quote from: Skarg;922958Nice site. It doesn't have all of them, as I had a few types they don't show yet.

My Army Men RPG is multi-genre and crossover-heavy in nature, so expect other types of troops as well such as Pirates, Ninjas, Knights, Romans, Cowboys & Indians, and the like.

I remember as a kid I would play a lot with Army Men and Cowboys & Indians. I also had a huge collection of toy trains and dinosaurs, as well as some anime toys (namely Digimon and a few Sailor Moon items as well) and I would often incorporate trains, dinosaurs, and Digimon into my Army Men scenarios.

I often liked to go out on the porch with my dinosaurs and Army Men and play Jurassic Park with them, sometimes recreating scenarios from the first two films but more often making my own Jurassic Park and Dino Crisis scenarios.

Well, getting back to the original question of what FRP system to use.... Not sure of that, but you should incorporate all sorts of dangers to the FRP army men, things like high-speed water jets (coming from medical syringes or various squirt gun type thingies), flying elastics (rubber bands), lighter fluid and matches, huge Barbie dolls, and even various roaming monsters, like hamsters (which would be giant-sized compared to the army men). How to quantify damage taken by the army men from those various hazards? I reckon flaming lighter fluid is about the surest way to "kill" army men so badly that they couldn't be "resurrected." Of course, they could also get chewed up by various pets or other animals, too. There is always the danger of stray army men in the grass out in the yard getting chopped up by power lawn mowers.

Speaking of using "elastics" (rubber bands) to shoot down your opponent's army men. I remember reading an article about that somewhere in the 1960s, which is why we started calling rubber bands "elastics" instead. I couldn't find that article with a web search, but I did find a number of YouTube videos folks made with plastic army men. See "Saving Plastic Ryan" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzoe0v46lIs for one of them. It is quite graphically violent, even using plastic army men.

-- RustyDM

Quote from: RustyDM;922967Well, getting back to the original question of what FRP system to use.... Not sure of that, but you should incorporate all sorts of dangers to the FRP army men, things like high-speed water jets (coming from medical syringes or various squirt gun type thingies), flying elastics (rubber bands), lighter fluid and matches, huge Barbie dolls, and even various roaming monsters, like hamsters (which would be giant-sized compared to the army men). How to quantify damage taken by the army men from those various hazards? I reckon flaming lighter fluid is about the surest way to "kill" army men so badly that they couldn't be "resurrected." Of course, they could also get chewed up by various pets or other animals, too. There is always the danger of stray army men in the grass out in the yard getting chopped up by power lawn mowers.

Speaking of using "elastics" (rubber bands) to shoot down your opponent's army men. I remember reading an article about that somewhere in the 1960s, which is why we started calling rubber bands "elastics" instead. I couldn't find that article with a web search, but I did find a number of YouTube videos folks made with plastic army men. See "Saving Plastic Ryan" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzoe0v46lIs for one of them. It is quite graphically violent, even using plastic army men.

-- RustyDM

I'll consider making systems for these types of damage.

Man, I am so glad I made this thread. It's like I'm being taken back to my early childhood days back in the late 90's and early 2000's.