Cave Find: Formtech Battle Boards

These battle boards have been out in The Cave for many years now and I've never actually used them in my setups. That will have to change this year! After posting in several facebook groups, the consensus is that these were in fact Formtech and made for the old Classic Toy Soldiers (CTS) Battle of Antietam playset. That would put these in the mid-'90s. 

Culled from the Internet

Each one measures 21.75" (55.24cm) W x 13.5" (34.29cm) D and are basically 1" (2.54cm) thick with molded-in details going higher. It appears as if either the Marx ACW bridge or even the MPC exploding bridge can be used and you can discern where the road leads up to the river crossing. Right now I'm leaning towards gluing these to lengths of stripwood and turning them into one unit vs. two separate pieces. That river could use some 'water' as well. We shall see, we shall see!

Ed

Individual boards

Side-by-side

Molded-in details

Wheel ruts and rock walls

Minor defensive fortifications

Marx 60mm Large Raft and Rowers

Okay guys, here's the Marx large raft with both rowers in place.

Ed

Cave Find: Marx Repo Airplane Propellors

It was an okay day to go out in The Cave yesterday, and while perusing boxes and drawers I found this package of Marx repo airplane propellors bought a couple of years ago. I'll have to install them on my repo airplanes and do a whole new photo shoot. I know there's more propellors out in The Cave - somewhere!

Ed

Marx 60mm Large Raft Rower - Poses 1 & 2

While I have both rowing figures, the port side figure has a chewed-up oar. I prefer to think that it got shot up while crossing the river. Fortunately our little G.I. didn't get hit though.

Ed

Port side rower

Starboard side rower

Marx 60mm Large Raft REDUX

Welcome to the New Year everyone! I've got a couple of big series I'm excited about that I've been working on for months and years now, and hope to get started right soon! As well, last year I started another diorama board, but put that project on hold until the weather improves because I'll have to finish the work on it outside. As well, I need to take a group shot of all the LEGO 2025 Advent Calendar toys. While the individual shots were all taken on the kitchen table, I have been putting the group shot off because I prefer to do larger setups in The Cave and The Cave has been quite cold the past few weeks.

But first I need to start the year by making a correction to a previous post, and finish up the Marx Battleground series of toys. Wellll, by 'finish' I mean posting what I have in the collection so far. The plans are to add a wee bit more! 😉

Back on 25 Jul 2025, I posted this as Marx's Large Raft...

...I was wrong. Had I paid more attention to my usual source material (the Toy Soldier HQ website) I would have caught that this was the HO raft!

The large raft is on the far left. The HO raft posted erroneously as the large raft is on the far right

Courtesy Toy Soldier HQ

So today we'll feature the large raft that was made for 60mm figures (the figures will be covered in separate posts). The raft measures 5.5" (13.97cm) L x 2.75" (6.98cm) W x .5" (1.27cm) H.

The large raft with rowers that was included in Marx Battleground playsets