Star Wars to Action Force

Bossk

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For those of us that played with the vintage star wars toys back in the late 70s and early 80s, like me, did anyone make the transition to action force. I loved those as a kid and dare I say it, much more play time with those play sets, vehicles and bendy figures. I've never gone back to em though. No action force any where to be seen in my collection. All about vintage Star Wars. I do confess though. I reckon a mint snake eyes and storm shadow MOC would look really cool on display. Love to hear your thoughts and memories all.
 

Mini99

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There are some Action Force collectors on here.
Have a look in Other Vintage Collections in Off Topic I think there are some posts there.
 

coomber75

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admit action force came on my radar too... i seem to remember a red skull ship??? that sound right lol
 

Nita Nitro

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I seem to remember being aware that Action Force was out there and I had one figure that I believe was action force, (a frogman), but Star Wars was always my main focus. I did get good playtime out of the frogman and he joined the ranks of my Star Wars figures for a while, but I always felt that he didn't quite belong in the spaceships, being the diver that he was. I also had one Star Trek figure at one point, which I loved, but he disappeared pretty quickly from my collection, probably 'borrowed' by a cousin, or something, at some point. :D
I have to admit that I find myself checking action force figures out, from time to time, because they do look cool, especially on the cards :)
 

Cazza

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I definitely moved towards AF when I was 10/11/12. Really loved it and was actually allowed to buy them, whereas my parents were always funny about me buying SW stuff. It was a relief not to have a battle over it. Thankfully kept most of my childhood stuff and have built on it since with a few MOCs. It will never have the all out nostalgia that SW toys have for me, but is definitely my second favourite childhood toy, ahead of Scalextric and Action Man.

This is my Roboskull. Bought a couple of years ago and lovingly restored. Awesome! One of Bob Brechin's finest moments! 8)
 

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coomber75

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Cazza said:
I definitely moved towards AF when I was 10/11/12. Really loved it and was actually allowed to buy them, whereas my parents were always funny about me buying SW stuff. It was a relief not to have a battle over it. Thankfully kept most of my childhood stuff and have built on it since with a few MOCs. It will never have the all out nostalgia that SW toys have for me, but is definitely my second favourite childhood toy, ahead of Scalextric and Action Man.

This is my Roboskull. Bought a couple of years ago and lovingly restored. Awesome! One of Bob Brechin's finest moments! 8)

That's the ship I was thinking of!!! Nice work mate
 

subzero

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Do I have that right that these are a type of official 'Action Man' spin off toy line?, just noticed the Action Man logo on the cardbacks which iv'e never noticed before. I know nothing about Action Force by the way. :lol:
 

Nita Nitro

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subzero said:
Do I have that right that these are a type of official 'Action Man' spin off toy line?, just noticed the Action Man logo on the cardbacks which iv'e never noticed before. I know nothing about Action Force by the way. :lol:

I'm not an expert on this, but I read that Action Force was the U.K. name for the American line 'Real American Heroes', which was a descendant of the 3 3/4 GI Joe line and the larger scale figures from even earlier.
I'm sure there are others out there who have a more complete knowledge of the line, but hope that helps a little :)
 

Cazza

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Nita Nitro said:
subzero said:
Do I have that right that these are a type of official 'Action Man' spin off toy line?, just noticed the Action Man logo on the cardbacks which iv'e never noticed before. I know nothing about Action Force by the way. :lol:

I'm not an expert on this, but I read that Action Force was the U.K. name for the American line 'Real American Heroes', which was a descendant of the 3 3/4 GI Joe line and the larger scale figures from even earlier.
I'm sure there are others out there who have a more complete knowledge of the line, but hope that helps a little :)

Pretty much spot on mate. They were basically mini Action Men. They shared some moulds etc with GI Joe in Series 2, but especially with Series 3. There was a comic to accompany the toys. Series 1 was very British- def my favourite series.
 

subzero

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Cazza said:
Nita Nitro said:
subzero said:
Do I have that right that these are a type of official 'Action Man' spin off toy line?, just noticed the Action Man logo on the cardbacks which iv'e never noticed before. I know nothing about Action Force by the way. :lol:

I'm not an expert on this, but I read that Action Force was the U.K. name for the American line 'Real American Heroes', which was a descendant of the 3 3/4 GI Joe line and the larger scale figures from even earlier.
I'm sure there are others out there who have a more complete knowledge of the line, but hope that helps a little :)

Pretty much spot on mate. They were basically mini Action Men. They shared some moulds etc with GI Joe in Series 2, but especially with Series 3. There was a comic to accompany the toys. Series 1 was very British- def my favourite series.

Cheers guys that explains that then!
 

tobedesu

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I sold most of my fully articulated Action Force figures and vehicles...reluctantly.
Kept tje 5POA Action Force though.
Dont have tje same semtiment as star wars but good figures nonetheless.
 

edd_jedi

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I don't think I had any Action Force toys, I vaguely recognise some of them from visiting friends etc but they don't really give me any nostalgia. After Star Wars I went on to MASK and Centurions mainly, but also had some Visionaries and Real Ghostbusters.
 

tobeshadow

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Star Wars was always my favourite, but Action Force were always knocking around. I think the greatest strength of the early 5POA figures was that they were generic. A lot of the films I loved as a kid either didn't have toy lines or I didn't know they existed (My first Indiana Jones figure was a painted Han in Bespin!) so the Action Force figures could wear many hats! The German Soldier was ideal for battling Indy, and the camo soldiers were perfect for anything from WW2 right through to modern. I remember a glorious summer in the garden using Z-Force figures as commandos with Squid Head doing double-duty as The Predator!
 

tobedesu

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TheJabbaWookie said:
I'm like Edd. I moved from Star Wars to Transformers, He-man and M.A.S.K. but can't for the life of me remember the exact order. My best mate had Action Force though so I did play with it.

It is hard to remember exactly.
I think i may have been something like this:

Very early days of Matchbox and Corgi and then Mego superhero figures, and Action Man. And the small plastic soldiers.
Star Wars.
Action Force
MOTU
Transformers and MUSCLE
I got into NFL in 1986 and that was pretty much that.

There was a lot of bits and pieces in between, but going over my childhood collection it appears that I didnt have a great, lasting interest in the following because I only had the odd figure.
Zoids, MASK, RATS.
 

Gorneesh

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I got really heavy into Action Force after Star Wars, never really did He-Man, Transformers
Not in the right order I'm sure but i was kind of like this...
Action Force / Action Man
Mask
Zoids
There were many other and I had lots of bit that were one of so I had one Go Bots and a few small Centurions bits, that were gifts from family but never was really into.
Then I started getting into computer games, wasting way to many hours copying code out of a magazine for a really **** game, or in my case find you got it wrong and wasted all that time, turn of the computer in a huff and go out side to play.
 

Mini99

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Gorneesh said:
I got really heavy into Action Force after Star Wars, never really did He-Man, Transformers
Not in the right order I'm sure but i was kind of like this...
Action Force / Action Man
Mask
Zoids
There were many other and I had lots of bit that were one of so I had one Go Bots and a few small Centurions bits, that were gifts from family but never was really into.
Then I started getting into computer games, wasting way to many hours copying code out of a magazine for a really **** game, or in my case find you got it wrong and wasted all that time, turn of the computer in a huff and go out side to play.
Do you remember copying "pokes" from mags into spectrum game codes to get extra lives etc?
What was the Spectrum mag called?
 

Snaketibe

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Mini99 said:
Do you remember copying "pokes" from mags into spectrum game codes to get extra lives etc?
What was the Spectrum mag called?
I do! There were some brilliant POKES available for 'Jet Set Willy' on the Spectrum :-D

My brother and I also once wasted an entire day painstakingly programming in the 'missing screen from Jet Set Willy', as proudly advertised and boasted about on the cover of C&VG mag (Computer and video Games), only to find we had a copper-bottomed case for prosecuting them under the Misrepresentation of Goods Act / Trades Descriptions Act, as what we spent hours and hours squelching in using the Speccy's rubber keyboard bore about as much resemblance to Jet Set Willy as a 3-legged asthmatic donkey does to a Formula One car!

I would say, 'Good times!', but those fruitless hours plugging in code certainly weren't! :lol:

I've even managed to find a copy of the mag cover on Google!

Missing Screen My Ass!.jpg
 

Mini99

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Great times indeed, and as you say, often fruitless!
I always found it amazing that the covers of these mags bear no resemblance to the games!
That's not the mag I used to have, it was only for Spectrum and in the later days had a "free" cassette of playable demons on the front cover, could have been called Crash?
 
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