For a while I'd been feeling different. I could still admire detailed beautifully painted historical miniatures and realistically modelled terrain, but I just didn't find them exciting or evocative any longer. I realised I was suffering from Pseudo-Nostalgia; I could see in my mind's eye something that might have existed, but never had. The only cure, I realised, was a bit of Neo-Retro wargaming. In the real world Airfix 1/72nd figures were my first wargaming obsession: from the first pink plastic guardsmen onwards I waited excitedly for the next release. I converted them using razor blades, hot pins and Plasticene (though I never found any of themysterious banana oil that the Airfix Magazine wrote about). I loved them then, but I'm not remotely nostalgic about them now. Instead I'm pseudo-nostalgic about some toy soldiers that never existed. Since I obviously couldn't find them on Ebay(or anywhere else) I decided to make them. I knew what I wanted. They had to be around 30mm tall, slim, simple (with very limited detail), easy to paint and have integral bases big enough to stop them falling over. They had to have a touch of Tintin, a good helping of pre-WW2 Elastolin, a bit of Britains and a spoonful or two of Swedish AfricanEngineers. But they weren't going to be a copy or a pastiche, they were going to be my Neo-Retro Little Soldiers. The first releases will be the Interwar armies of three imaginary countries: Slovsko,Panovia and Bergland.If you check out my Instagram (marks_little_soldiers) you'll find a lot more pictures, a glimpse into the wargaming life of Major Harwood-Smith and an invigorating shot of pseudo-nostalgia.Mark Copplestone.