In most countries, but Norway, the spring time seems to be 'the season' for toy soldier markets, swap meets, toy soldier conversions and so on taken all the different adds popping up on Facebook and reviews posted on blogs and YouTube. As earlier mentioned in this blog, this is not a big business or market in Norway anymore, so 'finds' are rare and often 'over-priced'. So I was really surprised when visiting our local toy shop earlier this week and saw they were offering super cheap bags of army men. They are clearly 'china-copies', but not to that worst sub quality often found. I decided to grab a couple of different bags to have closer look at them.
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Bag 1
For only £5,2/ $6,4 or €6 you get 100 army men in 2 different colors (50 each side) close to 54mm size in 8 different poses. Enough troops to form 4 Platoons or a Company. They are molded in fairly hard plastic, and the details are fairly crisp. The mold lines are not disturbing and there are no flash. They are not as 'flat' as many 'china copies' often are, but the 'sculpts' are typically china-copies though. Anyone recognizing the originals?
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The army men seems to decipts 'modern' US soldiers with 'old' kevlar helmets. They are armed with AR-styled rifles, and one has a SAW machine gun and one seems to have a shotgun (with magazine?). One rifle is undefined, and a couple of the troops looks to have older paratrooper M1 helmets.
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Bag2
For only £2,2/ $2,75 or €2,6 you get 72 army men in 2 different colors (36 each side) in 40-45mm size in 12 different poses. Enough troops to form 3 Platoons. They are molded in the same color and fairy hard plastic as their bigger counterparts, and ok details. These are more what you can expect from cheap Chinese copies and are flater, stranger propositions, have larger mold lines and more flash, and have useless bases. Due to their size and they're are so skinny, they feel small. They have clearly poorer quality than their bigger counterparts.
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They clearly decipts some kind of modern troops of more generic type. They're mostly armed with some AR-looking rifles and there are no heavy weapons in this set either. One is armed with something appears to be a 'butter knife' (!). What's nice about them is that of the 12 different poses 4 are equipped with boonie hats, 4 with caps and 4 with kevlar helmets of the old type. I have not seen these poses before, so I wonder if any recognize these origins as well?
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Conclusion
I'm currently busy with other modelling and gaming projects, and have no plan how to use these figures yet. -But as the availability in Norway are very limited, not buying them for this reasonable price was actually not an option.
Time will show....
It was indeed a good plan to seize the day and buy them. I will be interested to see what you make of them…
ReplyDeleteAlan Tradgardland
Norway is usually an very expensive country, so I was surprised when I found similar figures on Amazon to a much higher price than the Norwegian one. Being 'modern' they're looking generic and just buying them made me think of new games and scenarios. Perhaps some of them will be converted as well.
DeleteTime will show. Now I'm off to the veteran jubilee for the Balkan missions.
The whole bag is worth it for the SAW gunner alone! I've never seen a "good" M249 like the one that plastic army man is carrying. Wonder if the paratrooper with the shotgun was a BAR in a former life?
ReplyDeleteYou mean the 'large' saw-gunner with the Fritz helmet?
DeleteSure the shotgun could have been a BAR in it's former life, but now the barrel seems awfully too short for that. Magazine fed pump-action shotgun exists, and it kid of looks more like that now. On the other hand , shotguns in a rifle-squad is rare. They're often used for special duties and purposes, like gate-guards, clearing trenches and buildings etc.
You have a nice blog! -I'll add a link to it at the blogger-list to the right.
Always nice to pick up some cheap reinforcements!
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work on your blog!
Thank you!
DeleteI will keep trying to make an effort to this blog.It's not all only wargaming or toy soldiers as I'm into model railways as well. -Some of them military though.
The Arms set figures are quite nice and I converted some into Royal marines in Blue uniforms! Others I made into medieval crossbowmen!
ReplyDeleteThe other set with mixed head gear I haven't seen for sale, but they look interesting.
Sounds interesting. Do you have a post on that on your blog James? It would be nice to see the results from others conversions.
DeleteI wish the others with the mixed head gear wold be a little larger so it could be used along the other soldiers I have. Perhaps I should make something own for them??