1/72 Early WW2 German Plastics plus Back of Beyond.

The last time I owned a box of 1/72 scale plastic soldiers was as a child in the 60's and 70's. They were the bendy plastic Airfix figures which would shed their paint when they got bent.

Gamers who collect plastic figures these days have obviously overcome this problem with better techniques, acrylic paints, primers and maybe the manufactures make the figures less bendy. Whatever, there are a lot of great looking plastic painted figures out there now.

I needed a 20mm early WW2 motorised German infantry platoon plus a couple of armoured cars for a campaign that my friend, John Warren is hosting. I picked up a box of German trucks and armoured cars off of the Plastic Soldier Company stand at Salute. 

     

The two schwimmwagen in the picture above, were given to me by a friend. They were painted in late war camo but were in a bit of a sorry state, with the vehicle on the left only had three wheels. I took the spare wheel off the bonnet and glued it into the wheel arch and then stuck an aircraft recognition flag where the spare had been. I ripped the plastic crew out and replaced with AB figures, sprayed black and then repainted.

I needed a platoon of early war German infantry, so checked out the web for plastic and metal figures in 20mm. I came across a Russian company called Zvezda, that do a box of 35 x plastic figures for £8.60 including postage. They also do smaller boxes of 4 or 5 figures with different poses for just over £3. They also do a good range of support for your platoon and BEF too.

Some of the figures need a little assembling with the odd arm, leg or backpack.

   
The figures in the smaller boxes are a hard plastic, which is good for gluing and painting but the rifles are a bit fragile and I don't know if they will stand the test of time.

The figures in the big platoon box are made of a different plastic not quite as hard, so you wont get breakages but the plastic is a bugger for trying to get rid of the mould lines, although to be fair, there isn't many.

    I needed another LMG team for my 4th squad, so I painted up a couple of AB mid/late war figures. As they were kneeling, I think they should be okay, as you can't see the lack of jackboots.

To give you an idea of size comparison, here they are next to an AB (I think) figure.

 I have also been painting up some Back of Beyond figures for my friend Steve Lygo, in exchange for his 20mm WW2 collection. So there will be more of these in future blog posts.

   

The Platoon.

Some action shots.