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Revell WWII Late-War British / Commonwealth Infantry

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A fairly recently released set of figures by Revell that were eagerly awaited by all smallscale enthusiasts. I have to say it's one of Revell's finest and most detailed sets I've ever seen, and a real credit that they have included in this set items never previously sculpted in other sets of smallscale WWII British army figures in plastic; the Mk. III "tortoise" helmet; leather jerkins; ammunition bandoleers.   .  .     .  .   .  . The set contains a total of 51 pieces, and includes four two-man PIAT teams, three two-man 2" mortar teams & base, two officers, four NCOs, six bren gunners, three prone and three others running (not shown above), and a total of 20 riflemen in four distinct poses. The figures are well proportioned and, in my opinion with the exception of just one figure, the poses are all quite lifelike and will please wargamers and diorama builders alike and will easily lend themselves to a variety of conversion possibilities. Though the figures all have the Mk.III "tortoise" type helmets limiting their use to post D-Day use, just by replacing their helmets with British Tommy "Tin hats" from other figures, such as out of Revell or Airfix's 8th Army sets, you could use and mix them for a wide variety of theatres of operation.   The figures are cast in an orange-brown coloured polythene plastic, though it's not the normal soft type polythene but a very quite hard and stiff type that Revell seems to favour. The advantage of using this type of hard polythene is that it does not bend as easily as normal soft polythene. However, the great disadvantage of this type of hard polythene is that also retains the other normal properties of polythene too in that that it cannot be sanded or filed without burring (becoming "fluffy"), nor can it be glued with conventional solvent adhesives to carry out conversion jobs. Moreover, it also has the added disadvantage in that it is a hell of a job to remove any flash or seam lines with a scalpel due to its hardness ! This is a problem I have found with Revell figures over the last couple of years. In the past they were made from soft polythene,  the same as used on Airfix and Esci figures, and mould lines and flash is easily be removed from soft polythene with a surgeon's scalpel (at least I find so anyway). Moreover, it is also much easier to remove limbs, heads, etc., for conversion jobs when the plastic is soft. Despite this problem, well I suppose it's a small price to pay considering the excellent quality of the casting. Besides, these figures had no flash whatsoever, just a few very fine mould seams that, on the majority of the figures, don't even really need any particular attention. The figures are well detailed and are a pleasure to paint. With a simple light drybrush over the base uniform colour and dark wash / varnish it's quite easy to bring out the detail on the uniforms and equipment.  Before painting these figures though I had to give them a really good wash in detergent as the plastic was very greasy (from the mould release agent I presume) so as to ensure better adhesion of the paint. Who knows, perhaps this has something to do with the moulds being new maybe ?  All told, a valuable addition to the range of sets released by Revell, and I really have to take off my hat to their innovative and vanguardistic production team who it would seem have their finger on the pulse of the SmallScale figure market. Apparently they well understand the need for introducing new sets and for setting high standards of quality for the steadily increasing army of 1/72-76 scale figure enthusiasts who are rejoining the hobby.   .  . Last, but not least, if you want some inspiration for painting these figures, I can recommend a very good Canadian reenactors website THE QUEEN'S OWN RIFLES where you can get see some British / Canadian WWII battledress uniform reference pictures in colour (it inspired me to paint up these figures as Canadian troops in Caen).

© John-Michael Murray