One Stop Shopping for Educational Toys
Great set of Plastic Army Men in 4 colors with lots of different WW2 figures with over 40 poses. American GI’s in Green, British Commandos in Yellow, German in Gray, Japanese in Light Green. Each army has it’s own 4–1/2 inch tall flag. Nice quality and detail.
Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars Educational:4.0 out of 5 stars
When I bought this toy for my son, I thought initially it might just be the same molded plastic soldiers for all of the four countries, with the exception of the color of the plastic. I am happy to report that I was wrong. The four countries’ soldiers represented here (Germany, Japan, USA, and UK) are rendered the way they might have actually looked in WW2. The German soldiers are molded in gray, and have the signature Stahlhelm helmets and the distinctive gas mask cases, the British soldiers (molded in yellow) have the distinctive soup-dish helmets and their machine gunners appear to have Bren guns, the Americans are correctly armed with M3 Grease guns and garand rifles, and the Japanese have officers with samurai swords. As to the level of detail — well, they’re plastic molded soldiers. They were meant to be played with by children, so they’re not collector quality renderings with sharp detail. There’s the usual leaky-mold-with-rough-plastic-edges common with these types of toys, and the overall detail is pretty rudimentary. You wouldn’t even paint these and put them in a diorama, but for my 5-year-old son, he loves them.
Durability:3.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars
Here is a good one-stop shopping bucket for many poses of toy army men. The figures are made by the HingFat toy manufacturing company of China. There are 4 nationalities each in its own color, and at least 12 poses per nationality. You get a good variety and a good quantity for the price. Those of you who remember Louis Marx and Company army men will be disappointed in these knock-offs. Although many of the poses will be familiar, in reality these figures are slightly smaller and less detailed than the Marx figures. They are also molded of a harder plastic that will snap more easily than the classics. You can see lots of sprue twists and mold lines in the figures. Sculpts are not very crisp. Some of the poses are slightly out of scale as if the molds were acquired from different sources. Historically speaking there is good and bad here. At nationalities at least have proper national weapons. You also gotta love the national stereotypes: the Brits have a bagpiper, the Japanese have a sword wielding officer, one of the Germans looks much like Rommel. Many poses are familiar from famous photos. On the other hand, the German army has a Bundesrepublik Deutschland flag, U.S.A has a 50 star flag. Kids young and old will certainly love the set as they are colorful, varied and plentiful. I have not yet tested these items with pyrotechnics or flame.