Toy Soldiers 2: WWII Brits and Friends

I started off with small scale encounters when I just had a couple of different armies.  Eventually, I had hundreds of troops and set up giant battle scenes in my bedroom.  I used my Navarone playset (which worked really well with the small scale figures) as a fortress.  Later, I added Castle Greyskull (which didn’t work as well with them) as part of the battle scenes.  I even made some Imperial Walkers out of some little boxes.  (These were later destroyed with fireworks.) 

 

At one point, I took over the spare bedroom with a giant creation called Imperium.  I used a bunch of boxes to make something of a series of connected islands with structures on them.  My favorite was large warehouse building with lots of places for ambushes.  Later, I turned one of the islands (large boot box) into a giant spaceship.  I called it Nostromo.  Trust me it was impressive.  (I wish I had pictures of any of this stuff.)  I had a weird little dinosaur creature that became the Alien hunting soldiers in the ship.  (Calling the thing a Xenomorph would be stretching it.)    

 

Okay, enough nostalgia, back to the review.

 

Those are WWII Australian Infantry on the left wearing the natty hats.  They’re figures with good sculpts and very dynamic.  There’s lots of personality in them.  To the right are WWII British Paratroopers.  You can see that they’re slightly larger in scale.  The detailing is good, but the poses are fairly generic.  They came with a mortar crew, a couple of landing parachutists, and a supply canister.

 

    

Here’s a mixed shot with the Paratroopers along with the WWII British Commandos (wearing the caps).  The Commandos (along a set of Germans) were the first armies I got and I enjoyed them immensely.  They have quite a bit of personality (and a kayak), however they are technically kind of sloppy with extra plastic fringes sticking out on them.        

I never saw any WWII US Army Infantry, or if I did, I passed them over.  I’m pretty sure I would have gotten some.  Here’s a mixed group of Aussies and WWII US Marines.  The Marines are also mixed in terms of quality.  Some of the troops are from a generic mold (the shooting rifleman, the bazooka man, and the submachine gunner).  I know this because I had a set of these kind of miniature troops when I was younger. 

 

The others are from a different mold (the two grenade men and the crouching rifleman).  They are more detailed (though the others are pretty good) and more dynamic in poses.  Both types are also well-made.       

Here’s another shot of just the more detailed Marines and the Commandos and a Paratrooper.  The Marines came with a little inflatable raft.  I bought them from the Kaybee toy store in the mall rather than the hobby store.  I mention this mostly because these figures were once more ubiquitous.