Sunday 4 June 2017

Plastic Soldier Company 20mm Afrika Korp review

Today I'm taking a look at one of my favourite subjects, the Afrika Korp. Having picked up the new PSC platoon set at Salute, I've been eagerly working on Afrika Korp ever since.










I opted for the platoon set after admiring a few of the figures in blisters, and decided that I wanted them to make up the bulk of my infantry forces in my growing DAK collection. The set contains 39 white metal figures, wearing a mix of steel helmets and M40 tropical caps, no pith helmets are included.

For equipment, the 39 figures include the following,

3 NCO's with MP40's, split across two poses. One wearing a helmet and pointing, the other advancing bracing his weapon.

6 machine gun teams. Each team consists of the men, and wear a mix of helmets and tropical caps. These figures can also be freely intermingled to create some variety, and are posed either standing and advancing or prone firing.
 
 Worth mentioning is the separate bipod for the prone gun team, as this adds and extra level of finesse to the finished models. Each team comprises one gunner, and two loader/assistant types.

The rest of the set is made up of riflemen, wearing the same mix of head gear. All are armed with K98 rifles, and have a pleasing variety of field gear and skirmishing poses. between  the mix of head gear and poses, I think there are about 10 different poses, and look nicely varied when assembled.






The figures are white metal, and casting was for the most part very clean, though I did have a few mould lines and areas of flash to clean up, however this didn't take long and lines were in accessible places and didn't interfere with any detail.

It took me a little while to notice, however several of the figures wearing helmets have their field caps tucked into their belts, which I thought was a great little touch. Unforms are all the standard tropical issue stuff, with everyone wearing long trousers and tunics.

In terms of compatibility with other ranges, the figures are very close to AB in proportions, however they also mix very well with Kellys Heroes, Brittania and Italeri. I do not have any Wartime Miniatures DAK to hand at present.

At £40 for the set, I think this is good value as it's provided me with the bulk of the infantry I'll need for my Afrika Korp project, and I'm hopefully the range will sell well and we can see it expanded with command and support weapon options. For now, I've added those elements from Kellys Heroes and Britannia ranges, and find the over all effect most pleasing.

You can get your own platoon of DAK from the PSC website here, and listen to our podcast episode where we speak to one of the minds behind Battlegroup Tobruk, Mr Piers Brand here.
Finally, you can see more of my work or contact me regarding commissions at Volley Fire Painting Service







6 comments:

  1. If your doing a review, it would be nice if you also posted a picture of the figures before they were based and painted.

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  2. It would, however working on these for my own collection I was looking to get into them and get them done whilst I had time. The unpainted ones look the same, but silver though.

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  3. great review Andy but I must add when talking about a pose or figure post a pic of it so we can see what it is you are talking about to try and see it in group related pic is difficult painted is fine but would like to see the differences in the poses and caps as you discuss it.

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  4. FIGURES IN 1/72 SCALE TINY BUT INTERESTING HOBBY. BUILDING AND PAITING.

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  5. Hey man, I love you work! A friend and I are considering starting armies in 1/72 to play and we were worried about the bases... But yours look amazing! Could you tell us what they are and where you get them? Thank you so much and keep up the fantastic work!

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    1. Thank you! The bases are just 2mm MDF ones from Warbases, that I use some Vallejo texture paints, and model railway gravel to texture, before finishing off with some weathering effects.

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