Warlord Games plastic Fallschirmjager review

The Fallschirmjager were Germany's airborne forces, initially deployed by parachute and glider, during the battle of Crete their casualties were staggering, so apart from a few exceptions they mostly served as elite infantry. Fallschirmjager served with distinction at Eben Emal, Crete, Tunisia, Monte Cassino, Drvar, Normandy, Leningrad, Ardenne, and Fallschirmjager were even present at the Battle of Berlin. 

Wherever they fought the Fallschirmjager put up an incredible fight, and became known as the 'Green Devils' by the allies due to their distinctive green jump smocks. and never surrender attitude. 

As part of their growing range of plastic infantry sets for 28mm WW2 collectors and gamers, Warlord have released this set of 30 figures. Each sprue contains 6 bodies, and an assortment of heads, weapons and equipment, with sculpting being characterful and well detailed, without being too exaggerated, a complaint that has been levelled at some Warlord sets in the past, however this new release takes everything to the next level. 

The contents of each of the 5 sprues in the set break down as follows :-

• 3 bodies wearing early pattern jump smocks (Can be painted either green or splinter camouflage).
• 3 bodies wearing later pattern jump smocks (Can be either splinter or tan and water camouflage). 
• 4x K98 rifle arms of various pose
• 2x FG42 assault rifle arms
• 2x MP40 sub machine gun arms
• 2 xMG42 light machine guns
• 1x Panzerfaust arm pair (also has pioneer grenade bags attached too!)
• 1x Panzerfaust weapon
• 8x Heads in Fallschirmjager Helmets with various types of cover 
• 2x heads in M43 caps
• 1x head in officers cap
• 1x head in side cap
• Extensive webbing and field gear, including ammunition pouches and belts, bandoliers, waterbottles, holsters, map cases and tool pouches for the MG's. 
• Gesticulating officer arm

This gives a great range of weapons to equip your units with, and appears to be based around the 1944 table of equipment for a Fallscrhirmjager squad.  The set includes bases for everyone, and also has a transfer sheet and instructions too. From the mix of equipment in the set this is very much a late war set, but perfect for Sicily onwards, including Cassino, Normandy and the Ardenne.

The models are extremely cleanly molded, and the detail is impressive. Particularly like the expressions on the faces, the face of the guy smoking a cigarette is particularly inspiring.  With so many extra parts it's easy to combine the sets with Warlords other packs and create even more variety, something I've spent a bit of time on here. I also detail the colours used to paint each figure in the article as well, so won't repeat that at this stage, though I may do when I have my Fallschirmjager force finished...

Each sprue provides 2 kneeling and 4 standing poses, with no prone models provided. Personally I can't stand prone figures unless it's part of a crew served weapon team, so this makes me a happy panda. 

I've included comparative shots of a plastic Fallschirmjager with models from the Perry, Artizan and metal Warlord ranges. The picture is slightly misleading as the plastic figure doesn't have the 2mm tab the metal model stand on

 

. In terms of proportions the set works with all existing ranges to my eye, even mixing well with the Perry's, the only figure that appears a little too large to me is the Artizan one, though again this could be due to a thicker lug on his base. 

 

This is a superb set, and I'd like to see Warlord maybe release the set with the addition of the metal parts in the Blitzkrieg Pioneer set to make Fallschirmpioneers... 

The set retails at £26, and at around 87 pence per figure represents outstanding value for money. You can get your own set from Warlord Games and if you would like to contact me about a commission, or would like to see more of my work check out Volley Fire painting service