Didnt see that one coming, but all good news. However yet again Airfix are letting down the modelling community by not releasing the multipose figures or the 54m collectors series. I know their old but their usefull! Its especially frustrating as their happy to issue the their toy figures in a new plastic thats paintable.

With the latter, I completely concur, with the former, IMO, WWII figures in 1/32nd are of little real use. Perhaps for the vignette builder and certainly for the convertor. However, they are a statement of precisely where Airfix went wrong in the 1970s - everyone else (apart from Monogram) was producing 35th scale vehicles, Airfix were promoting 32nd? Also, they aren't bad, but NOT up to the standards of MODERN releases - that simple?

Jim I couldnt disagree with you more! Im not an armour modeller but a figure modeller so the scale doesnt make any difference to me. The multipose figures and collectors series were a fantastic way to get into figure modelling as they were cheap and meant as a child I could experiment with plastic figures in subjects other than WW11 without having to fork out a small fortune on a resin or metal figures. Most of the big names in figure modelling like bill horan started out modelling and adapting these figures. Their figures, along with historex played an important part in the development of figure modelling. For the more serious modeller they are actually a good sourse of cheap spare parts as with a little work most of the euipment can be made to look quite good.As for whether they are up to modern, well obviously not but the same applies to 90% of their range! They are retooling and slowly releasing much of that range. Given that masterbox are considering issuing a 1/32 scale russian napoleonic hussar (thanks in part to comments on this website) then reissuing retooled figures from their collectors series would make perfect sense.

I'm not disputing your comments about their value to figure modelers - on the contrary, I did things with them that I wouldn't have done with resin or metal figures. I went thru a phase of converting the Japanese sets to Zulu War British infantry (I persuaded Hinchcliffe to sell me around 30 of their British heads and Martini Henry rifles!). Simply, with 1/35th scale dominant, it's VERY difficult to use them together with the more recent releases. I wish they had gone on with their 54mm historical range, but it was at the time Airfix had effectively melted down as a going concern. Who knows what they could have produced?

Jim I take your point on the multipose figure, as a teenager I modelled pretty much anything inlcuding armour and was always frustrated that the multipose figures wernt really compatible with the vehicles available at the time despite far better the 1/35 scale figures on the market at the time (tamiya/italeri). I would still argue that they are of use to the more serious modeller who has no interest in armour. The sculptor mike blank uses multipose hands in his figures. My gripe was with the fact that airfix are happy to reissue very very old aircraft and warship kits, most of which were 20 years old or more when they went bust in the first place. They are willing to retool these kits but not reissue the collectors series kits. They would be of real interest to me becuase whilst Im interested in scultping figures Id rather not have to scratch build the likes of muskets and other such equipment. They would be a real alternative to resin spare parts or historex parts which are no more up todate. That whilst Im so excited about the possibility of masterbox releasing 1/32 scale napoleonics. One thing I would say is that I've never understood why other manufacturers havnt followed the multipose route that airfix went. but in 1/35. Yes we oftern see sets that have an occasional alternative arm or so but not in the way that airfix did. They were popular with modellers but i guess the dragon inspired standard set of 4 figures with limited potential for alteration is more profitable.

Until recently I haven't known much about Airfix, so I haven't had a chance to build any of their figure kits as of yet. I have however delved into some of their newer 1/72 aircraft kits and have found them a great joy to build, and I'm definitely interested in checking out these new 1/48 offerings.

No love for the 1/76th scale announcements?

I wonder if the 48th offerings are all modern stuff or they'll do wwii also? Would love more figure sets in 1/48 for sure, especially the Afrika Korps. I used to enjoy those 1-piece 1/32 figs as a kid. Will be interestng to see what the figs look like - fingers crossed they're good