The Set

The set comes packed in a sturdy cardboard box with a colour picture of the contents, manufacturers and product details. Inside the box are three sprues of parts; two of equipment and one containing the figures parts. The parts are contained in a see-through plastic envelope with a stick down flap that does away with staples and seals up nicely so things stay in one place.

Also included in the box are two set of build instruction, one for the weapons set and one for the figures. These are detailed and easy to follow and contain suggested paint colours for the weapons and figures respectively. My only grumble here is that the figure pictures are quite dark, which makes seeing the item in place rather hard. You will need to cross reference both sets of instructions when seeking out the additional equipment.

The equipment set has already been reviewed here on site:
WW1 German Weapon Set

Quite a bit of the equipment would also be useable in the post WW1 era and the early period of WW2.

As mentioned before it contains an excellent and detailed range of weapons and equipment that will equip your figures and enhance any display you might do. Note: If you are planning on arming the troops with rifles complete with bayonets you will need to remove the bayonet handle from the scabbards/shovels provided.

That leaves the remaining sprue of figure parts. The set has four figures, an officer and three advancing soldiers. Each figure is made up of separate parts, consisting of the legs, upper torso, arms and head. Additional equipment is supplied in the form of large packs, food haversacks, and four early war helmets (Pickelhauben) with covers.

The figures are all dressed in appropriate early German tunics and trousers with boots. As with the other new figure releases (Austrian and Russian) the quality of detail on these plastic injection moulded figures is excellent. There are fine mould seams that will need to be tidied up as is the case with most plastic figures, but these are very tiny.

The Pickelhauben have small individual pikes that will need to be attached to the top of the helmets.

The Officer comes with a pistol moulded into his right hand which is a bit strange as there are excellent pistols in the equipment set.

The infantrymen have nice equipment detail on the torso with half shoulder straps at the back to add the large pack to and food bags for the belts. Again the other equipment comes from the weapons trees.

The heads are half heads, two sport nice looking period moustaches, with quite stern looking German faces, of the other two one looks quite a young soldier and the other a more mature man.

The uniforms have excellent detail and nice natural folds and creases. There are some very fine seam lines that will need to be cleaned up and tiny misalignments on a couple of the lower jacket sections but these are easy to correct. The figures stand about 42mm from heel to shoulder so an acceptable size for 1/35 scale. Note: It may be an idea to add the belt pouches first before adding the arms as on one of the test builds the right hand set of pouches interfered with the rifle placement.

Of the three sets I’ve looked at so far I like the advancing poses of these German Infantry the most, either advancing over open ground or down a Belgian street they have a natural looking purpose about them.

Overall the fit of parts was very good.

Conclusion

This is another excellent set of early Great War infantry. I particularly like the Pickelhauben helmets, but if they are not to your taste then they could easily be switched out for the later helmet provided in the equipment set.

ICM is to be congratulated for expanding their range of World War One figures and I for one hope they continue to further expand the range to provide more options for those interested in this period.

The quality of the mouldings and parts is very good, and with such a good range of weapons lots of options should be possible. As a stand along set or combined into a bigger display these should provide pleasure and enjoyment for both the figure painters and diorama builders alike.

I've included some WIP build pictures at the end of the review.