Introduction

Until very recently if you wanted to use Cold War era troops in a diorama or vignette your choice was very limited and would usually result in the need to purchase resin figures. Now we have a number of good mainstream injection moulded plastic manufacturers who are willing to chance their arm and produce just this type of figure alongside the more usual World War Two offerings. Today I am taking a look at set a set of figures that fall into this bracket in the form of Soviet Army Servicemen 1979 – 1991 from ICM.

Review

This figure set is provided on a single grey sprue packed in a re-sealable plastic bag, this is further packaged in a cardboard tray with a card lid. The packaging should hold up to the postal service as long as they are not overly aggressive with it, an important point in these days of internet shopping. The moulded parts are very clean with no flash or imperfections that jumped out at me. The gates between the sprue and the parts are small in size and not excessive in number. There are seam lines in some areas of the various mouldings, but where these seams can be seen they are so light that they should be a breeze to clean up.

In this set of figures from ICM you will find an officer, a driver and three infantry figures, all of these figures are in a seated position and are a perfect set to man the recently released Zil-131. Uniform detail looks good on all of the figures in the set with what look to me to be natural crease detail. The build or stature of the figures look good in all respects, and have been moulded in very natural poses. I particularly like the poses of the three infantry soldiers that are so natural most will have seen someone who is bored in one of the poses.

The hand and facial features of these figures appear to be well defined and should be ok to use as is rather than needing replacement with resin offerings. The driver has the appearance of someone thinking “please don’t let me mess up” while the officer has that look of “go on I dare you”. I do hope that the driver fits the Zil-131 well as I am impressed with how it looks.

The three infantry soldiers are equipped with AK’s, which look good despite the muzzle needing to be drilled. You will also find canteens, entrenching tools, satchels and ammunition pouches which have nice detail and where needed are shaped on the rear to fit the figures. The officer has a side arm and a document case.

Conclusion

Another very good figure set from ICM that should look very good when complete. The detail present and the natural poses will or should appeal to modellers. I hope that ICM releases some more infantry figures to accompany these as passengers in the Zil-131. I have no concerns about these figures at all and this figure set is hopefully a sign of a direction that ICM will explore further.

companion review

Zil-131 Soviet Army Truck Live links