Zvezda WWII German Paratroops 6136 1/72

Hello all,

I swore I would never fall for the Zvezda con of 4 figures for £3 but I have! So far there are not really one great set of Fallschirmjäger, all have various problems like missing magazines, size issues to barrels being pointed into the ground (I still love that old ESCI set though).

This set contains four multi part figures that fit well together that only requires a little filler. No flash to speak of and hardly any mould lines to combat. It is such a shame that this isn’t a larger set and no signs of expanding it.

It comes with a larger base or movement tray as I think it is called in the war gaming world, or these individual bases. The best thing for me is the fact that they come not attached to any base’s because the normal Zvezda plastic is Farley hard to remove and I fear for me fingers with that blade!

The figures appear to be from the early half of the war which makes a change from the late Normandy/Italian campaigns. I decided to try and steer away from the Luftwaffe blue which always spark the argument that they never jumped in it and used the more traditional field grey trousers and helmet. I can see their point about camouflage but the other side is the blue does look good.

I want to try and paint some figures from the Operation “Mercury” Crete landings. Out came the Osprey men-at-arms book which is always a good fall back when some one moans about the wrong colour shoelaces or whatever, you just say I copied straight from the book!

I started by painting the jump smock a light grey with a light wash of Vallejo grey green. Then the helmet and trousers a field grey colour. Then looking at the book it showed them with sand coloured helmets so out came the Iraqi sand. I was hoping to get away without painting camo smocks but they do look better with a splash of colour. I could not resist at least one bit of Luftwaffe blue to creep in so one helmet got the treatment.

The base’s are already built for these blokes and are primed ready to be painted, so in time they will be peering around corners wait for the defenders of Crete to return fire. All in all I would say the Zvezda figure sets are getting better the the first offering.

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