This “oldie but goodie” figure set from Verlinden has been out of production for some time but can still be found without too much difficulty. I picked up my box for a song in France, at a small provincial hobby shop which was having a closeout sale.

Those fellows come from the golden era when Verlinden figures were the best in the industry by far.

There are two standing figures of modern Soviet/Warsaw Pact tank or APC crewmen. The scale is stated on the box top as being “54mm-1/35 scale” which is a contradiction in terms, 54mm being closer to 1/32nd scale. The figures do look a bit too big for 1/35, especially for Soviet crewmen which were selected for their small size. It means it will be difficult to use them with say figures from Dragon, ICM or Tamiya but they”ll be allright on their own.

Inside the familiar Verlinden camouflaged box you”ll find many parts in a small zip-lock bag, but no instructions : you’ll have to make do with the colour photographs of the two assembled and painted figures on the box top. The castings are crisply moulded in a dark yellow resin and feature very fine detail with no air bubbles or deffects. Pouring plugs are minimal and conveniently located, they shouldn’t be too difficult too remove and clean up. You get two torsos with helmeted heads, two pair of arms with clenched fists, two different pairs of boots, a map case for one of the figures and three optional pairs of hands, one of them gloved.

The detail is superb, the poses spot on and the folds in the clothing very realistic. The only reservation one could have is that the two men really do have ugly faces. I would call  them “character faces” if I wanted to be more diplomatic... However, painted with care they should look really good.

There are not too many resin figures of modern Soviet/Russian armoured crewmen around and those two will really enhance your Soviet tank or APC model. I plan to use one of them alongside a future project : an ASU-57 self-propelled gun.

Highly recommended.