Plastic Soldier Review: Steve Weston Toy Soldiers WWII D-Day British Infantry

Overview:  This set is a set of 12 British-outline infantrymen, with 6 unique poses and two figures in each pose.  The figures depicted are equipped with 37-pattern Battledress and webbing, gaiters, and ammunition boots.  While most figures have the "Brodie" helmet (both with and without netting), the Sten gunner appears to have a "Turtle" helmet with netting and scrim.  

Left to Right: Helmet with netting, plain helmet, turtle helmet with scrim

 

They are equipped with Sten guns, Thompson guns, and Bren guns, Number 4 Enfield rifles, and grenades.  It is described as a set of D-Day British infantry, but is also suitable for much of the Northwest Europe campaign of 1944-45 outside of the colder winter months, including other events like Operation Market Garden and Operation Varsity.  If the figure with the Sten gun and turtle helmet is removed, then the set can be used for the latter stages of the Italian campaign, as well.  In addition to depicting British troops, these can be used to depict other Commonwealth or Allied troops with appropriate insignia or other details, including Poles, Canadians (if their uniforms are painted the appropriate "Canadian Battledress" green), New Zealanders, South Africans (as long as they're "tabbed"!*), Dutch, and Belgians.

This set was made in the past by the UK-based Steve Weston's Toy Soldiers, who have apparently stopped producing their own figures and now just sell figures made by other manufacturers; as such, its current availability is a "while supplies last" situation.  As far as I can tell, this was their only WWII-themed set; all other figures I've seen made by them were old-west themed.

Sculpting:  I find the sculpting quite good, with the the folds of the uniform fabric being particularly well done; I like how they depict the way the trouser legs on British battledress blouse over the gaiters.  The figures appear somewhat heftier than their Airfix and Mars counterparts, but it's less noticeable on-camera than in person.  

 One issue this set has with the molding is that there's a significant amount of "infill", or a solid blob of plastic between the Sten and Thompson gunner's weapon and body, but with those poses this was unavoidable unless the manufacturer did something like mold the figure's arm as a separate piece.

They're depicted with 37-pattern webbing and pick-mattock entrenching tools, representing an intermediate amount of equipment compared to Airfix's "skeleton order" and Mars' "battle order" with full packs. 

Left to right: Weston, Mars, Airfix

Unlike the Mars infantry, but like the Airfix infantry, kneeling figures in this set come with a base. 

Of the 3 sets I have of British infantry in battledress, I think this set does the best when it comes to poses; they look natural and dynamic, without looking overdone and not having any of the balance issues I had with the Mars British infantry.  Like Toy Soldiers of San Diego's figures, these figures have detailed bases depicting dirt or sand, compared to the plain bases on the Airfix and Mars sets. 

 That said, I do think Mars did a better job when it came to depicting helmet netting.  On the other hand, I particularly like how this set depicts the soldiers' helmets with the chinstraps pulled over the brim of their helmets.  One blog review I read thought these figures' helmets looked oversize, but to me they looked proportional.

Molding:  The set I got was molded in a tan plastic; they also made a run in a greener shade as well.

I'm not sure if it was due to the molding or the packaging, but when my set arrived, some of the rifles and Bren guns were severely bent, and required a lot of straightening with alternating hot and cold water; not a deal-breaker, and nothing was broken off, but worth keeping in mind.  There was almost no flashing, and a nearly-invisible parting line.

Packaging:  The packaging is quite basic, in the form of a plastic bag with a folded cardboard hanging tag.  No painting guides or background information is given, but the label is somewhat eye-catching, and I do like the D-Day map design.  The figures were packed in fairly tight, which may have contributed to the bent weapons on some of the figures.

Selection:  The set comes with 2 Bren Guns, 2 Thompson Guns, 2 Sten guns, and 6 Enfield rifles, making it a bit SMG-heavy.  I'm not sure how common it would have been for there to be both Thompson and Sten guns in the same section, but those figures could be swapped out to depict an earlier or later-war infantry section.

Scale: The figures generally scale well with TSSD figures, but seem a bit oversized and heftier compared to Mars or Airfix figures.  Like with the TSSD figures, the raised bases they are on seem to emphasize their size difference, as well.

L-R: TSSD, Weston, Airfix

L-R: Mars, Airfix infantry, Airfix para, Weston

Overall: Overall, I found this set to be well-made with plenty of character, and I wish Weston had been able to make more sets like these.  If you are into collecting or painting toy soldiers, I'd highly recommend this set!

*In WWII, only volunteers could be made to serve outside of South Africa; those who chose to do so wore orange cloth tabs on their uniforms (usually on their shoulderboards) to depict this volunteer status.

Update:  I emailed the manufacturer of this set a link to this review, and got this reply from them (posted with their permission):

Hello Luke,

An interesting review - which I could have done with 10 years ago!

Bendy weapons: Our figures, along with those of TSSD, Paragon, Austin, Blackcat Miniatures, etc whilst all being sculpted by our own separate sculptors were all produced, at the same factory in China, using a hybrid Polyethylene which give a greater detail than the polystyrene used in the model kit type figures of Dragon, Masterbox, etc - polystyrene is obviously what is used in model kit manufacturing. Unlike the latter, ours come out of the injection machine red hot are dropped into bags and then sealed with the header cards, which sometimes causes the bendy weapons that you mentioned, as they are packed and compressed into packing cases all in one smooth production process. 

TSSD, Paragon, Austin, Blackcat Miniatures all carry mention of dipping the weapons into hot water (plastic has a 'memory', so should revert to shape if not a little gentle massaging returns them to straightness and dropping in cold water should retain that shape). For some reason, that info was missed out on my own header cards. 

Not being any kind of Military historian, I employed an ex-Armed Forces person turned sculptor to make my Master figures, hence the correct detail - and yes, to get away from the 'blocking' between the arm and the weapons would have required a separate arm, all at additional cost. Many, many plastic figures suffer from this.

Scale is what Americans refer to as the 'new 1/32', it's actually 56mm and was done to match the size of the superb Conte WWII range that he originally produced in soft vinyl - with very bendy weapons that the paint could flick off!

Kind regards,

Steve Weston.