Mr Manning's question is quite appropriate and correct concerning what it is that lets a set of figures down.

Age is not one of them, and I still have high regard for the early Airfix Infantry Combat group, Eighth Army and Afrika Korps sets. Why these and not the British Paratroops? I think it is because the latter set does not comply with my simple 'wish list' of things that have to be at least 'OK' to make a set worthwhile. This wish list is:

1: Figures should be in useable poses which allow you to use most of the box without having to resort to drastic surgery or simply discard figures by the handful. Most of my figures have always ended up in wargames units, so figures firing, advancing and marching are better than those bayoneting the ground or firing into the air to bring down aircraft - and what is that submachine gunner in the Airfix Paratroops set doing anyway, firing at his own transport aircraft??!

2: Figures should be reasonably well sculpted so that they look lifelike, have a reasonable amount of detail - including the right weaponry {and where are the Stens and Brens in the Airfix Paras set?] - and have a sensible mix of weapon types, officers and command figures. Sets with 4 standard bearers, 4 drummers, 4 officers, 4 casualties, 4 other hangers-on and barely 16 useable armed other ranks always cause me grief....

3: Figures should be well produced ie: minimal flash and weapons moulded so that bayonets etc are not missing at the extremities

4: Figures should have the 'X' factor. This for me is why the Original Airfix Infantry Combat group still wins over the later Paras set. The former has a charm that the latter does not. OK, the Paras certainly have a good mortar and crew, but little else to commend them. The Infantry Combat set had some fine advancing infantry, a couple of good officers, a nice kneeling firing pose and a useful radio operator, plus some useful walking poses for engineers etc. The Eighth Army and Afrika Korps sets were better still. For those who remember them, dig out a copy of the Airfix Modellers Guide to the Eighth Army by the late John Sanders to see what imagination and ingenuity could do with one set of figures...


A final anecdote and then I will shut up about the Airfix paras. Yes, they are beefy chaps and this is in fact one of the few good things about the set. But compared with all the other WW2 figures that Airfix produced at the time, they looked like 6 foot six Sumo wrestlers. I remember being given an Airfix Gun Emplacement playset as a child, which had the beach gun emplacement, Airfix first edition German Infantry - not a bad set in its own right for its time - with the Airfix Paras at attackers and, I think, a couple of the Airfix soft plastic ready-built tanks - the wrong era but tanks none the less. Delighted, I set the whole thing up but even at that tender age I just could not help thinking...'why did they make the men in green so big? And why is that man shooting down his own aircraft?'

I rest my case,

Bagration