First To Fight

German Artillery Gunners

The boxart for FtF figure set 056 portrays early-middle WW2 German gun crews for a 2-cm Flak30 and a 10.5-cm leFH18 howitzer. The front boxart and the rear boxart give guidance as to assembly, painting and details of the figures, and guidance on assembly of the figures to the bases. Using these figures within an open top vehicle like a Grille, Hummel or a Marder we can dispense with the bases.

The Kit Parts

This photo shows the injection-molded, hard styrene, six cavalry figures with six 2-part horse figures, and separate rifles and trenching tools. At far right is a sprue holding bases for the mounted figures. At lower right is a small sprue with K98 rifles from a Preiser figures set showing what the rifles should look like in this scale. The figures look reasonably accurate in detail though faces and gear are soft. Two figures come with a separate arm and head.

The FtF set 056 contains 14 hard styrene injection-molded German WW2 gun crew figures with seven different poses on four sprues, plus two sprue with Mauser rifles, round bases for the figures, and an assortment of artillery rounds. The rounds appear to be 10.5-cm projectiles and some 5-cm fixed rounds. The rifles look ill-proportioned and not as accurate as that from smallscale Preiser and Dragon kits. The face detail is soft and the figures do not have separate heads, arms, or legs (except for Figure-2) so poses are not as natural as they could be.

I found these to be above average figures for wargaming but I am spoiled by the better quality of smallscale Preiser, Dragon, Zvezda and many cast resin figures. With little effort they can be improved, given new heads, and substitute Preiser rifles.

Review sample purchased by the author.

Article Last Updated: 03 July 2021