Review Part II - BMC D-Day Soldiers

Now we come to the second part of this review:

The BMC D-Day Playset comes with plenty of soldiers representing three armies: USA in olive drab, Germany in gray,  and Great Britain in light tan. Figures are in the 54mm to 60mm range. I first came across these figures about 20 years ago when I bought the original D-Day Playset at Toys R Us.

Here are the troops by country:

24 American Infantrymen with Gen. Teddy Roosevelt Junior

22 Germans (with Rommel figure)

12 British including a Scot playing bagpipes

That is a total of 58 figures. Indeed, a good amount of men for a playset this size. Troops also have enough heavy weapons. The Germans have two mortar crews and a couple of machine-gun teams. US forces have a couple of heavy machine-guns, bazookas. flamethrowers, BARs and mortar men. Granted, the bazooka man is lying down dead. The British have a BAR gunner

US Soldiers: Machine Gunner, BAR gunner, grenade thrower

One thing about the current batch of soldiers is that the plastic is a bit stiff. I am surprised only one rifle was broken in transit.

There is a good assortment of poses. One glaring problem stands outs. The sculpting ranges from mediocre to poor

US GIs: bazooka man (dead?_, kneeling BAR gunner. kneeling rifleman

Rifleman, casualty, mortar and mortar man, officer

General Teddy Roosevelt Junior pointing with stick, machine-gun loader, flamethrower operator (prone)

Generic mortars for US and German crews

I have had or seen most Army Men since Ajax and Plasticraft. Only a few feet from where I sit are bags of Tim Mee M16 troops, Lido World War II type infantry and a bag of the BMC Iwo Jima Marines and Japanese. To be honest, the D-Day troops are some of the most awkward sculpts I have ever seen. Immediately noticeable are the ill-fitting helmets.

German rifleman, grenade thrower, kneeling with submachine gun

German mortar men

German casualty, General Rommel (resembles like the Matchbox figure - best sculpt in the set)

German casualty, machine gunner and loader

Some of the figures could be improved by a head-swap. There is a real mixed bag when it comes ot quality among these figures.

Jeff Imel, BMC’s current owner, told me he will continue to produce these figures. Having new molds made would be too expensive.  Perhaps there is someway the existing molds could be altered to mitigate the worst of the sculpting. 

British Infantry: 3 riflemen and Bren gunner. Note the short rifles.

Rifleman, officer with Thompson submachine gun, Scot with bagpipes. 

You can get the D-Day playset through Amazon.com or BMC Toys' website. If the set is temporarily out of stock, you can usually by components of it separately.

.....

Review BMC D-Day Playset - Part 1

Part I - Terrain, Boats and accessories

20 Years Later

I first saw the D-Day playset by BMC some 20 years ago. The set was sold at Toys R Us. I had also bought the Rough Riders set there. Both were a pretty good set, all in all. There were three pillbox bunkers with AAA guns, a bombed out Norman farmhouse, barbed wire fences and beach obstacle. The landing craft were excellent. My only complaint concerned the soldiers. The set included American, British and German figures. The sculpting was less than mediocre.

Jeff Imel, current owner of BMC, sent me his reissue of the D-Day set for review. The box art is new. Also new are stickers for the landing craft and pillboxes. Everything else is there, too: Dragon’s teeth and Czech hedgeghog beach obstacles, barbed wire fences, and rock piles are the obstacles. Three pillboxes, each sporting AAA guns, and a bombed out Norman house are the structures. The Higgins boats are excellent and sized right for 54mm to 60mm soldiers. And the soldiers themselves have not changed. There are also a dozen small sandbag piles.

1 Norman house
3 bunkers with AAA guns with stickers
2 Higgins boats with stickers
3 barbed witre sections over 12" long
12 Dragon’s teeth tank obstacles
12 Czech Hedhog obstacles
12 small Sand bag positions
3 rock piles
3 flags -US, British, German
American infantry
British Infantry
German infantry
4 mortars (2 each for US and German infantry)
Tray-type box

Includes 3 pillboxes with flak guns

The Good News

I first must admit a bias. I have had the Marx playsets as well as similar products by MPC, Tim Mee and Ideal going back to when I was a little boy. I am also an experienced model builder and figure painter going back many years. I got my “basic training” building the old Aurora monster models and painting ROCO minitanks and Airfix soldiers. I know what is good when it comes to scenery, terrain, vehicles, boats, heavy weapons and soldiers. Therefore, I am prone to err on the side of my experience. And yes, I can be fussy about authenticity and detail.

Set includes 2 Higgins Boats, and they are big

The whole tenor of World War II playsets is altered significantly by this set. Those of us who grew up with a mix of soldiers, offscale vehicles and an odd medley of terrain are in for a surprise. Everything in this set fits  scales ranging from 1/35 to 1/29 (50mm to 60mm). There are no undersized vehicles. Terrain pieces are also consistent. In place of the handful of undersized landing boats and vehicles, this set has two large, realistic landing craft. The little barbed wire fence sections common to the old Marx sets are not here. Instead, three long sections of barbed wire fencing cover at least three feet of play battlefield. There are three realistic pillbox bunkers with antiaircraft guns on the roof. And then there is the Norman farmhouse in full scale. The set also includes anti-tank and beach obstacles.

Barbed Wire pictured with my Homecast figures, 54mm - 60mm

Dragon's teeth and Czech hedgehogs

Sandbags pictured with my homecast soldiers, 54mm troops

Yes, it is a playset, but for those of us in the toy soldier hobby, this one is for the big boys.

For those doing skirmish gaming with 54mm figures, the D-Day Playset is a great asset. It provides the kind of accessories that are needed for games. They make game set-up faster, too.

I cannot stress enough how much I like these large, realistic landing craft.

The Bad News

A few concerns. The house is difficult to assemble. The plastic is too hard and the snap-joiners are awkward. Putting it together, it flew apart like the old Lionel exploding boxcar. I prefer to cut off some of the snaps and use glue.

The soldiers use a stiff plastic. I am surprised that only one arrived with a broken rifle. Sculpting is poor. Some of the US and German figures could be salvaged with head-swaps from more proportional figures.

Pillbox pictures with my painted homecast 54mm - 60mm figures

Overall assessment

The D-Day Playset by BMC offers toy soldier collectors, modelers and wargames a variety of good accessories, scenery and equipment. These is raw material for diorama-makers and lots of goodies for skirmish gamers There is also consistency insofar as scale. Granted, these are toys, but they are some of the most realistic, scale toys in the plastic soldier hobby.

The two concerns do not diminish the D-Day playsets’s value to the toy soldier hobbyist. Get while the getting is good.

Stickers for landing craft

D-Day Pillbox Stickers

Some advice

For sci-fi fans: the barbed wire can be used a laser-barriers. Paint the upright posts black or dark metallic “gunmetal”. Paint the horizontal “wires” in day-glo colors. Shades of Forbidden Planet!  A ray-beam barrier to beat the band!

For troops debarking the landing craft, the Marx 54mm Marines have a lot of running poses. Most of the BMC poses for American and German troops are soldiers in place

You can use the landing craft, barbed wire and bunkers (without AAA guns) for landings against Japanese forces. BMC’s Iwo Jima Marines and Japanese are perfect for this. Even better, add these to the BMC Iwo Jima playset.


Tomorrow- Part II: Day Playset Soldiers

BMC Iwo Jima Marines and Japanese in Marx-compatible colors.

Some years ago, I bought the Iwo Jima playset by BMC. That was when it was first released. I liked it then. The ground base was cool, and the LVT and Sherman tank looked good. Though I liked the poses and detail, I thought the colors of the Japanese figures were a bit too orange. The Marines were a lighter OD shade. I later acquired more of the sage-green Marines and tangerine-colored Japanese.

The new Add-on set issued by BMC has 14 Japanese (2 of each pose), 12 Marines (1 of each pose) plus the six-man Iwo Jima flag-raising diorama. The figures have not changed. One thing that has changed is the availability of the Iwo Jima figures in new colors. responding to customer suggestions, BMC offers this set in both the original colors and in colors that are more compatible with Marx, Tim Mee, MPC and Lido troops. These new colors are a darker green for the Marines and a khaki tan for the Japanese.

What a difference color makes! Both Marine and Japanese figures look great in these colors. The colors make the details stand out better. Frankly, I like these Japanese troops better than the Airfix counterparts. Ditto for the Marines. The Airfix 1/32 Japanese and Marines are okay, but the BMC figures are better. As good as the Marx recast Japanese Infantry figures are, BMC’s Japanese troops have better detail. They might not have as many poses, but the BMC figures are much better detailed. BMC Japanese have 7 poses, Marx’s set has 12.

Many people do not know that the originals were made as painted metal figures by King & Country. BMC licensed the figures for the Iwo Jima Playset.

The set itself has plenty of firepower. Japanese forces have riflemen supported with light machine gunners and “knee mortars”. US Marines have riflemen, BAR gunners, a flamethrower and a bazooka.  There is also a peculiar figure of a Marine in life jacket standing on  box. He was supposed to ride wither in he landing craft or the LVT.

Consider it a plus that the Iwo Jima Marines and Japanese are affordable, quality figures. List price is $12.20 a bag. That includes 12 Marines, 14 Japanese and an Iwo Jima flag-raising piece with six more figures. Man for man, that is less than the average price for Marx recasts. Get while the getting is good!

The BMC set has enough troops for a game of OMOG Advanced, by the way. That would place 12 on the US side and 14 for the Japanese.
*****

So how do these new “Marx compatible” colors measure up against the old ones? Let’s take a look! I have plenty in the older colors: light (Sage) green Marines and orange-tan (Tangerine) Japanese. The darker Green Marines and Tan Japanese look much better than their light green and Tangerine counterparts. See for yourself!

Improved Flag on rifle for Tan figures

A bag of cabbage salad? No, these are the Iwo Jima figures in the old colors

******

You can get there here: https://victorybuy.com/collections/bmc-toys

Marine on box imitates politician on soap box. 

You can also get them here: https://bmctoys.com/

BMC New Civil War “Battle of Appomatttox”.

Jeff Imel, the new owner of BMC toys, sent me a copy of the “Battle of Appomattox” Civil War soldiers. I have wanted to review these soldiers for awhile. They are quite different from their original Civil War figures. Packed in a bag with large header card, the troops looked promising. The card advertises 26 figures. There are 24 regular soldier in Blue and Gray, and figures of General Grant and General Lee. The blue is close to Swedish Blue; the Gray is a medium shade.

Along with the two character figures of Lee and Grant are line troops. They come in four poses: standing shooter, kneeling shooter, reloading rifleman and standard bearer. There are three of each in each color. Size is within the 54-56mm scale. Grant and Lee run taller. From bottom of foot to top of hat, Grant is about 64mm. Lee is about 62mm. Both officer figures are very well-detailed.

The standard bearer is a two-piece figure. His flag is molded separately. This is one of the most dynamic poses I have seen for a toy Civil War standard bearer. Because of his pose, he could be a good basis for conversion to other poses. The simplest would be to put a pistol in his free hand.

The kneeling rifleman is looking over his right, a realistic detail. The standard rifleman is looking over his rifle, as if he fired and is getting ready to step back or is firing as he steps back. Face detail on these guys is good.

These are toy figures. And as such, they succeed. The figures have a degree of character thanks to the detailed faces. Hands on the rifleman remind me of the hands on the fellow in the Lido set of WWII GIs, specifically the guy with the submachine gun. Come to think of it, BMC sells a set of those figures, too.

For a game in a pinch, the “Battle of Appomattox” set has its merits. Just enough troops on each side for a game of OMOG 19C. Just add dice, rules and impromptu scenery and there you go!

There are going to be more standard bearers than one needs, so consider conversions. With a little work, that empty have can be holding a pistol, a rifle or a bugle.

This image is from the BMC Toys site

*****

As I understand it, many of the original BMC molds were owned by the factory, not BMC. When the factory owner died, the molds were put up for auction and sold to someone else. The figures are now sold under the brand name Americana.

Get OMOG 19C Skirmish Game Rules free here: http://www.thortrains.net/downloads/OMOG19C.pdf