I put these Valiant American Infantry together a couple of weeks ago but hadn't got around to posting the photo yet. You can see the 16 figures after they've been mounted on small washers with the .30 cal gunner sitting on his bum. There was a fair bit of thought involved in getting some special poses out of the set. To me there just weren't enough firing figures so the kneeling firing figure in the back of shot is a bit of a kitbash to get an extra firing pose and i've tried to get as much movement as I can out of the rest of the multi part figures.
Well i've managed to "fall" off a ladder at work during last week. One of those moments when you think why is the ground coming to me? Result one broken shoulder, not as Humerus as you might think and a nasty bruise that goes from the front of my shin under my ankle and out the other side. But on the bright side i can still paint although i cramp up so only two or three at a time.
All in all i think Valiant have done pretty well, the company have now got four sets of these figures at the same scale specifically designed for Rapid Fire. Could the Russians be next?
The figures i've picked up from Wargames Illustrated have been mentioned in the internet press as being big for 1:72 or 20mm. In my opinion after seeing them they are more like "heroic" 1:72 or 25mm figures. The 16 figures per sprue are similar in height, being 25mm to the eye, to the Revell Panzergrenadiers set which are some of the tallest 1:72 figures i've used but the Valiant's are much bulkier.
The Garand rifles and heads seem to be oversized (for 1:72) while the other weapons seem pretty good apart from the BAR which is on the skinny side. The mortar and belt fed .30 cal MG are awesome sculpts with a wealth of fine detail. Minor complaints would be that some of the hands firing weapons aren't quite realised as well as they could have been and there seem to be too many SMG's and not enough crew figures (with pistol holsters or M1's) or arms carrying stuff. Not enough crouching firing figures either.
One thought I had was if they did another sprue to complement the set what could go on it? The current sprue has six spare heads but only one headless body. So you could put one to five headless bodies. What about pairs of arms, perhaps covering ears (mortar number 2), setting mortar fuse, carrying more ammo boxes, crates of grenades? throwing grenade? Some more crouching figures would be nice. A BAR fired from the shoulder (without the bipod) and a more realistic operator for the MG. He looks like he's on the firing range the way he's sitting with head sticking up. Trenchcoat or poncho equipped figures could be handy too. An 81 mm mortar?
