Our very good friend Brian Johnson alerted us about the next possible set from Engineer Bassevitch. This was posted on Warbird Forum. We now have confirmation on the set. Steve Weston has a picture on his web site. It shows the 14 figures and 2 signs. The price is 30 pounds or $48.90 plus shipping. He has twenty sets before general release. here is a link to this offering
http://plasticsoldiers.co.uk/index.php/new-stock-3/
Engineer Bassevitch Set #8
Word is that next set #8 is Finnish troops from the Winter War consisting of 14 figs and 2 Border markers. No picture available yet. Good to see EB starting to do some Opfors for their sets.
FINNISH Inf? of FINNISH SKI TR. ???
Ether way a GREAT CHOICE!!!!!
I’m IN 100%
i like the two border markers parts!!??so russian/soviet!!
Steve Weston has a photo of them up on his website.
Lynn
Thank you for the update, we have posted the link to see these figures in the comment done on these figures and here
http://plasticsoldiers.co.uk/index.php/new-stock-3/
Interesting era soldiers but like most of the poses/sets from this company; few action poses and no 3d type molding. Also not a single ski poses!!?My opinion!!
I agree with you!!!
A little pissed off and AGAIN, DISAPPOINTED!!
I’ll buy them, BUT, WHO was the person in charge of poses?!
6 of the poses are idiots just standing there! 2 or 3 commanders waving troops on? NOT ONE SKI TROOP!!!
Is it the fault of a sculpture who does not collect or play with toy soldiers?
Or is it the LACK of imagination and common sense of the product director??
Bad decisions are hurting our hobby!
HEY Engineer Bassevitch, if you ever need line drawings for planning the poses of your future sets call me, I’ll do them for free!
I was super excited yesterday, now I’m just. whatever?
Christian
I am not excited about the figures either. I report on what is going on. Some items I look forward to adding to my collection others if I can get them for a reasonable price I might add them.
Outside of EBAY, if he’s selling, where can you get Engineer Bassevitch figures?
Jack
If you are going to OTSN, you can order from Steve Weston the figures and he can bring it over with him.
Some good poses some useless poses.I HATE a standing saluting pose,LOL.But I’ll be getting this set.Nice that EB is finally doing Opfors sets.
I notice some of the figures are Russians NOT Finns.
Brian observation is correct in part. Most are Finnish, but 4 Poses(two standing guard pick winter hat and early Russian helmet); the one with big wire mine grenade is wearing an Russian 1931 helmet, and one officer look like a soviet too!!). Finnish soldier use German pattern m34-36 helmet, Italian helmets, winter FINNISH hat, not Russian but similar and m34 Austrian alpine hat type. I’m wondering how many officer waving need to be done in one single set!!??. They could had done officer in fighting pose, we all know they signal some time but time to go off Britain/airfix design officer type please!!
Out of 14 poses (7+ officers!!!!)None on ski pose and only two winter ski uniform parka poses!!No quite a winter war set at all. Three poses included two of the few combative poses have summer dress for the (continuation war 1941-1944) no winter 1939 war, unless you can use summer troops in the cold winter of 1939 war scenes. These figures and many from other sets of this company should be considerate (historical figurines), not toy soldiers as many officer/character and commander are represented in each set. On this one you can clearly see what appear to be C.G.E._Mannerheim and Hugo Viktor Österman among others…This one is the heaviest on officer/NON combative poses so far. For the price and poor variation I will skip it all the way. I hope in the Japanese soldier set for the Mongolia/soviet Japanese conflict of 1938/1939 they don’t put Emperor Hirohito among the entire officer staff that will be done!!LOL!! My opinion.
Erwin
I was surprised too on the amount of officers. I will pass on this set.
I’m relived to see how passionate and critical we all are about this set!
I think we all had high hopes and would have happily spent our money,
if they would have done it right.
We as the collectors, need to be critical and push our figure producers to deliver a better product using common sensibilities.
Christian Aldo
Aldo: I agree and hope owner could read all the critics; but look to me this company do not care too much about price or critics so far as every last set do not change but increase on price or same and quality variation is not better..Hope one day someone do something better on the winter war (small but interesting big littler war) I will personally pass on this and many others from the same company. Movies like (TAVILSOATA), (AMBUSH), (Tali-Ihantala 1944), (The Unknown Soldier –both version), SISSIT and Kaukoparti are great and recommended to be seen if interested in the winter and continuation war topic.
Excuse my ignorance but what are Opfors?
I think this is a great set. I’m building 54mm wargame armies for the Winter War and using mostly conversions from Airfix, Lone Star etc. If I want ski troops I’ll use Airfix German Mountain Troops (I’m not obsessive about uniform accuracy). This set and some of the earlier ones will give me a good selection of officers which need to be a bit more individual and are harder to convert otherwise, so it works for me.
EB figures are made using low tech/low investment tooling (in similar way to Replicants) this means there are major limitations to the animation of the poses they can achieve. It also means that they can only be produced in short runs before the moulds wear out – hundreds of sets rather than tens of thousands.
Given the short runs, demand for these figures will always outrun the capacity to produce them, so if you don’t like them that’s fair enough just don’t buy them and leave them available for others who can use them.
I would just add that EB does manage to get quite a few sets out each year and usually builds on existing ranges so you may see the action poses that you hoped for in the future sometime. While the low tech/low invest method has it’s frustrations design wise it is a much more sustainable process than many of the high tech/big invest firms which have come and gone so fast in the past.
Best wishes, Brian
Hi Brian
OPFOR is for opposing force. I had to look it up myself. In regards to your comments, you and I are alike as we do not need to have accurate uniforms for what we do with our figures, other people do. I have seen more people are demanding more that their figures be accurate to the period.
The people who complained on the figures were expecting more because of the subject matter. They were disappointed in what was not there and preponderance of officers in the set. My complaint on the set which I posted on French Plastic forum was it was boring. There was no one pose that jumped out as one that EB did of the Cossack with two pistols.
No one should be complaining on the method the EB uses as it is a way to get figures done. Trying to do thousands of sets of plastic figures forces the maker to stay with safe subject matter that will sell. The method that Replicants and EB use is a way to get unique figures. With the method of production they use it leaves to restriction on how the figure looks. Eventually when 3D printing gets more advance and cost effective it will change things more.
The bottom line is the comments are to make people aware of the plus and minus of a set with the cost some sets are.
Hi Paul
Thanks for putting me straight on the Opfors thing, it’s obvious now that you say it but I spent ages trying to figure it out!
Hope you, Laurie and the boys are keeping well, all the best, Brian
Brian C
Hi Brian.
Laurie and the boys are doing fine. Laurie just did day one of seeing her professional bull riding at our local arena. I just drop her off and pick her up. I know what it is like to be a football widow. LOL
The boys work me for five walks a day. It is fun to see them sniffing around for scents. Occasionally they will flush out a rabbit or squirrel The other day we had a hawk pop out of trees. He avoid us and flew off. You have to be careful as they are known to attack small dogs.
I am doing fine. My weight is staying the same and my workouts have been great. I enjoy going to the gym, just finding the time with all the projects I have.
FWIW, I first heard the term OPFOR in the US Army in the mid-70s after Vietnam. My first impression (one that hasn’t changed over the years) was it was the Pentagon’s reaction to the shock the public expressed when they became aware of military terms used commonly in combat, such as “Waste them” for killing the enemy.
So, in the name of – dare I say it? – political correctness, we changed terms to sound more polite. the enemy became the OPFOR. As Training NCO for my unit in Germany I attended OPFOR classes to learn about the Soviet Army and their equipment. It was the Cold War, We were about thirty minutes drive from the Iron Curtain and I travelled there for about a week every three months to do recon of our forward fighting positions in case the Soviets attacked. But the Pentagon (maybe it was higher up) was concerned the Soviets might be offended if we called them the “enemy”; so we called them, the “OPFOR.”
If the Soviets HAD ever crossed the border, for which reason we had almost half a million troops in Europe, we would not have “wasted” them, nor would we have “killed the enemy.” We would have “neutralized the OPFOR.” Reads much nicer on the front page of the NYT.
I thought you all might find this interesting and/or entertaining.
Thanks for the info Wayne, and Thank You for your service !
You’re welcome. It wasn’t always a pleasure Mark, but it was always my honor.