Valiant Miniatures: “Classic German Infantry 44-45“ Review

Here comes the second review of the first Valiant Miniatures products. The box reviewed now is the “Classic German Infantry 44-45“ which represented the Valiant Miniature debut in the market together with the “British Tommies 44-45“ box. These boxes hold 68 hard plastic 1/72 miniatures with a specific wargamer target.

As for the Tommies box also this one comes with 4 copies of the same sprue, which holds 17 miniatures and several accessories (weapons, extra heads, tools etc etc) which allow you to customize and choose the armament of each soldier. It’s a basic feature for wargamers the possibility to modify weapons and poses of some miniatures in order to create a complete and specific army. In particular this box contains 20 miniatures without arms (8 more than the Tommies box) which can be personalized with the various extra arms and weapons available on the sprues. As already said in the previous review “the quality of the work behind this box production is high, the minis are not mockups and the poses are nice and naturals, mould lines minimal and often invisible”. The sprue material is hard polystirene that allows extra modelling work only needed a cutter and some modelling plaster/glue. Various examples of such possibilities are available in the gallery on the official homepage: Gallery1 e Gallery2

Compared to the standard 1/72 plastic producers Valiant miniatures are different not only for the material used in production and for the wargaming style sprues. Also the sculpt scale and style are more wargamistic, the minis are about 25mm high (so incompatible with standard 1/72 plastics) and sculpted with a beefier style more similar to the style used by producers of metal miniatures.

The “Classic German Infantry 44-45“ box holds a total of 68 miniatures in 12 different poses, the poses and bits in details are:

• Officer with binoculars (4)
• FO with map and MP40 (4)
• NCO kneeling with MP40 (4)
• NCO with MP40 (4)
• Radio Operator kneeling (4) with Radio Kit (4)
• Tripod mounted MG42 with Gunner (4)
• Soldier kneeling with ammo box (4)
• Soldier with gun walking (style 1 x 8)
• Soldier with gun walking (style 2 x 8)
• Gunner with MG42 walking (8)
• Soldier kneeling (no arms x 8)
• Soldier walking (no arms x12)
  – Right arm Kar98 (4)
  – Right arm with MP44 (4)
  – Right arm with Mortar ammo (4)
  – Right arm with open hand (4)
  – Left arm with Panzershrecke (4)
  – Left arm with Panzerfaust (4)
  – Left arm with Binocular (4)
  – Left arm with ammo box (4)
  – Left arm with open hand (4)
• Extra head with Helmet (8)
• Extra head with Officer Cap (8)
• Extra head with Cap (8)
• Extra bear head (8)
• 81mm Mortar (4)
• Various extras: backpacks, ammo boxes, mp40, kar98, granades
• Booklet with assembly instructions and battalion organization guide for “Rapid Fire!”

As for the other box I can only suggest you to buy also this one. A big number of minis and accessories of high quality and at a prices that (for wargamers) is highly competitive compared to similar metal products (about 13/15 euro for a box). With just one box you can already build up a complete army for Rapid Fire and many other ruleset from company level to platoon level or skirmish games, also in bundle with the Tommies box you have two different complete opposing armies to start gaming.

I already said that the target of this product is the wargamer, and compared to the standard plastic 1/72 products it’s something new for style and scale.

A big thank to Valiant Miniatures for supporting me the material needed for this review!