GIs

Warlord Games ran a special on mass purchase of their plastic boxes a couple of months ago.  One of the boxes I picked up was the U.S. Infantry.  I have a bunch of 15mm WWII troops, but not a whole lot of interest in playing with them.  I'm looking for platoon level play at this point and 28mm is the only scale to play with at that level, to my way of thinking.

The box has bodies for 25 men.

The set allows you to build 25 infantry.  There are a lot of weapon and head options.  The are not, sadly, enough M-1 Garands to properly equip two squads of infantry.  I also found that the models look a little bit odd without the packs, so I added those.

The Lt with a rifleman and the bazooka team behind them.

On the plus side the kit is incredibly versatile and the miniatures look good.  Every single weapon is separate so there are plenty of options.  They fit well, as can be seen in the picture below.  There are helmets with cammo covers and without as well as the jeep cap, with a helmet to fit over that if you want.  The animation on the figures is good and the details are nice.  The faces are all different, so you don't have a clone army running around the table.

Thompson, BAR and Garand.  All separate weapons but fit well with the models.

The kit includes a bazooka, pistols, both Thompsons and M-3 Submachine guns as well as rifles with and without bayonets.  There are both Garands and Springfields, and a scoped Springfield.  There are two kinds of packs, early and late war.  This kit spoils you for choice.

The second squad, with bayonets.

The above picture shows the bayonet armed squad as well as a pretty good shot of the backpack and E-Tool.  With two of these boxes you can build a full platoon, though all support weapons; .30 MG's, mortars, etc. will need to be bought separately.  Still, this is an easy and cheap way to build the core of a WWII US army for Bolt Action or Chain of Command.

Bazooka team.  There is also a loose rocket, which I did not use.

The models were not as easy to clean up as some, just because it was hard to find the mold lines on some of them.  You can see that above in the A-gunner for the bazooka.  I also hate doing two arm and a weapon glue jobs.  Once I'd done the first couple, though, I discovered that I could glue the right arm on first, let it set, then do the left arm and the weapon at the same time.  This made it significantly easier and made for much better fit of arms and weapons.

The different weapons all have specific arms that go with them, so don't cut everything off the sprue at the get-go.  Match up your weapon choices with the appropriate arms.

Overall this is a good kit.  I like the miniatures, they went together easily and there is a lot of variety.  They are a great way to start an army.  I'll be picking up another one at some point, though after I have added some support weapons and a vehicle.