TOY REVIEW ARCHIVE    LIVING WITH LATE FEES    FEATURES    LINKS    BIO    MISSION    EMAIL    MAIN PAGE >


21st Century German NCO

Recently, Target put their 21st Century British Paratroopers on sale.  As it turns out, ALL their boxed 21st Century figures are on sale, including the brand new German NCO figure, which I picked up for only $13.90.  I have also seen the 82nd Airborne, and have heard that the new Operation Market Garden figures can be found if you're diligent.

The perfect villain for your D-Day dioramas, the German Infantry NCO is also available at Toys R Us stores, but you'll be paying full retail of $29.99.

Packaging - **1/2
As always, excellent artwork adorns the fold of the box.  The only downsides to the packaging is that you have to destroy the inside card stock to remove the accessories, and they still don't have any instructions.  Come on, 21st Century - putting all this gear on is a real chore!  I finally gave up trying to find a way to get the rolled up poncho attached to his back as shown in the pictures.  Any clues?

Sculpting - ***
Some folks don't like the head sculpts of the Ultimate Soldier figures - too 'zombie' like.  I disagree, and this is another fine example.  The snarl gives you the impression he's in charge and not happy about something.  But you're farewarned - if you don't like their usual work, this one is no exception.

Articulation - *** 1/2
He'd get **** if this was the new, more articulated body, but it's not.  Still, the original can strike an awful lot of interesting poses.

Accessories - ***1/2
For the first time, nothing fell apart when I removed it from the package.  I don't know if their QC process is improving, or if I just got lucky.  There are a couple parts though that are waaay too fragile, and they do still need to improve the quality of the plastic.  As is usual for 21st Century, you get a ton of accessories, and the detail is extremely good.  Dragon is really giving them a run for their money, but with 21st Century toys available at much lower prices - you can't beat $13.90 - they are still a terrific bargain.

Uniform - ***
Terrific detail on the cloth uniform, particularly the coat.  I'm not a big fan of the camouflage colors, but history is history, and the accuracy is very important.  One improvement would have been better glue application on the cloth over the helmet.  Mine is coming loose in quite a few spots on the interior of the helmet.

Overall - ***
I'm still very pleased with the product coming out of 21st Century, and are really looking forward to several of their releases for later this year.  With Dragon in the $35-$40 range for their military figures, 21st Century needs to keep their price point down around $25.  $30 is too much for me to pay for one of these figures, but when you can find them on sale like this, it's just too terrific of a buy to pass up.


Figure from the collection of Michael Crawford.

This page copyright 2003, Michael Crawford. All rights reserved. Hosted by 1 Hour Hosting.com