New World Miniatures
35008

I purchased this pair of beat-up tankers from Chris Mrosko at the 2008 AMPS show, and if his new company keeps turning out figures like this I'll be able to stop mourning the comatose Warriors and Platoon product lines. Granted, there's nothing overly imaginative about these boys—their wounds and "lean on me, pal" poses have been seen on German figures and are reminiscent of the old U.S. Walking Wounded set from General Issue. They are more like modeler's comfort food: sometimes there's nothing better than a juicy burger, sizzling fries, and a thick, rich chocolate malt. I got the same feeling opening the plastic box and slim baggie.

I've always been a fan of Brian Stewart's sculpting and this set is true to form. The standard tanker uniforms are faithfully reproduced and the figures inhabit them well. A nice touch is having the empty jacket sleeve cast as a separate piece, so it hangs more convincingly from the coat. This one-armed tanker carries his helmet, and the hand is molded well enough that it grasps the separate helmet convincingly anywhere on the rim. He wears the later boots with integrated gaiters, which pretty much limits him to late 1944 onward. I think this pair would look good walking out of the Kasserine Pass, which could be accomplished by replacing those boots with a pair of combat shoes and leggings.

The casting is sharp, with a miniscule amount of flash and seams to clean up. One will need to be careful with the carrier residue at the bottom of the neck of the GI with his arm in the sling: because the neck fits into the upper chest cavity, too much clean-up might leave a difficult gap to fill.

My only quibble is that the dark resin used for these figures makes it hard to see the details. A coating of primer will help, but I don't like to add extra layers of paint if I can avoid it. The resin has some flex to it that makes it seem more like plastic.

It's great to have Mr. Mrosko back in the saddle with a new company whose figures we can look forward to, and if he keeps Brian Stewart on hand to make those figures we should have some good modeling ahead of us.

- tss -