British Special Forces with Support Troops (Afghanistan)

Gecko Models, 1/35 scale

Reviewed by Andrew Judson
 

Summary

FirstLook

Just recently Gecko released a couple of very nice 1:35 scale modern British forces sets, and here we are presented with another. I must say that I was excited on receiving this set.

Looking at the box, there is some very nice cover art showing the six figures that are inside the box and also a vehicle that has also been released - more on that later.

The artwork is a great reference for when you paint these, showing the figures in the desert pattern uniform, before the Multi Cam variant came out.

There are six figures representing a team working on an injured Special Forces operator with a support vehicle inbound to get him to safety.

There are 17 small sprues of plastic, a small photo-etched fret, a length of brass rod, a decal sheet, and an instruction booklet with seven pages on how to build the figures plus colour charts, and where to place decals.

The quality of the figures is excellent, with very crisp detail throughout from uniform creasing to facial detail.

There are also sprues of weapons, ranging from L119A1s, L22A2s and pistols. These are very well detailed indeed. I’d like to see a weapons set hopefully released in the future. Hint hint!

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Thumbnail panels:

Lastly there are seven sprues with various bits of equipment from packs, helmets, harness straps making this a very busy set, with plenty of work for the builder.

As for the etch, the fret includes straps, buckles and antenna parts for the radio set. A nice touch of detail there.

The decals are for various patches worn by the troops - units, flags, medic etc.

Over all this really is a nice set that can be used in many ways, whether as per the box or mix and matching with different projects, dioramas and vignettes.

If you want to do a modern era project, I’d recommend this set highly.

I look forward to future items from Gecko. Keep ‘em coming!

Thanks to Gecko Models for the sample www.gecko-models.com