Whatchamunga, guys and gals! Da Chatanooga Cho Cho is coming down da track and it’s loaded with TSSD Ruskies – mystery set number 5. Whoo Hoo. Man, these are NICE figures – the best TSSD has done so far, in my opinion. There are eight different poses, as usual, and, as usual, figure detailing is very sharp and clean with only barely visible mold lines on helmets. I liked sculpting and pose variation even better than I did set 4, the winter Germans. Four of the poses are highly animated, compristing three advancing figures and one that is throwing – wait for this – a flaming Molotov cocktail. The three advancing figures include an infantryman running forward with a Russian smg (a Ppsh) in a fur hat, a crouching helmeted infantryman cautiously advancing with another Russian smg, and a third helmeted infantryman rapidly moving forward holding a German smg with the appropriate ammo attached to his utility belt. His left arm looks to be positioned so that he could be set up to be pulling something. There are three additional poses, all of them in firing position, one of which is crouching firing wearing a helmet (a fantastic pose), another standing firing wearing a fur hat that I also particularly like, and a third that will strike many of us as great fun and as very unique – a female Russian sniper standing firing to counter set 4’s kneeling German sniper. Clearly her best profile is her left side. She is hatless and poneytailed! Not bad for a plastic woman (thanks, Deanna?). The last pose is a fur hatted infantryman who appears, at first glance, to be kneeling at the ready with a rifle. In this pose, he makes a great tank rider or effective backup for the crouching firing guy. If you look more closely, however, you’ll see he’s actually holding a bandage on his right leg and has a look of pain on his face – a great wounded pose. He’s believable in either function, so I’ll use him for both.
All in all, a fantastic new set. Please, please TSSD, you gotta do more Ruskies in the future.
Dick