Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38075 in Books
• Published on: 2009-08-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 84 pages

Customer Reviews

H0/00 joy
A book on a very specialist subject such as this one, Airfix's H0/00 plastic (toy) soldier range, should and probably will sell itself. Still, nobody has reviewed it here yet, to my surprise (the potential buyers must be out there in Humbrol paint covered and manically dice rattling droves!, especially in the UK...) But anyway, this 106 page soft cover tome is first and foremost a veritable feast for the small scale (Airfix) plastic soldier enthusiast's eyes and the author Mr. Carbonel I can only assume knows and obviously loves his subject matter.

I am certain many readers of this book will be taken back to their younger years and the joys of playing, collecting, painting and perhaps wargaming with their H0/00 Airfix armies. As an aside: see the book re: what on earth does `H0/00' scale actually imply? Although I myself `moved onto' board wargaming somewhere in the early eighties it sure enough had that effect on me. Indeed hexagons and counters are great, but isn't that Airfix 2ed Afrika Korps machine gunner truly a tiny plastic piece of art? Wasn't the Wagon Train a wonderful addition to your youthful miniature (ACW) battles? Didn't the Fort Sahara set make your mouth water with its seemingly endless play and gaming possibilities? Who cares if the walls were proportionately paper-thin. Have you ever wondered why or how come there were smallish, loveable but somewhat dorky looking Airfix British WWII infantry in brittle plastic but also a better designed / sculpted set? If so read on.

The main forte of this book is the graphic or illustrative content: if you would enjoy a smorgasbord of (full color) pictures of Airfix box covers in all their variations you will love this book. Naturally there are also many pictures of the actual figures and complete sets (as in one of each pose) included, sadly however not all of the sets are shown `in the flesh' it seems.... For example the wonderful Waterloo British Artillery set is not shown in its entirety, though to be fair at least two of the box covers are. If I am not mistaken only a single figure, a 2ed French Legionnaire on the back cover is shown painted. However this was no problem for me, it gives you that straight out of the box vibe from days of yore. A few smaller pictures of box covers appear to be digital scans and are a bit blotchy, the majority of the photo's / images are very sharp though.

The first 53 pages cover the release of each Airfix H0/00 figures set in a not overly detailed but pleasingly anecdotal manner. This takes the reader from the 1959 Guards Band set all the way to the 1982 Modern Russians. In case you were wondering: the non-military sets are covered, so yes also the Astronauts and Zoo Animals (#1 and 2). Next the various forts and play-sets are covered in seven pages. A surprisingly large section of 30 odd pages then follows concentrating on re-issues and contemporary competitors (Matchbox, Esci, Atlantic etc.) and copy cats. One could argue that more space should have been spent on the Airfix play-sets (for instance) instead of the competition et al, but that is a matter of taste. Finally there is a handy 12 page chronology of the Airfix figure sets and their various editions.

The book does suffer from some translation and editorial / lay-out issues. A somewhat quaint Franglais example: `In April 1972, Airfix released the British Hussars at Waterloo, a set which if not opposed to, was at least symmetrical with, the French Cavalry which had already appeared.' Meaning....? The North African Outpost set we are told was `released out'. The American Civil War Artillery set is described as including '33 pieces with just 15 humans'. Disturbingly the (albeit short bit of) text on page 51 is all in French (!) and is not exactly flush with the English text on pages 50 and 52. However on closer examination not much information seems to be lost. At least one of the illustration captions is also in French.

So does this book cover each and every individual Airfix H0/00 figure and pose in excruciatingly nerd-like detail? No. There are websites for that. Will a `real' Airfix expert perhaps notice mistakes or oversights in the text? Perhaps. Did I check the facts and figures in this book before posting this review? Nope. But hey sometimes you have to go with your gut feeling. If you've noticed this book on Amazon then that probably says enough already, buy it, it is written with an obvious passion for the little plastic geezers, it isn't expensive, good fun and last but not least how many books are there on this subject...?