If there was one thing that dotted the European countryside in the early 1940s ( other than tanks ) it was small farms where the occupants kept enough animals to provide eggs and meat, so a scene of a small farmyard, pig pen or stray chickens crossing a dirt street in a small village requires one thing – animals. You can’t have a farmyard without animals and Tamiya fortunately realised this and bought us this little set.
Coming in one of the small Tamiya open-ended boxes, more familiar to sets like the Fuel Drums set and Bicycle set, this set comes on two white sprues which in itself seeems a little odd when you’re a military modeller more used to dark yellow and olive green sprues. The mouldings are very good and for a set that could easily have been over simplified you get very good detail.
It consists of :
- one large sow moulded with separate ears
- three piglets who are all the same pose
- a mule moulded in two halves with separate ears and tail
- a German Shepherd dog and a small “Roly Dog” puppy
- two sitting hens with three sitting chicks
- two roosters with separate feet
- two ducks
- two rabbits
The rabbits are moulded stretched out prone so could be posed either sleeping or dead and can even be modelled hung up by their hind legs. There are also six chicken eggs included as well as four stands for use with the ducks and roosters if desired. The small chicks have no legs or feet so would need to be either shown sitting or have small feet made for them.
So if you’re looking to build a diorama of a farm and you don’t want to invest in resin animals then this is definitely the set for you. In fact this set is cheap enough if you see one I recommend adding one to the stash for that day when you find you have a use for it.
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