Most of the Zvezda World War II Art of Tactic range seems concentrated on the war between the Soviet Union and Germany from 1941 to 1945, and while those were the two major belligerents, it should not be forgotten that Germany had a number of allies on their eastern front that had an important impact on the campaign. Romania was one of the largest, and her troops saw much action in the Soviet Union, notably in the Ukraine and around Stalingrad, so it is only logical that Zvezda would add a set such as this to their range of game pieces.

Since this has just four infantrymen, this is one of the smallest sets in their game range, but as ever the figures are really nicely done, with great sculpting and great detail. All have some element of assembly, which improves the poses although only the man carrying the machine gun is noticeably better as a result. Everything fits together perfectly with no need for glue, so it takes less time to put them together than it does to release everything from the sprue. The resulting poses are all very good, and pretty much speak for themselves. Zvezda have provided separate individual bases for each figure, and also a single base for all four, but this is very small and the group is crowded together, which looks weird with the relaxed marching man on the shoulder of the man firing at the enemy. As a game piece of course this matters not, but all modellers will want these figures as we have photographed them.

The uniforms are all the same and as per regulation. Three wear the Dutch-designed helmet (with front badge, which did not always appear so could be trimmed off), and the fourth the distinctive peaked field cap. All equipment looks to be regulation too, and the weaponry is also error-free. Three hold rifles, and the fourth holds a ZM30 machine gun, all well done. All wear puttees and short boots, so our only criticism is that they all look much too neat and uniform - the problems experienced by the Romanian army in the Soviet Union, especially in winter, meant such neat troops were not the norm.

Nevertheless, these are lovely figures in great poses and with no accuracy problems apart from their clean and uniform appearance, although we were surprised that the machine-gunner does not have a pistol on his belt. Easily the best Romanian World War II troops so far made in this scale, it is a pity that there are only four, and they do not fit easily with the HaT and Strelets sets previously made, both of which are of much poorer quality. Too few to make up units by themselves, or to significantly expand the other full sets, these are lovely but once again remind us of what Zvezda could achieve if they went back to making full sets of figures.