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Guards Colour Party & Guards Band (A00702V & A00701V) 1:76 Airfix Vintage Classics The Household Division is part of the British Army that is based in London, and consist of five regiments of Foot Guards, and two regiments of Horse Guards. They are responsible for ceremonial and other public duties, such as Trooping the Colour, the King/Queens Birthday parade, and the State Opening of Parliament, amongst others, including concerts for the bands. Although their duties are ceremonial in modern times, they were responsible for guarding important parts of the Capital, providing overnight guards for some unusual places, as well as the usual landmarks. The Guards regiments all have their own bands, and it is the Foot Guards that form the Marching Band with their traditional Bear Skin hats, performing varying duties. They have a long history both of playing music and of fighting in wars when needed, extending back beyond the 19th century. The Kits These sets of soldiers don’t quite qualify as kits, although there are a few parts such as drums and sentry posts that require a little putting together, and they are moulded in a flexible dull-red vinyl on small rectangular bases. Each set has several poses, and in the case of the band, several instruments, and each set contains four sprues, while the Marching band has two two-part sentry boxes in addition. The sets arrive in a small end-opening box in Airfix’s usual red theme, reusing the original artwork from the late 60s, although the original tooling dates back to the early 60s, which is why they’re being marketed under the Vintage Classics brand. Each soldier simply needs nipping from the sprue underneath, and that’s the end of it. The detail on the rifles is a little simplistic, and the sentry boxes are prone to having their fronts pop-off without some suitable help, but the nostalgia factor is off the scale. Guards Colour Party (A00702V) This box includes 44 parts rather than 42 as mentioned on the box, as the sentry boxes are each made from two parts. There are three sprues of marching soldiers with their rifles shouldered, bayonets uppermost. Another half sprue contains more marching men, totalling 36 in all. The remaining four soldiers include a standard bearer, a Colour Sergeant or Warrant Officer who is carrying a ceremonial sword, and two soldiers holding their rifles in front of them in Present Arms stance for installation in the guard posts where there is no headroom for long bayoneted weapons over the shoulder. Guards Band (A00701V) There are 52 parts in this set, 44 figures, the remaining eight various drums. The Drum Major twirls his baton solo, and there are 2 cymbal players, 1 bass drummer with apron, 7 snare drummers, 7 tuba players, 10 flautists, 4 trombonists, 7 trumpeters, and 5 saxophonists. The drummers have separate drums that fit on pegs in the chest of the bass drummer, and on the hips of the snare drummers Markings There are no decals, and the soldiers were meant primarily for play. You can paint them if you wish, although that can be problematic given the flexibility of the medium that causes inflexible paint to shell off, but adding a little PVA to acrylic paint can improve adhesion and flexibility. I have never tried this, so it’s entirely down to you. Conclusion I remember these from my childhood, and I’m not 100% certain, but I suspect I had one if not both sets, so the nostalgia is there for me. Moulding them in red was a good call, as my memory has them in a yellowish colour, but I could be thinking of the astronaut figures we reviewed some years ago. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of