Waltersons, the new owners of the Forces of Valor brand, has updated their Facebook page with more information regarding their 2020 range. According to their representative, any vehicle that was originally produced by Unimax and has undergone an upgrade that includes a removable engine will be part of their newly branded “Engine Plus” series. So, tanks such as the T-34/85, M4 Sherman, Jagdpanther, Jagdtiger and Tiger I fall under this heading. Newly tooled vehicles, such as the upcoming Sturmtiger, M10 tank destroyer and KV-2, will be part of their “Extreme Metal” series. These vehicles will feature fully detailed crew compartments and other interior detailing, as well as metal tracks, much like their larger 1:16 scale brethren. We haven’t decided yet if we will segregate all of the existing Forces of Valor vehicles into one category and the newly tooled vehicles into another since this may create some confusion for the collector. We’ll likely revisit this scenario once our web site has completed its migration to the Shopify e-commerce platform scheduled for January.
In other news, eight different Sherman variants are currently being worked on by Waltersons, the first one likely being an M4 mounting a 105mm howitzer. The manufacturer claims that the entrenching tools typically attached to a vehicle’s exterior can be detached while other accessories, such as sand bags and logs, are being developed for added realism.
Lastly, the Company claims to be getting set to announce their aviation line up and will likely be showing some of their models at the upcoming Hong Kong Toy Fair which is scheduled to open on January 6th. We haven’t seen any images yet so it remains to be seen how they plan to re-work the aircraft to bring them up to today’s standards. Rumor has it that the engines can be removed much like the vehicles, although we haven’t seen any evidence to support this assertion.
