Hello mini figure fans! Recently on various social media and forums I have been seeing figures called Monsters vs Military. They are the same size and style as classic plastic army men, come packed 90 to a tube, and what I have seen of the monsters looks good. Unfortunately I have not been able to locate them myself, but while out hunting for them I did come across a similar item called Army Men vs Cave Men.
Army Men vs Cave Men also come packed 90 to a tube (split evenly, 45 of each) with the Army Men being green and the Cave Men being orange. I bought these for the Cave Men figure which is lucky because the Army Men are terrible, they have mold lines everywhere and they are not nearly as detailed as the Cave Men. Unfortunately the Cave Men are not as diverse as the Army Men; the Cave Menn have only six different sculpts while the Army Men have eleven. With the Army Men being as disappointing as they are, and also because I bought this primarily for the Cave Men, I will only be discussing the Cave Men.
THE MEAT
I want to try something a bit different this week, so instead of reviewing each figure separately I will talk about them as a group. I’ll try to hit the high and low points of the group as well as some individual figures of note. I will note each figure by what they are carrying which appears to portray progression of our primitive ancestors: rock, hammer, club, spear, torch, and wheel.
Overall the sculpts have a nice amount of detail with muscle, hair, and clothing definition and texture. Their clothing ranges from loin cloths to a full robe/tunic. They all have different hair and faces, though some are similar. All of the stands are pretty thin and in some cases barely keep the figure upright.
The only one that clearly doesn’t have a beard is the spear holder. Rock, club, and wheel all have definitive beards. Hammer and torch lie somewhere in between with what could be a beard or could be a couple of small scratches where a beard would be.
Hammer guy lacks muscle definition on his torso, he is smooth where the others have pectorals and abs. Rock man is the only figure that has anything besides his weapon and clothes, he has a necklace that appears to have claws/teeth on it and a bird on his shoulder which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
The weapons are half good and half need work. I like the spear, torch and hammer, they are all simple with some small detail to make them pop. The wheel, rock, and club however could all use a little something extra. The wheel is far too thin and I think should have a smooth edge instead of being textured. The rock needs a little bit more texture to help differentiate it from the hand. The club spikes are great but the shaft itself needs a little bit of texture to make it stand out.
THE POTATOES
As far as customization goes I don’t think these figures need anything unless you wanted to tackle some of the things listed above. Trying to etch a little more detail into some weapons could go a long way, as could mounting them to something to make them more sturdy on display.
THE DESSERT
The Cave Men half of this tube of toys are quite excellent and they more than make up for the crappy Army Men, I would recommend them to any mini figure fan. The whole tube cost $4.99 which is a killer deal even writing off the Army Men. I found them at Kroger but I am sure they are at other stores as well. In my case they were in the “cheap” toys section where they put all of the plastic sheriff sets and zoo animals and such. Here are the army guys in black/blue. And the cavemen in red/tan.
Taylor resides just outside of Houston where he scouts local stores for new mini figures. When he is not spending his spare time with toys you will find him binge watching Netflix, playing video games, or reading a book. You can follow Taylor on Twitter and Instagram @whywing01 for irregular updates, not always about toys.