Some cool deals came up for 1:18 stuff recently... I wound up snagging some of the SS sets that used to be exclusive to SmallJoes for a paultry $9.95 each. I also got 8 D-Day tankers for cheap too, and there were even better deals. Series 2 Panthers were like $25 and the Series 1 PAK-40 Anti-Tank gun was like $10.
The SS sets were something I wasn't totally interested in, but for the price I couldn't pass them up. Owning SS guys in parade dress is meh to me.... I prefer the actual combat uniforms of WW2 soldiers and find that more interesting, but the sets are pretty big and you get a lot of figures. For the cost of 2 full price figures I got like 12 or so figures in just one set!
The sets are sorta shoddy quality though. Loose elbow joints abound, and the paintjobs are so-so... Plus they used a couple grimacing/angry paratrooper headsculpts that simply look like hell. They should've made them all using neutral headsculpts just with different hair colors if they had to use a duplicate headsculpt, but I digress.
So that's been it for 1:18... I'm actually considering selling all my 1:18 armor, as much as I love it, and jumping into 1:16 scale armor. There's a much, much, much, much larger array of items, and the scale difference isn't bad... You can't display 1:18 and 1:16 armor together, but support vehicles and halftracks and whatnot look fine beside 1:16 tanks... They make Sturmtigers, Jagdpanthers, Panzers of all kinds, Tiger I's, Panthers, and other tanks... The variety is staggering, and to top it all off you get individually linked tracks, working suspension, lights/sounds, and the f'n things are RC baby!!!! Some of them even smoke when they get "hit", and they kick back when their gun is fired.
How can you not love **** like that!? If 1:18 tanks are going to $80-ish in price, why not shell out $20 more and get the same thing but higher quality in RC?