In itself this is not a bad little set, I prefer these soldiers to the dreadful red boots, and I can forgive the Roman arms on the pirate, treating them as ragged cut-off, though there are of course cut-off and ragged sleeves available which would have looked better. The sail is ridiculous, but it's easy enough to get a roll of material from a craft shop and replace it, using the original sail as a template.
What bugs me crazy, boggles my mind completely, has me hitting my head repeatedly on the desk, is the mixture of Steck, System X and System Why? (my new name for the clip system) currently in use in the Pirate theme. Don't Playmobil think kids might get more than one different Pirate set, and want to be able to combine them?
Right now on Playmobil US's website you can buy two pirate buildings, one Steck, one System X, plus the 5949 Bastion (Steck-based) and the Lighthouse (System Why?). This set, if it comes to the US, is System X. The new Harbor Fort is System Why? . You can't extend system Why? with anything, and you can't easily mix Steck and system X, so the Soldiers are forever condemned to defending tiny one room buildings like this dilapidated shed.
Forts in the West Indies and on the Spanish Main (and many other places as we have discussed before) were bigger then most Medieval Castles, and had bigger standing garrisons. Why can't Playmobil create a decent-sized fort for the soldiers? It doesn't have to be huge, but at least as big as a large castle.
I recently saw two new (to me) Playmobil ships in TRU, and put them back on the shelf unpurchased. One had the red-booted soldiers (I may have to treat these as Dutch), the other was a pirate ship with an ugly skull sail. I rarely pass up a brand new set in a theme I like, but these just didn't add anything worth shelling out a combbined $55 for right now. I'll probably get them later when they go on sale or clearance, but right now I seem to be Playmobilled out.
Here's hoping the Spanish soldiers, and the blue-coated soldiers with white trousers and black shoes, are eventually available as add-ons. Then we can populate towns/forts with at least three different nations (albeit dressed centuries apart).
