Toy Review: Delta 17

Let’s try something a little different. I’m a big fan of GI Joes – I used to have a whole whack-load as a kid but gave them to a neighbour. Sometimes I kick myself for getting rid of them but I’m happy knowing that he probably had as much fun with them as I did. I should have kept one or two of my favourites but oh well. I’ve since re-acquired a lot of the Joes that I liked but I’ll probably never have the same collection as I used to. I had tanks and half-tracks, and a whole damn fold-out base with missile launchers and some knock-off space Joes.

I first heard of Delta 17 around July 2023 when a toy photographer friend of mine ended up with some protoypes of the figures. I’ve been following development ever since and with their release, finally got my hands on [most of] the ones that I want (I might buy one or two of the generic delta squad dudes and another thunder battallion at some point) so let’s talk about them.

Like any good Joe collector, I reject the official backstories and make my own. Several of these fellows are making it into my combat section which includes Falcon as the Platoon IC, Rock & Roll as Platoon Sergeant-Major, Tiger-Stripe Flint as Point-man/Pacer, Footloose as Nav, Dial-Tone as Section IC, Recoil as Signaler, and Tunnel-Rat as half of the HMG det.

Rooster
Official lore: Corporal, Delta 17 Recce & Signaler
My Lore: Sergeant, Section 2iC
Totally decked out in cam-paint, Rooster is clearly the coolest of the bunch. His backpack is an external frame ruck so you can actually pop off the field-phone and use some paracord to strap a wounded Joe to the frame, or he can just wear the field phone on it’s own. The phone itself pops out of the pack so he can hold it in his hands. The antenna is detachable and you get 2 incase you lose one. This was the first Delta 17 figure that I saw and the one that made me want to follow their development. Super cool.

Preacher
Official Lore: Corporal, Marksman, former Congolese Missionary
My Lore: Corporal, half of the HMG det
Armed with an M4 and a Barret MRAD sniper, this guy’s pretty cool. The cross necklace and gauze scissors on his leg-pouch are nice details. He just looks mean. The sniper has a detachable swiveling bipod and both weapons slot into his rucksack.

Kestrel
Official Lore: Polish Corporal Grenadier, Translator
My Lore: Medic
She comes with an M203 underslung grenade launcher, a KA-BAR, and kind of flat printing on the face. Depending on what angle you look at her determines whether her face looks good. Dead on, there’s not enough definition so the nose disappears. From her left, her smirk makes her look maniacal, from her right, she looks pretty reasonable. Her boots are well-bloused and I appreciate that. I wanted to equip Thunder Battalion’s belt pouch to her as it has a big red cross on it but it’s too wide which is a shame but tells me that they actually gave the females thinner wastes and tighter butts which is actually pretty cool.

Death Sparrow
Official Lore: Captain and leader of the Retrograd Mercenary Company
My Lore: I’m not sure what I’m going to do with her yet.
She comes equipped with an RPK and a decent rucksack. The RPK is the only weapon to be printed in two colours which is a super nice touch and it would have been nice to see the stick grenade in another colour than brown. I like her face printing better than Kestrel’s. With her evil black-and-red colour scheme, blonde hair, bright red lipstick, and open jacket, she makes a pretty good She Devil of the SS type.

Thunder Battalion
Official Lore: Former Spetsnaz, now mercenary mook
My Lore: Evil terrorist
This guy is awesome and is loaded out with gear. Bomb disposal looking helmet, an AK 101, a spare visor for the helmet, a dual-colour ruck that’s ready for some mountain ops, and a detachable belt pouch. He’s meant as an “army builder” so you can buy a bunch to make up the bad guy forces and does a great job at that. I use him along with Beachhead and Firefly (who are also wearing balaclavas) as my terrorist hostage takers that

Jaguar
Official Lore: UNKNOWN, right-hand man of the Dark Shadows
My Lore: Evil terrorist
This guy is clearly the tribute to Snake Eyes and is equipped with all sorts of ninja tomfoolery like baton swords and a zany-looking tacticool rifle. His sniper has a similar detachable bipod to Preacher’s and he possess both two pistols and a kerambit that are permanently molded onto him as nice details. Of all the figures that I received, he was the only one with any blemishes in the form of some ugly mold lines on the inside of his biceps that were easily scrapped off with an x-acto knife. His whacky gun is also less than ideal as there’s a guard connecting the pistol-grip to the magazine housing which prevents you from sliding the handle into their hands; you have to kind of wiggle and clip it in which, in my experience, puts more stress on the fingers. Still, for those who want the ninja Joe, this guy scratches the itch.

Conclusions
I’m super happy with these guys. The printing is great, there’s almost no blemishes or defects (other than what I just mentioned), the weapons all look solid, there’s a good amount of kit that comes with them, and they are just generally well-designed. Not too out there. Of course, I’m missing a few that I avoided ordering because they look too crazy, notably the Dark Shadows dudes. Robo-ninjas aren’t my style. I’m also missing two of the named Deltas because one looks too modern and tacticool and the other guy (Leonidas the K9 specialist) just doesn’t fit my vision.
The Delta 17 line is fucking awesome and they have plans to at least build a Mil-MI 24 Hind Helicopter and I’m sure if that goes well they’ll make more figures. I’m super please with the quality of these and can’t wait to see what else they can do. I absolutely recommend grabbing some of these bastards at Delta17Toys.
All of these figures feature the following points of manoeuverability:
-head swivel left to right and up and down
-torso can twist and bow
-legs at the hip can move about 45 degrees
-knees can bend as you’d expect them too
-arms at the shoulder can do a 360 windmill as well as move from their sides as if at attention to about 15 degrees higher than a “T” pose
-elbows can rotate 360 and bend to 90 degrees
-wrists can rotate 360 degrees.
I have attached an image of Jaguar with is limbs in all sorts of positions to demonstrate the above.