The concept for the War Toys’ non-combatant figures came from the idea of adding conflict-zone photojournalists to standard sets of plastic “army men” to give children more nuanced options for what sorts of characters they could play, moving away from an ‘us and them’ mentality. The non-combatant figures include Frontline Rescuers, Aid Workers and Photojournalists. The photojournalists are based on actual photographers, including Dickey Chapelle, David Gilkey, Ron Haviv, Byron Smith, Nicole Tung, Veronique de Viguerie, and Asmaa Waguih.

The designs for the figures are also provided by War Toys at no additional cost to toy manufacturers so that they can be embedded amongst standard sets of plastic army figures. The founder of War Toys, Brian McCarty, has said that by working with factories and releasing the figures like this, he hopes to foster change in the global market.

To facilitate children’s understanding of these non-combatant roles, War Toys commissioned a cooperative board game, Evac Ops™, to explore this topic further. The goal of the game is to save civilians before resources run out, time runs out, or a player dies from an explosion in a high-risk area. The game is also being distributed as a free addition with sets of standard plastic army figures, as a replacement for the maps often included. The designer of the game, Nashra Balagamwala, spoke to several front-line workers, rescuers, photojournalists, field coordinators, aid workers, and art therapists as part of her research process.