Art of Tactic - On the Horns of a Moral Dilemma

You may recall my having mentioned about this miniatures based game produced by Zvesda a short while ago. Aside from having seen some of the infantry in Modelzone (and a couple of mentions about the tanks from some gaming acquaintances) I have not come across any of this in the flesh so to speak (or should that be, in the plastic?). The base set depicted is now slowly becoming available in the UK for roughly £50 a go which represents good value for money considering the amount of kit contained in the box.

I am seriously considering investing in this system for a number of reasons - the main one being of course because I have a long time interest in WW2 although the early Eastern Front campaign is one that I not hugely familiar with. The intriguing about this system for me is the fact that it makes use of different scales between infantry and the vehicles - 20mm for the infantry and 15mm for the tanks. This is an approach I would never had considered previously as mixing scales within a collection used to be hanging offence in certain gaming quarters! I actually now think that this is plus point as the tabletop footprint of a smaller scaled vehicle will be less intrusive than the full scaled version.

The game is designed for use on a hexagonal playing surface which means that my Hexon will find a ready made use for the rules contained therein or indeed and other hex based items I choose to use - there are after all, some very nice hex based sets around.

One of the big advantages for me though is the fact that in one fell swoop you have got a nice representational set up that will not need a huge amount of extras initially and in any event, in 15mm there is a huge selection of vehicles and kit available from other manufacturers which could be drafted in if required. The purists may say that this 'one-stop' approach is indicative of the instant 'want it now' syndrome that society seems to have embraced as the norm - not that I am bucking the trend in this respect!

As a gamer that does not own anything WW2 related (you can't really count the two Vickers Light tanks!) except for a substantial amount of Memoir 44 the problems of alternate scales etc just do not exist for me. I know of many gamers that have the same forces in two or even three scales but luckily for me in this I do not have such a 'collection dilemma' to overcome.

This is still very much in the planning/consideration stage and so there is no urgent hurry to splash the cash as yet - I have too many other things on the go at present in any event - although I will be keeping a weather eye open for it.

Does a thought about project count as an actual project or is that a form of wargaming 'new-shiny-toy' self delusion? Our temptations are many and varied and I suppose the old saw of 'just because I can does it mean I should?' applies in this case (and probably in a good few others as well if truth be told!).