Living in the Plastic Age.....................

Between large lumps of college assignments and the more mundane business of trying to find a job I have given some additional thought to the question of my small 20th century mini project. I have decided to apply some fairly rigid restrictions to the amount of material I shall be acquiring for this, as yet undecided diversion, in an attempt to stretch my creative spleen, so to speak. I have decided then, to limit the total cost of the project to £25. I have also decided that it would be a worthwhile idea to expand the time frame to take advantage of the deluge of figures available for the ancient and dark age period - given my previous intention of tackling a pair of matched DBA armies. At current prices the figure I have quoted equates to perhaps four boxes of figures or a couple of boxes and a pair of plastic kits.

This is a challenge that I shall enjoy attempting as it will serve to really focus my efforts on exactly what I can produce within the imposed budget. Checking out what is available in 20m plastic has been a very therapeutic experience as the choice available now is absolutely staggering. http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Index.aspx is a brilliant website full of all manner of reviews and pictures of figures on the sprue and painted.

I must confess to always enjoying working with 20mm plastics - even in the days of purely Airfix figures and Humbrol paints - and nowadays they are both easier to use and paint. I know there is the old argument about meaningless poses in the box but this is a small price to pay because in a set of 48 figures (on average) allowing for example 16 figures being 'unusable' that still leaves 32 usable figures at an average cost of £5 to £6 a box. Taking 32 figures at £6 a box is a mere 18.75p a go which competes very favourably with 15mms.

I am not suggesting that this will be all things to all men but certainly it has its attractions for me. By keeping the numbers small I can ensure that not only will I be able to complete the project but also that I will be gaming to the measure of the available material.

A very good gaming friend of mine has established by way of a tradition, a Christmas project. Every year, over the Christmas break (I should mention that he is in fact a teacher so has rather longer over the festive season than most people) he undertakes a top secret project to be rolled out in January. Taking a leaf from his book perhaps that concept is what I should undertake this year with the 20mms, in whatever form or period they eventually take.