Way back in the summer of 2013 I purchased a great pile of 40mm scale plastic army men type figures from a branch of Wilkinsons. The last post in the series you can revisit here:
Tackling a Plastic Mountain Carefully....Part 3
I carefully sorted the figures into types and then put to one side those that I had earmarked for some long forgotten project. I even went as far as cleaning up the first batch, washing them in detergent and basing them on 3cm squares.
They then went into a box and have sat under my painting table for some 18 months or so....
My whole 'imagi-nation' project list has given me much to think about - with lots of my ramblings appearing on the blog as various points as my enthusiasm for a particular idea waxes and wanes by varying degrees. I am committed to something 19th century related in due course but in the meantime I need to try a few ideas out. One of these - and certainly the most readily achievable - is to revisit the notion of a 1930s or early WW2 set up making used of the figures shown in the blog entry above.
This will serve to tackle a number of things. Firstly, it will get me painting some figures for a change and this is in turn a test bed for some techniques I want to try. Secondly, it will enable me to actually get some figure games in. Thirdly, it will give me the opportunity to 'flesh out' Rusland and Fezia in the 'modern' era. I could go on with other benefits but the best of these is the simple fact I will be able to mess about with some kit bashing for vehicles and heavy weapons.
I plan to use the resultant collection for Memoir 44 type games as well using a hex based version of Charles Grant's Battle: Practical Wargames which I have been messing around with. These are designed with 1944 era games in mind but the core system is readily adaptable for the earlier period.
At the time of writing this I am planning the uniform details for the two sides - green and brown seem to be the likeliest choices although the idea of a grey army for obvious reasons has some merit, I shall have the figures undercoated and primed with the base colour over the Easter weekend and then it will be on with the detail work - and trust me, with these figures that is hardly an onerous task!
Any thoughts on doing a squared based version of Grant's rules?
ReplyDeleteAlan
Hi Alan,
ReplyDeleteI had not done so but reckon it should work readily enough. The difficulty I had with the hex version was in the original rules using cones of fire and blast templates etc. Also some of the weapon ranges have needed fudging to an extent.
Once the first batch of figures are ready I shall have a small test to see how they work out.
All the best,
DC