Tackling a Plastic Mountain (Carefully)....Part 3

I have just some time sorting the green half of the plastic figure mountain into some kind of order - and then decided to have an accurate headcount. The end result is even better than I had hoped for and I have found a use for the Rambo-esque machine gunner as well!

I know this is the third time I have used this picture but it will help understand what I am on about!

The numbers I have counted for the figures above (reading left to right) are as follows:

• Standing firing (top left) - 130 figures
• Officer waving (top right) - 53 figures
• Grenade thrower (bottom left) - 52 figures
• Rifleman running (bottom centre) - 54 figures
• SMG man - (bottom right) - 123 figures

The M16 has been lumped in with the other figure similarly equipped and I am still trying to see what I can chop him up into!

The remaining figure types. The two chaps on the top row row - left and centre - contribute 111 figures to the collection.

The numbers for the figures depicted above are as follows:

• NCO pointing (the Airfix paratrooper on the top row row, right) - 105 figures
• Bazooka firer - 61 figures
• Machine gunner - 127 figures.

The total headcount for the 16 packets of 50 figures is 817 with an extra 3 figures that were broken in some way. Not bad at all for £4!

The machine gunner is actually more useful than I first thought because  with the addition of a fuel tank on his back he can be made into a flame-thrower and if you carefully carve away the gun and ammo belt and replace it with a shell shaped piece of wood or plastic he can also be turned into a gunner.

The only issue I am having at present is on how I should be basing these. I am thinking about using circular bases around 3cm across but may well end up with squares instead.

The Skirmish Plastic Soldier Show at Sidcup - see Skirmish 2013 for details - is on the 22nd of September and is now certainly on my to do list for this particular project!

Tackling a Plastic Mountain (Carefully)....Part 2

I have previously mentioned that due to work my evenings during the week are rather limited in respect of any gaming related activities I can undertake. Anything too complex or demanding is now left to the weekend  for the most part. Last night however, I managed to sort the tan half of the 800 plastic infantry I have into poses in order to give me an idea of what I had that would be readily usable for my planned 1935 to 1945 set up. The results were far better than I could have hoped for!

Six of the ten poses that make up the set

Of the figures in the picture above the tan collection has given me the following numbers figures in each pose:

• Standing firing a rifle - 60 (top left)
• Standing with a pistol and an M16 - 30 (top centre)
• Officer waving with binoculars - 30 (top right)
• Grenade thrower - 30 (bottom left)
• Running with rifle - 30 (bottom centre)
• Advancing with SMG - 60 (bottom right)

Of the four poses not shown I have 30 kneeling bazooka men, 60 Rambo-style machine gunners, 50 NCOs with a Sten (the Airfix paratrooper figure) and another figure similar to the 'pistol and M16 ' type above. The numbers quoted are give or take the odd figure either way.

Taking all of this into consideration it means that the proportion of immediately usable figures is pretty high - only the M16 figures and possibly the NCO and machine gunners being surplus or conversion material.

Assuming the green set pans out in a similar fashion the number of readily usable figures for the set up I am planning is pretty impressive and fortunately contains sufficient rifles to make setting up three armies for the period perfectly viable. I am still considering the machine gunner - he looks suitably dramatic and is very heroically posed but I really want to use deployed HMGs. The Skirmish Plastic Soldier show at Sidcup Grammer School is looming in the next couple of weeks so I will have a good rummage there and see what I can find that may be useful.

Tackling a Plastic Mountain (Carefully)

I have managed to sort the figures into a green and a tan pile - and that is about as far as I have got! the next step will be to see how may of each pose I have and how I can then think about organising the forces. An email from Bob Cordery mentioned the possibility of painting the figures as the US Aggressor formations which seemed like a good idea from a generic 'wargame type wargame' perspective but I have plans for something rather different.

If I ignored such details as the cut of the uniform and the style of helmets and personal equipment and merely painted the uniforms in the appropriate colour (and thereby rendering myself liable to being burnt at the stake as a heretic) I could in fact field forces for the three main 20th century army types - khaki green, brown and grey. That certainly ticks a number of boxes in terms of usability and also means that I could extend the same idea to vehicles. All I would do for example, would be to paint a tank as a tank of the appropriate army. There is a precedent for this as Hollywood did this all the time - the previously mentioned M48 (actually an M47) doubling up as a King Tiger in the Battle of the Bulge being a good example.

As far as the painting technique to be used is concerned I will be looking at simple and effective. An overall uniform colour with flesh, equipment and the headgear detailed and then washed or 'dipped'

This is still very much on the early planning stages and is very much an infantry only affair. Once I have a clearer idea of how much I have in each of the various poses I can make my plans with a little more details.

I am, for the record, hugely excited by this....;-)

Plastic Army Men or the Garden Revisited

A small selection of the figures from the set (and this is a picture from Google images) - in addition there is a kneeling bazooka firer, a 'Rambo-esque' machine gunner and an NCO armed with a Sten - a copy of the Airfix 54mm WW2 paratrooper

Originally I was not going to write this post until after a couple of conditions had been met. The conditions (actually only one I can think of) were that the figures for this latest piece of insanity should be painted. However, as the idea that has resulted from this has really got my creative juices flowing I thought that perhaps getting this out in the open would be a good thing.

During our visit to Basildon yesterday SWMBO and I happened to swing past Wilkinsons - the general store. I always make a point of checking out the 'toy section' in this particular store simply because you never know what might turn up that could be useful. As an aside I also make sure that whenever we visit Pound Shops or similar I also have a good look around for the same reason.

Whilst on this search I happened to find something that is certainly of profound value to me and, I suspect, many other gamers predisposed to battles involving larger scale figures.

Meanwhile, back in the early 1970's....

In the early days of the Airfix 1/32nd plastic figures a very good gaming friend and i used to fight battles using these figures in the garden. We also used to be able to buy individual figures as the toy shop we used  routinely opened boxes to sell the figures as needed. I had a Russian army and my friend had the jackbooted Germans. We excavated real trenches and used the overgrown lawn for jungle actions (very useful on the Eastern front....). The figures initially were unpainted but we did slap some paint on some of the for the later battles. We actually used Charles Grant's Battle for the rules but with the ranges and move distances doubled. The games were enormous fun  but we never got around to taking it indoors.

....and then back to the future....

Wilkinson's are selling bags of 50 'Army Men' scaled at around 42 to 45 mm tall and cast in typical tan and green plastic (I should mention that the plastic is hard - not the usual soft polythene) for 25p. That means for £1 you can get 200 figures. That's right - 200 FIGURES!!!!

OK, Foundry they ain't but for that money and quantity I am really not bothered! The figures can best be described as generic 20th century types but significantly there are two bolt action rifle figures and a 'normal' smg type. They are also harder than the usual plastic used and, at the size mentioned, can readily make use of the 42mm range of equipment available from Irregular Miniatures.

What are the implications of this then? Well for one thing, the prospect of some generic 20th century armies looms large - especially of an 'imagi-nation' variety. My immediate thought was for those two old adversaries - Fezia and Rusland. Suddenly the Middle East project has taken on a whole new shape - rather the Caucasus end has.

Vehicles to go with these figures could be a challenge simply due to the scale. Irregular have a small number available but being in metal would work out rather expensive when needed in quantity. My feeling would be use something akin to the concept of the cartoon warship - vehicles with a modest table footprint but with an exaggerated vertical profile. Generic vehicles would be the order of the day - I am thinking of what I call the Hollywood effect - you know the sort of thing, M48s disguised as Panzers - so I am expecting that some carefully modified and painted 'toys' might be the answer or even some basic scratch builds.

As far as rules are concerned I am spoiled for choice and at this stage am not really them much in the way of serious thought - the only thing that should be taken as read is that hexes will feature in one shape or form.

For the record, I went back to the ship and purchased another 12 packets and so now have a plastic mountain of some 800 figures requiring attention. For £4 that must rate as one of the bargains of the century!

The Strategy of the Indirect Approach

Mercifully we were spared much of the damage from the surface water flood in Rayleigh - in fact it was only the garage floor that got wet. At one point there was an inch or so but that has now gone and indeed, aside from the roads being covered in mud and debris, all looks normal. There were no boot sales to speak of today but SWMBO and I ventured out to Basildon for a couple of hours for some odds and ends.

I was delighted to pick up the two volumes from the Works you see above in hardback for £4.50 each for reasons that may seem a little obscure - even by my standards. The 18th century is an era that I have often flirted with over the years but have never progressed to preparing armies for. This is not likely to change in the short term either but my knowledge of the period has always been rather European or American facing. I have read about Clive's wars in India  but the biggest gap in my 18th century military overview was in what Russia was up to. More specifically what Russia was up to in respect of the Ottoman Empire.

The Russians and the Turks have fought each other numerous times since the 16th century and so there is a rich seam to mine for ideas for conflicts - both imaginary and historical - at just about any point in 300 odd years. Seeing this from the Russian perspective from these two door stopping volumes (and not forgetting that the Northern War and also the Seven Years War will feature) will help me to frame my thought processes around gaming something of the wars these two old enemies routinely fought.

And before anybody asks....yes, I do have a plan....;-)

To Boldly Go....

The first issue at a discounted price of £1.99 with the normal price being £5.99

Today has been unbelievably wet! the rain has been non-stop and monsoon-like and I doubt very much if any of our usual boot sales will be open tomorrow and fields being underwater is a distinct possibility! In fact, we now have a couple of inches of water in our garage, the fire brigade have been called and the front drive resembles a fast-flowing stream. Our next door neighbours front garden is slightly lower than ours so the water from our drive has been cascading down on to their front garden. There is much footage on Facebook of the roads around where we live being under gallons of the stuff - even of some intrepid souls in canoes!

Despite the rain, SWMBO and I needed to get in the weekly shopping this morning so a quick trip to the supermarket was called for. Whilst queuing up to pay for the shopping I noticed the rather impressive looking model featured above and promptly purchased it!

I am a Star Trek fan of long standing and about ten years ago had a large collection of the Micro machines models (now owned by the club) which saw much action on the final frontier. We used a Star Trek specific variant of Full Thrust by Ground Zero Games and had a lot of fun doing so.

The Enterprise D out of the packaging

The Enterprise D first appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the model is really nice. The finish is outstanding in terms of detail and measures a whopping 5 1/2" long with the saucer section being some 4" across. The exciting thing about this model for me is that it is actually rather more in scale with some of the Micro machines models - although this new range will have the same problem - the models are scaled to fit the packaging. I have no intention of collecting the entire series but may well dip into a couple of selected models along the way. Perhaps a trio of Klingon cruisers, Enterprise and Reliant from The Wrath of Khan and possibly a Bird of Prey may feature at some point.

The great thing about acquiring some of these models is that I would not need to spend any time painting them - which means the games can take place rather more quickly.

Am I talking myself into another project - or am I revisiting an old one?

"Make it so..."

A Wargaming Hiatus

At least that is what it is beginning to feel like! My new job is very intensive - it is effectively a target driven sales role after all - and takes a lot of time. I am usually not home until around 7:30 in the evening and so by the time the evening meal has been consumed and some family interaction has taken place I am too tired to tackle anything gaming related in a meaningful way. My painting has suffered due to the recent hot weather (I note from various blogs and comments from my local gaming circle that I am not alone in this!) and I have struggled to get anything else done in its place. On the plus side though I have been making use of my train journey for writing and catching up on my reading so at least something is keeping what passes for my grey matter ticking over.

The one thing it has given though, is time to think. Despite my blog being peppered with 'much to ponder here methinks' over the years it is rare for me to do so in any kind of a structured way. I tend to think on the knee jerk basis around whatever project I am currently involved with and how that particular effort can best fit in the overall scheme of things. In other words in the short term and on a reactive basis. The result is usually a project list - or more accurately, a wish list as in time  I usually end up wishing I had completed some of the contents!

Left alone for too long my thoughts around our hobby tend to move into the 'what-exactly-do-I-want-from-my-hobby-and-how-do-I-achieve-it?' territory which is never an easy time for me. It is never an easy time for me simply because this is when some of my more outlandish ideas start teasing me and invariably start to consume resources at an alarming rate. I continue to remind myself that I have a list of things to do but is this enough? Are these projects going to satisfy the overall craving I have for something deeper and meaningful? What is the something that is deeper and meaningful? Am I just chasing shadows in the pursuit of some kind of wargames El Dorado?

Whatever 'it' is is something that will not readily go away, at least not until I have acknowledged 'it' in some way and I shall continue to wrestle with my wargaming conscience until that particular demon has been faced down.

Whatever that particular demon is of course!