Okay, so I didn't trade away ALL of my WW2 US forces...
I did keep about a squad or two of each of US Regular Army Infantry and US Paratroopers for the European Theatre of Operations and Marines for the Pacific Theatre of Operations - Just in case I ever wanted to play Five Men in Normandy/Five Mean at Kursk with them or a similar skirmish game, or needed them for a role-playing game (like Call of Cthulhu?). Most of these were already painted
The small handful of paratroopers I kept were not painted... and we in a box of stuff being based or re-based and having seen pictures of the miniatures Orion was cranking out, I started feeling like maybe I should just quickly paint these up and be DONE with them... So that's what I did on Saturday.
Part way through painting the paratroopers, I realized one was not a paratrooper but a regular army infantryman. So I went to the storage drawer to see how I'd painted those and realized there were three other unpainted regular army infantrymen, so I brought them out to paint as well. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the exact colour I used to paint them... it is entirely possible I was still using craft paints at the time and the paint is long gone...
NEWLY PAINTED STUFF
There are 12 paratroopers and 4 regular army infantry in the lot...
So this is ALL the World War Two US Forces I currently have...
Regular US Army Infantry - European Theatre of Operations
I had a lot more than I thought - pretty much an understrength platoon; three squads of 7-8 infantry, a platoon commander and radio operator, a bazooka team, a sniper and... Oddball...
Oddball, Kelly, and Big Joe
US Army Paratroopers - European Theatre of Operations
I have a much smaller force of Paratroopers, less than a full squad really - perfect size for a Five Men in Normandy Patrol, though!
US Marine Corps - Pacific Theatre of Operations
I have a weird mix of Marines for the Pacific Theatre of Operations...
There's one squad of regular Marine Infantry... A spare guy with a Thompson SMG... John Wayne... four Corpsmen... four casualties... Fourteen Marine Raiders... and a Jeep with a .50 Caliber Heavy Machine-Gun mounted on it!?
Again, a great little force for very small scale skirmishes or showing up in a role-playing game.
1st Special Service Force - European Theatre of Operations
I also have a small unit of troopers from the 1st Special Service Force... which was a mix of troops from the US and Canada. I got really excited when they first game out and bought all the first packs... I'd hoped to build it up to a complete force for Bolt Action... but then they never made any with the Johnson Light Machine-Guns... so these lack squad support weapons.
The Bazooka and Mortar and .30 Calibre Machine-Gun teams are all converted paratrooper miniatures.
STILL TO DO!?
I got really excited thinking the entire force would be DONE with this little batch completed and the others all traded away... then I found a few more things; four injured paratroopers, a second jeep with a USMC crew, and a Sgt. Rock figure I have (that I wanted to add ammo belts to - because I do seem to recall from the comics, the ALWAYS had na ammo belts slung over each of his shoulders!)
Will I ever add to this collection?! Well... I'll Never say Never! But I have no strong desire to do so at the moment. I might get to rebasing some or all at some point. Because I have Oddball, Sgt. Kelly and Big Joe, I thought it might be fun to get a Sherman tank and model it like Oddball's with giant speakers and an barrel extension - just for funsies. Or maybe get a second Oddball figure and put him in the turret of a Tiger Tank...?
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That's a bigger collection of US WWII minis than I would have guessed you had. Looking good!
ReplyDeleteAn Oddball tank (Sherman or Panzer) could be a fun addition. Telly Savalas played a tank commander in The Battle of the Bulge movie.
If I ever do any WWII-esque games I will probably use my dwarves and halflings as Allied forces and some orcs and goblins as the Axis forces. If I need a tank or 2 I could finish building a couple of World War Toon ones I bought ages ago. I don't have any suitable jeeps or similar at this time, but might be able to put something together if I need to.
Thanks!
DeleteThose World War Toon tanks look SUPER FUN!! I hope you get around to doing them, I'd love to see how you paint them up!
I have a pair of them I thought I'd convert into some kind of grot tank for 40K... It think it was a Russian KV-2 and a French Somua S-35..?
Don't worry too much about colour differences. The one thing I've found is that uniform colours varied quite a bit, especially in later war Germany.
ReplyDeleteOh, I know... I try not to... I mean, when you put a million men into uniform, those uniforms are going to be sourced from many different mills... dyes are never going to be exactly the same shade... or quality... some will fade faster than others.
DeleteStill... it bugs me when I have a force that was put together at different stages and there are clearly two different colours being used... I can't help it!!