New Jump-Off-Points for Chain of Command

Jump-off-points are an essential bit of kit for any game of Chain of Command and the popular choice for many is a pile of supplies - ammo boxes, oil drums, jerry cans etc. It's certainly the route I took when creating my own set and it's the one the Lardies offer as part of their Chain of Command accessories. More recently I've started using figures and trying to do something that adds more to the narrative of a game. 

Initially I thought the idea of using miniatures could be confusing and they might be mistaken for actual figures in the game. On reflection that was not something that would really be an issue as my jump-off-points are on 40mm rounds and nothing else is based on a similar size. So aside from the Japanese jump-off-point above I also made a couple for my Americans using a few spare figures in suitable poses.

I liked the idea of making more, but inevitably it soon became one of those projects on the long list of things I would get around to ‘one day’. Recently two things motivated me to actually make a start. One was a conversation with a player who is also ex-military and he was very much of the view that piles of supplies were not the sort of thing likely to be found at a platoon jump-off-point. The other came while I was reorganising my hobby space. I have a spares box with many left over figures from various projects, far more than I will ever need and I was trying to decide what to do with them.

Many of the figures are from various command sets which contained many more figures than I needed and are unlikely to find another use. Others are plastic figures that I used when I first returned to miniature gaming and that I've since upgraded to metals.

I sorted through and selected suitable figures and worked out I could cover several nationalities including Russian, German, British north west Europe as well as the Far East. I started basing them on the 40mm rounds that I currently use for jump-off-points. The plan is to use these in combination with my existing jump-off-points when necessary. Most games require at least three jump-off-points for each side and occasionally as many as four, so to some extent you can never have enough.

Not all the figures had been painted. Some like those below were only part painted while others would need only a bit of touching up.

These surplus Russian commanders from the Plastic Soldier Company set seem well suited to a jump-off-point.

Similarly, this German NCO from the PSC heavy weapons set is appropriately posed looking at his watch and ready to issue a command.

I'd originally made up the wounded figures below to use as markers for wounded leaders but I've since come up with another method. The British figures on the left are from the original Esci set and the Germans are the same figures after a simple conversion. I've seen a few people create a small aid station as a jump-off-point and while it doesn't necessarily signal a jump-off-point it certainly alludes to the front line (although jumping off from a place full of wounded men is probably not the best thing for a platoon's force morale!).

All the figures have a varied history. For my early war Far East project I used those from the AB Western Desert set but that is not an extensive range and I needed to find additional poses from other manufacturers. I bought a small selection of Dixon figures to fill a few gaps. Unfortunately, while they are lovely sculpts they are true 20mm and are noticeably smaller than the AB figures. They included a couple of command figures and I thought these would work well in a jump-off-point setting. The pointing officer is a plastic figure from the very old Esci 8th Army set but he works well in this context.

In another spares box I have a lot of ammo boxes, small arms and other odds and ends that would help to create a mini diorama on each base. So then it was simply a matter of finishing off or touching up paint work on the figures and adding terrain.

The Russian bases utilised the pointing officers, a female medic and one of the gun crew figures that come with the PSC 45mm anti-tank gun sets.

For the Germans I have the wounded figures and the gun commander. I've tried to keep the equipment closer to what might be found at the front line and so a spare panzerschreck from a PSC set seemed appropriate.

I've used AB Figures for my British airborne platoon and their command sets includes more figures with radios than I would normally need and so again I thought these would work well in this setting.

For British regular infantry I've used the wounded figure set plus a spare dispatch rider and motorcycle from the AB Figures set.

A left over NCO from the PSC British infantry set made up a third jump-off-point.

The more I searched through the spares box the more inspiration I found. In fact I think I was carried away but when I saw the British radio operator below and the man carrying ammunition for the 2" mortar, both lovely AB Figures sculpts, I knew I had to make one more. The sandbags were made from Milliput.

I liked the idea of the Far East figures leading the platoon through tropical terrain and so I focussed more on the vegetation than additional supplies.

I found a figure to work for the later period of the war in the Far East, this could be for my Australians or British in Burma.

As I said, I suspect I got a bit carried away with this project, but I think these really add to the narrative of the games and help tell the story more effectively than piles of supplies. Of course now I have to think about ways to use some of those piles of supplies. I have a few ideas for those......