Far East casualty figures

I've come very close to finishing off my 20mm British/Commonwealth platoon for the early part of the war against Japan. The miniatures themselves have come from various 8th army and western desert ranges as they have the right tropical uniforms for that stage of the war. I haven't been able to find all the figures and poses that I've needed and I remembered that I had a set of the old 1/76 Matchbox 8th Army plastic figures that had been stored away. I dug them out in the hope I could find some inspiration.

I was short of figures to represent leaders with pistols and thought this could be the solution, but found that the figures were not a comparable size with the AB Figures miniatures that make up the bulk of my units.

I put those aside, but did wonder if I might be able to make up some casualty figures, something I had been unable to find. I've found casualty figures a tricky thing. Not from a painting point of view, but more as a matter of how to do it reasonably tastefully without skirting around the fact that what is represented on the table top is violent injury and death. The main reason for wanting to include casualties is for the photographs for my AARs. If the loss of a senior leader has dire consequences for his force it seems a bit lacklustre to record his departure with a photograph of the empty space his figure formerly occupied. It's all about the narrative I keep telling myself.

In the first scenario of our current campaign 29, Let's Go! a team of American scouts were caught in the open as they pushed forward towards a German jump-off-point. They were wiped out and the casualty figures helped to tell that story dramatically. I wanted something that could fill that role for the Far East platoon.

The good thing about plastic figures is that they are very easy to convert and so I tried to see what could be done with some of the prone 8th army figures.

I found the lower half of the figures would work well using them either face down or face up, however the upper bodies didn't quite work despite a few attempts.

In the end I used the upper bodies from a figure throwing a grenade and one of a leader waving his men forward.

The resulting figures covered a greater area than the normal 20mm round bases I use for individual figures. They also have a slight awkwardness to their poses but overall I think they work well enough.

In the end I decided to base one on a 20x40mm rectangle that I use for my senior leaders, given that of any casualty, the loss of a senior leader is one that I'd consider most important to represent. Painting was kept simple and, as I've done with all my casualty figures, I avoided any gore. I think they tell the story as they are and puddles of blood won't make it any more effective.

More for the Far East

More has been completed on my project for the 20mm early war British/Commonwealth forces for the Far East (you can see some of the earlier work in this post). As most of these are based on figure ranges for the Western Desert and 8th Army it's required a bit of searching around to fill in some of the gaps, but I'm pleased to say I've managed to track down most of what I need.

The core platoon is based on AB Figures Western Desert Force range but I've needed to find some additional figures for some of the leaders. AB don't have a leader with a pistol. I also needed figures with rifles for the section corporals and a platoon sergeant. While I could have added some of the existing poses from the AB range I preferred to have some variety and something that helps differentiate the leaders from the men (the leaders are on different sized bases but some variety in poses always helps). I opted to use the Wargames Foundry 20mm 8th Army figures. They come as a set of ten and while there is not a great variety of poses they have a leader with a pistol and the riflemen would make for suitable leaders. This gives me a senior leader with pistol; senior leader with rifle and four junior leaders with rifles.

The search for figures has a bad habit of taking you down rabbit holes you never intended exploring. This was the case when I discovered that Early War Miniatures had a range of tropical British in topees. It all started out so innocently. I was trying to find some figures in tropical dress with helmets manning Lewis guns and while these are easy enough to find for the BEF in France, it's not the case when it comes to finding figures kitted out in tropical uniforms.

I now have a painted and based platoon in topees with Lewis gun teams. I still don't have a Lewis gun team in helmets, that might require some conversion work. So, having set out to add an early war platoon to my later war Far East platoon I now have an early early-war platoon as well. As usual I've justified it in numerous ways, none of which is particularly convincing.

I haven't needed to add too many support units. I already have a Lanchester armoured car that I made when we played the Chain of Command Malaya 1942 Campaign. So not too many gaps to fill. One is a 2 pounder and crew, this one from Zvezda with an AB crew.

And work is progressing on a Universal Carrier, again with a crew from AB. As you can see, enough figures for two fully loaded carriers, but only one carrier at the moment. This one is from PSC and was originally bought to be a lend lease carrier for my Soviets, but will now find its way to the other side of the world.

I've also added some armour not only for the British, but also the Japanese. These are all at various stages of painting. For Burma there are a couple of Stuarts, both from the PSC set.

While I'm doing the Far East I was also thinking further ahead for later in the war and added a Valentine MkIII and a Sherman M4A4 both left over from sets from PSC.

A few Valentines were used in the Arakan campaign in Burma in 1943 (very unsuccessfully I might add); the New Zealanders used some in the Solomons in 1944, and I've only recently discovered that six were used in Operation Ironclad in Madagascar in 1942 as part of B Special Service Squadron (an armoured special service unit for want of a better description. They also had six Tetrarchs). Madagascar was not a theatre I had in mind, but the British infantry were in tropical uniforms, so one more place to send the platoon if I want to, although I would need to create some French opponents (oh dear, better not go there....).

I picked up this very useful booklet a few years ago. For only 32 pages of A4 it packs a lot of information, photographs and colour illustrations and it's provided plenty of inspiration for Shermans in Burma.

The Japanese are not forgotten and there are two Type 89 (from IBG), one Chi Ha Type 97 (the venerable Airfix kit) and three Te-Ke Type 97 light tanks (from Milicast).

Those latter diminutive tanks were used a lot in China. Most Chinese towns and cities were walled and so the Japanese always had to find a way to blow open the city gates or breach the walls. As the Chinese had few anti tank weapons the Japanese developed a tactic where a swarm of light tanks would pepper the walls surrounding the city gates with MG fire. That would often be enough to suppress any defenders, thereby allowing Japanese engineers to place charges against the gates and blow them open. I guess when you don't have a decent anti tank gun on hand even a small tankette like the Te-Ke becomes a major threat. The picture below tells the story well.

I've started with the main colours on the larger tanks but as you can see there is still much to do.

The Type 89s are also tanks that I intend to use for the Japanese in China. As I mentioned in an earlier post I have a Chinese force that I based for Crossfire many years ago and I've been meaning to re-base them individually to make up some platoons for Chain of Command. It's a miserable and laborious task, but one that I have finally got around to.

When I painted these I was still using the Army Painter dip method. While I'm not using that technique any longer it may not have been such a bad idea back then, mainly because these figures are all plastic, the softer variety, and the thick polyurethane varnish that makes up the AP dip provides a very good coating to prevent paint peeling off. Apart from the odd bit of detailing here and there I intend leaving the figures as they are. The dip/wash effect has worked just fine for this type of uniform so I'm content to do no more work on them. At least they are all based individually now. In the mix are the recent batch of the Perry-sculpted Chinese figures from Wargames Foundry. They seem to blend in quite well and have helped make up the numbers.

It's been a fairly productive period and I must confess that I was not one of those people in anguish about how they could possibly fill their time while stuck at home in a lock down.

With the social distancing restrictions lifting I'm looking forward to returning to some face-to-face gaming. Prior to the lock down we had started the 29, Let's Go! campaign for Chain of Command, but only managed to progress as far as the the first scenario 'Probe at La Cambe' before everything came to a grinding halt. I hope to be able to post the AAR for the next scenario in the not too distant future.

Undaunted: Normandy - a review

I don't normally do this, but with more time on my hands than usual I thought I'd write up my thoughts on the Osprey game Undaunted: Normandy, a two player, platoon level World War Two wargame.

This is a low level, skirmish style game where each player commands a platoon of either American or German infantry fighting in Normandy. The clearly written rules take up barely a few pages and are both quick to learn and easy to teach. However that's not to say it is simple, those straightforward rules underpin a game with a fair degree of nuance.

What makes it so novel and interesting is the combination of a fairly traditional counter and map game environment with a card driven mechanism which relies on careful deck building. I was intrigued by the concept, although I wasn't sure how well those mechanisms would work representing this level of warfare.

The game contains twelve scenarios, which can be played individually or put together to form a campaign. There are eighteen full colour tiles that are printed on both sides and these form the terrain pieces that make up the play area. There are sets of round counters which will be used on the map to represent the units for each side and a deck of cards that will drive the action of those counters. The scenarios define the configuration of the tiles, the available units, the initial placement of counters and objectives for both sides.

Each platoon is made up of three squads. The squads have three teams - 'Scouts', 'Riflemen' and 'Machine gunners', all led by a Squad Leader. The teams are represented by individual counters but the mechanism that is used to drive them is a deck of cards.

What is interesting is that the counters on the map do not represent a fixed number of men, it will be up to you to decide whether to call men forward as the tactical situation develops. Below is a picture of the counters and map tiles of a game in progress.

The binocular counters represent a tile that has been 'scouted' by their respective side (other than Scouts, a squad's counters cannot enter a tile if it has not been previously scouted). The brown, numbered flags indicate victory points awarded for control of that tile (as defined by the scenario).

While the teams are represented by counters on the map, the real interface that the player has with these units is through the deck of cards. Each platoon has a deck and each squad is represented by a squad leader card, three Scout cards, five Riflemen cards and three Machine gunner cards. These cards are both a command and control mechanism and a way of reflecting the relative strength of each team.

I was a little bit disappointed to see that both the German and American squads were basically the same and showed no national difference in structure or equipment. This is particularly notable given this is the Americans and the Germans, as I presume the German machine gun team are equipped with an MG34 or MG42, while the American team has a BAR. Distinctly different weapons and it would be good to have explored what differences they create. That said, there's absolutely no reason why later variations of the game could not do that, or alternatively players create their own. It's a small quibble but something that could have added rather nice historical chrome.

Below are the cards for the respective members of US squad 'A' (each platoon's squads are noted by either A, B or C).

The platoon also includes a Platoon Sergeant, a Platoon Guide and additional support units such as a light mortar team and a sniper (each scenario will define what if any of these are available). You will see that the bottom portion of each card lists a number of actions, the controlling player chooses which one of these to undertake when they play that card. The actual actions themselves are performed by the counter on the map, but they are driven by the play of the cards. These actions are all described in more detail on a one page quick reference sheet, but to be honest there are not many and after a few games you will find you don't need to refer to it.

The game also features 'Fog of War' cards. Essentially these are of no use, the more you have in your hand during a turn the less you will be able to do. Weeding those cards out of your deck but adding them to your opponent's is one of the roles of the Scouts. It's a nice little mechanism for abstracting the limited intelligence available to each commander.

The chosen scenario will tell you which of these teams is represented by a counter on the map and which of those cards will start in your deck (your available cards) and how many will be in supply. Supply represents those men who are not yet committed to the fight and await deployment onto the map. How and when that happens will be very much up to each player.

In the picture above from one of the scenario sheets, you will see that in the list for the starting cards some cards are marked with a D and others with an S. Those marked with a D will start in the player's deck, those marked S in supply. For this scenario the US player will not have available the platoon guide, squad C, the mortar team or the sniper. What you can see is that the US player's starting deck includes the platoon sergeant and both squad leaders, but only one rifleman and one scout from each squad and none of the machine gunners. It will be up to the player to decide when and how to use the sergeant and squad leaders to bring those riflemen, scout and machine gunner cards out of supply (in effect to call men forward) and into the deck. The deck is the pile of cards from which you will draw a hand of four cards with which to play out each turn (more on that in a minute).

This was about the only issue I have with the rules and it's a minor one but it's important to understand that cards can be in one of three places. This can be a little confusing at first.

Your hand describes the four cards you draw at the start of every turn. The deck describes the pile of available cards from which you can draw your hand. Supply describes those cards that are available for the scenario but are not yet in the deck.

If we use the example of those Machine Gunner teams for US squads A and B in the scenario sheet above. All are marked S, which means none of them will start in the deck for the US player, they are all in supply. The counters representing those Machine Gun teams are also off the map. They will only be placed at a later point in the game if the US player decides to deploy them and to do that he will need to add the machine gunner cards to his deck from supply before that can happen.

So a game begins with the map tiles configured according to the scenario sheet and with the relevant counters placed on the map. The cards that start in your deck are placed face down. The cards in supply are placed face up on one side of the playing area.

This brings us to the key driver of the game. Each turn both players draw four cards from the top of their deck. As these cards are face down neither player knows what has been drawn and they are kept secret from the opponent. Initiative for each turn is decided via a secret bid using one of those cards. Once initiative is determined the cards used to make the bid will join the player's discard pile, leaving each player with three cards for the turn.

The bid for initiative at the start of each turn offers the first dilemma, how much do you want initiative and what are you prepared to trade off to have it? The more useful the card the higher its bid value. You can bid with a Fog of War card, but with a bid value of 1, chances are you simply remove it from your hand rather than gain initiative.

The remaining three cards left in your hand will be used during the current player turn. The initiative player selects a card and plays it face up, carrying out one of the actions available to that type of card. With only three cards (and the chance one or more may be a useless Fog of War card), turns are brief and so the game flows quickly with little down time for either player.

The Scout, Rifleman and Machine Gunner cards will be used to activate their respective counters on the board. The squad leaders and the platoon sergeant carry out more abstract functions such as to call forth more men to their units (Bolster), to inspire (allow a card just played to be used again) or, in the case of the platoon sergeant, add two cards to your hand which can be used immediately (Command).

This limited number of cards introduces both friction, fog of war and a limited ability to perform actions. Much like the command dice in Chain of Command, each turn (or phase) a player must decide how best to use the limited command options available. By using a deck building mechanism Undaunted: Normandy allows you to try to control what some of those outcomes might be. How so? Knowing you will only have three cards to use per turn it's important that you keep your deck refined down to the key units you want to use at any given time, you also want to weed out the Fog of War cards (and ideally try to seed your opponent's deck with as many of these as you can).

How and when you add cards from supply into the deck is the key deck-building element of the game and a major component of command and control. A small deck that contains only the key cards for the activity you want to carry out in the upcoming turns will allow those cards to appear in your hand with greater frequency. For example early in a scenario you may want to push your Scouts forward to reconnoitre tiles, but once they've done that, you may then want to put the emphasis on your machine gun teams laying down suppressive fire, in which case you won't want a lot of Scout cards appearing in your hand when you no longer have a need for them. Time to have those men take cover somewhere by having them Hunker Down (returning the card to supply).

If you look at the example with the US machine gun teams that start the scenario in supply, if you decide that you don't need those teams right now, then there's no point adding those cards to the deck just yet. On the other hand if you can foresee a time in the near future when you might need them then you might want to start the process of adding them sooner rather than later. The reverse also applies and players can choose to Hunker Down, which returns a card to supply.

I like the narrative this sets up. The squad leader or platoon sergeant has identified an issue on the battlefield and needs the LMG team to move up and come into action. In effect he needs to go back himself or send a runner to make that happen. How and when they actually turn up is a little bit fluid and that adds a sense of battlefield friction to proceedings. In a similar way if you have too many cards in your deck, you have stretched the command structure beyond its ability to function at its most effective. Better to have squads A and B leading the action and keep C in reserve to be called up when needed than try to overstretch your command ability.

That is the traditional challenge of deck building games, how well that represents the challenge of command at platoon level is another matter. In one sense you can justify it as the extent to which a commander can focus his attention, but then we know that units can and will operate under their own initiative or simply continue following their orders even without the presence of their commander. This is where Undaunted: Normandy becomes more of a game than a wargame. Given I see this as a lighter, filler game I'm more than happy to accept this as a compromise to keep the game simple and playable. I think you can justify it as a simplified mechanism to reflect the need for the commander to stay focussed on the mission and the resources needed to have it completed.

The mechanics for movement and firing are very straightforward. Let's say the US player plays one of the cards for Rifleman A. The card offers three choices:



Move (1) - this allows a movement of one tile.

Attack (1) - this allows the unit to fire rolling one fire dice.

Control - this allows the counter to take control of the tile it currently occupies (often the key to scenario victory).

A Move is very straightforward. As long as the tile has been scouted by his side the counter may move one tile. There are no terrain restrictions to movement, it's basically an area move into a new location.

Attack allows the counter to fire. There are no line of sight restrictions (a bit odd, I know), the counter may nominate any enemy counter on the map and fire at it. In the rifleman's case you roll one D10. Each counter has a defence number (4 in the case of Riflemen). This is added to the defence value of the tile the target occupies (a number between 0 and 3 that is printed on each map tile). Finally the number of tiles from the firer to the target is added to this total (while nothing blocks line of sight completely, this range in tiles goes some way to suggesting hinderances between firer and target). So let's say we want to fire at an enemy Riflemen counter in defence terrain of value 2 that is three tiles away. That gives us the sum of 4 (the Riflemen's inherent defence value) + 2 (the terrain defence value of the target tile) + 3 (the range in tiles) = 9. In order to score a 'hit' the firer needs to roll 9 or more on a D10.

A hit represents a man out of action and requires the defending player to permanently remove a corresponding Rifleman card (for the relevant squad). This is where the distinction between hand, deck and supply is important. In the first instance the card must come from the current hand, so if you are the non-initiative player you could potentially lose a card you were intending to play in your turn. One good reason to hold the initiative and act first. If there is no card in your hand, or you have already had you turn, then remove one from the discard pile. If there is no card there remove it from your deck. If there is no corresponding card in any of these three then the player must remove the counter from the board (in other words all the men it represented have been lost as casualties). If there is a corresponding card in supply, this is not removed (as the soldier had not deployed and so wasn't in the line of fire). 

Any cards in supply can be added to your deck (using a leader's Bolster action) and when played from your hand you can return the counter to the map (but back at an initial deployment point, not to the tile from which it was removed). In other words if all the men you have in action (the cards you have in your deck) are casualties (you have no card available in your deck), then the team is no longer on the map. Of course if you have some of those cards in supply you can call those men forward to form the team, but as they are coming from the rear that's where they are going to start.

Once again this is where the deck building element becomes important. If you have a single Rifleman from squad A in your deck then the only time you will be able to activate the counter for that team is when that card cycles back into your hand for a given turn. Having the cards for all five Riflemen from squad A in your deck make that occurence much more likely. It also makes that counter much more resilient to combat casualties.



If you look at the Machine Gunner card above you will see that it has Attack (2), in other words it will roll 2D10 when it fires, so as you might expect it can be a more effective weapon. Alternatively it has the action Suppress (4). This is unique to machine guns and means the firer rolls 4D10 and any hit suppresses the target. In this instances no cards are removed for the hit, instead the target counter is flipped over to its reverse side. It can take no further action until the controlling player plays a corresponding card. This returns the counter to normal but allows no further action for that card play.

A suppressed unit is a good example of where the squad leader cards come into their own. Let's say you have a suppressed riflemen counter and in your hand for this turn you have one of the corresponding rifleman cards; the squad leader card for that squad, and a fog of war card. You could play the rifleman card first and this would return the suppressed counter to normal. By then playing the squad leader card and choosing the Inspire action you can immediately return the rifleman card to your hand. Now that the counter is no longer suppressed you can then play the rifleman card again but this time choose to use one of the actions like Move or Attack. The Fog of War card is of course useless and goes to the discard pile, so ending the player's turn.

Incidentally the discard pile is also the place where a card is put when it is moved from supply to your deck. Only when you can no longer draw four cards from your deck at the start of each turn do you shuffle the discard pile to become your new deck. The bigger your deck the longer it will take to work through it and the longer it will take a card brought from supply to the discard pile to make its way into your hand.

It only takes one game to get a decent handle on the rules and mechanics, but it takes several more to really get to grips with how to play it well. I think the classic line 'easy to learn, hard to master' probably applies. I've also found it plays very well solo. I don't use any special rules, I simply played each side to the best of my ability. The random nature of the card play makes this very easy to do.

Undaunted: Normandy is a nice twist on a number of game concepts and mechanics and I think it succeeds at what it sets out to do. With most scenarios playing out in about 45-60 minutes it also makes the perfect game when you don't want to take up a whole evening or afternoon. I like it far more than I expected I would.

Not playing, just painting

I’d like to be posting AARs of our 29, Let’s Go! campaign, but like everyone else being restricted to home has curtailed much of my gaming. The family will play board games, but the only action my miniatures are seeing is on the painting table. In that sense it’s not all bad, plenty of time to work on all those little projects I’d promised myself I’d get around to one day.

One of those is painting up the Perry 28mm plastic colonial figures I’ve had for a while. The British are the first to be assembled and see paint. I wanted to test paints and colours first and so here is my test figure. The base is not finished yet, but otherwise I’m happy with the result. One down, plenty more to go.

Prior to the lockdown I had been working on a platoon of British/Commonwealth for the early stages of the war in the Far East. For the later stages of the war I have the Eureka Australians in their jungle greens and these will also work for the British in Burma during the same period. Despite the incorrect attire those figures were used to play the Chain of Command campaign ‘Malaya 1942’, so while I’m not overly precious about having everything correct I do intend to play lots more in that earlier period of the war, especially once the Chain of Command Far East handbook is released.

With that in mind I decided to paint up a platoon in tropical kit and for that I’ve used the AB Figures western desert 8th army range. These will work for Australian militia and some AIF in the early stages of Papua New Guinea, as well as for British in Malaya, Singapore, early Burma, and Hong Kong. Of course no reason why they couldn’t also see use in North or East Africa as well, although I have flocked the bases for more tropical terrain.

While the AB range is excellent it was short of a few poses that I needed for some of the early war units and that’s one of the small projects I’ve been working on. I needed a senior leader with a pistol which is not a pose currently in the AB mix. I remembered that I had some of the old Matchbox 8th army figures stashed away somewhere and so dug them out and thought I could use one of their figures with a pistol. However by the time I based the figure and compared it in size with the AB figures I’m using for junior leaders it was apparent the two were not at all compatible.

I also wanted a platoon sergeant and section corporals with rifles rather than Thompsons. While these latter could come from AB I opted to use the 8th army figure set from Wargames Foundry. These included an officer with pistol and some riflemen in different poses from AB. They are sculpted by the Perry brothers and are as good as you might expect. They are also a good fit in size with the AB figures. These will work well and now just need to have their bases finished off.

While reading and researching that early part of the war it was apparent that several British units were still equipped in outdated uniforms and equipment. Obviously the home Army was first with the new gear, while the more far flung reaches of the empire were still using older issue. Not all infantry platoons were armed with Bren guns, with Lewis guns still in evidence. Allocation could vary, either all sections having Lewis guns or in some cases two sections with Brens and one with a Lewis. I started hunting around for 20mm figures with Lewis guns but only managed to find a range of Early War Miniatures figures with topee tropical helmets. As it happens several units in Malaya and Burma still wore the topee and had the 1908 webbing so those EWM figures would not be out of place (they’d also be useful for the 1940 East Africa campaign, Syria-Lebanon and Iraq). 

Pictures below show British troops training in Malaya just prior to the Japanese invasion.

I didn’t need them, but you know how this goes and so I ordered enough for a platoon. I’m not very impressed with the sculpts, they’re rather crude and somewhat short of the standard of AB Figures. That said, with a lick of paint and if viewed at playing distance they are passable. 

Here is the first section and some senior leaders just waiting to have their bases finished.

In terms of their opponents, my Japanese force is fairly complete. I did however need a few more figures to fill out the ranks of the rather large early war platoons. Researching the battle at Milne Bay in Papua New Guinea I also discovered the Japanese SNLF units had a grenade discharger squad of four teams, leaving me short of one team. In addition the platoon HQ included the senior leader and two men armed with SMGs who together with the senior leader make a small team. As I don’t have any SMG armed Japanese I wanted to add a few that could fill this role. They are also useful for junior leaders who can often exchange their rifle for an SMG as a support option.

While I’m happy with the Eureka Japanese (see pic below) I wanted to introduce a bit of variety in poses and so decided to look around to see what was available in other ranges. 

The first batch of these additional figures came from the old Wartime Miniatures range (now sold by Simon’s Soldiers). This included a ten man rifle squad, whose leader would make a good Gunso (the inferior senior leader who is the platoon’s second in command). The prone LMG team offered some variety, as the Eureka LMG teams that make up the bulk of the existing platoon are all in standing poses. The remaining riflemen give me the extra figures I need to fill the ranks of a large platoon. 

In the same order I added two grenade discharger teams, a gun crew and a flamethrower. Unfortunately they don’t do any figures with an SMG.

While I was looking at the Early War Miniatures site I noticed they had a range of Japanese that included figures with SMG. The sculpts didn’t look that great on the website, but as these were the only figures with SMGs that I could find, I took the plunge and added these and a few others when I ordered the tropical British figures. Unfortunately when the figures arrived the SMG sculpts were as bad as, if not worse than I feared. I based two as junior leaders and decided I would paint them in summer tropical shirts. The other two would be for the SNLF men who accompany the platoon leader. Sometimes a bit of paint can do wonders to lift a poor sculpt but regrettably these are beyond redemption.

I’ve since discovered Scale Miniatures 172, a range I was unaware of, and ordered some of their figures with SMG. Judging by the images on their website and a recommendation from another gamer they look far superior. Let’s hope so, I’d be happy to retire the EWM figures before they fire a shot in anger.

Having said that some of the other EWM figures are much better and must be the work of a different sculptor. They have a rather nice bugler.

The man throwing a grenade is also a good sculpt, with one exception - he has spectacles. I didn’t notice until he was primed and I was about to paint him, but really, why manufacturers feel the need to have Japanese in spectacles can only be explained as a concession to some lingering and unpleasant propaganda stereotypes from 80 years ago.

So, overall a mixed bag from EWM but a few more useful additions to the Japanese collection.

Staying on the Far East theme I plan to rebase the Chinese force that I created several years ago for Crossfire. I want to base them individually to create a platoon for Chain of Command. Most of these figures are from the Caesar plastic Chinese army set but have been converted using Airfix heads to represent the elite, German trained divisions. That German influence is apparent in the platoon structure which mirrors the early-war four squad structure.

To make sure I have enough figures I took the opportunity to add some of the Foundry range when I was placing my order for the 8th army figures. Unfortunately these come with eight of the ten figures in the same pose. Nonetheless they are lovely figures and when scattered across four squads will not be that obvious. I particularly like the officer, who is a delightful sculpt and will be the senior leader of the forthcoming platoon.

All in all, despite the lack of gaming, it’s been a fairly productive period on the painting front and it’s been good to fill a few gaps in various collections.