Making an Army, or two, on a budget

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 In this blogpost I show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc free wargame rules

To wargame you don't only need one army, but you'll need at least 2 of them to combat. Preferably super cheap too. Regular plastic toy soldiers, Army Men, "småsoldater", "krigere" or whatever you prefer to call them are usually cheap and good value for money due to the number of miniatures. Too bad they're not that usual to find in regular toy stores or in retail in general anymore. Unfortunately at least not in Norway they aren't anymore.

It was therefore a great surprise when I've found these cheaply priced boxes containing of 32 troopers  in the museum store at the 'Norwegian Armed Forces Museum', for only kr 50,- or approx.
£ 4.4 or $ 5.6. The box contains 32 GI's in 12 different poses and an additional carry bag.

In this blogpost I show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc free wargame rules

The soldier themselves seems to be (Chinese?) copies of Matchbox' old 1/32 or 54mm scale American Combat Troops (from WWII). These soldiers are distributed by Tobar Toys. The Matchbox originals were only containing 15 figures in the box, compared to these of 32 figures. All the original 1/32 Matchbox-poses seems to be there as well, except for the officer with pistol and the great coat. -Instead this set contains a figure from the Matchbox 1/76th scale American Infantry set (WWII); an rifleman leaning forward.

The plastic is a little harder than the soft plastic from the originals, and should perhaps hold paint better. It's still soft enough to bend any bent rifles etc. thou. The figures seems a little smaller/shorter than their Matchbox equivalents, and they are maybe closer to1/35th scale than to the originals 1/32nd scale. The moldings on the figures are good, but not as crisps as the original ones. The rifle is not that clear to be a M1 Garand as with the Matchbox figures, and seems to be a more generic type.

Here are some photos for comparison; Original Matchbox to the left and Tobar Army Troopers to the right:
In this blogpost I show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc free wargame rules
Submachine guy. Maybe he's the section leader?
In this blogpost I show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc free wargame rules
The flamethrower guy.
In this blogpost I show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc free wargame rules
The Heavy Machine Gun (50. cal) guy. The loader is not included in any of the sets.

All in all, I think these are nice clones, a fair amount of soldiers for a reasonable price, and they are a lot better than many of the other buckets or bags of cheap army men to be found out there. Now I'll need to paint them.

Building an army, or two, for specific miniature wargames might be an expensive and daunting experience. I've found these cheap sets of 32 toy soldiers of approx 54mm size in the museum store at the 'Norwegian Armed Forces Museum'. As I plan to use them as gaming pieces for different miniature wargames found online for free, such as FUBAR, 1BC Wargame, OMOG, Fighting Plastic and several others, I've bought 4 sets. -Enough for 2 rifle platoons (accordingly to the Norwegian structure), each consisting of 1 HQ-section, 3 rifle-sections, 1 HMG-section and 1 anti-tank-section. And the bonus; You've got figures leftover for other projects as well.

In this blogpost I'' show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc wargame and some kitbashing
The box of 32 54mm figures from Tobar, which are nice copies of the 1/32nd scale Matchbox american WWII infantry.

Since Iv'e been planning to use them for wargaming, I needed opposing forces. It might seems like a challenge to use only one kind of figure set since they're all of the same type. These figures portrays American WWII soldiers though, but the benefit is that American surpluse equipment after WWII was spread and used in different combinations among a lot of different nations world wide for many years. I've also wanted a generic yet credible"Green vs. Tan" approach to my fighting forces, and did not have any specific nation or conflict in mind for my wargaming except for it was going to be 'post war'.

One force, which has a pretty generic approach, and also used a lot of ex-US equipment was forces from different nations joining United Nations in different peacekeeping missions. They're mostly identified by their blue helmets. I have to admit I had Norwegian UN-troops in mind painting these soldiers, but their look is similar for a lot of other nation joining the UN-forces in different missions world wide as well.
In this blogpost I'' show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc wargame and some kitbashing
The soldier to the left is a 1960ies Swedish UN soldier, and the one to the right is a Norwegian one from the same period. The latter is wearing a shirt, but his jacket would have the same colors as his trousers

In this blogpost I'' show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc wargame and some kitbashing
The soldier to the left (behind the Bazooka soldier) is actually from the Matchbox 1:76th scale range, and was not included in their 1:32nd scale of the same set.

Now I had to find a credible generic opposing force using both M1-helmets and 'M1 rifles' (not easily recognizable on these figures), to my generic UN-troops looking exactly the same. That seemed like a tougher task, but after som searches on internet and from different Osprey publications I've found some similarities; Green-ish M1-looking-helmets and webbing over kaki-ish uniforms and rifles with wooden stock would be appropriate for postwar forces from Congo, Angola, Haiti, Israel, Syria and Egypt.
In this blogpost I'' show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc wargame and some kitbashing
This is an example of this 'generic' look. An Angola infantryman to the left, and an Israeli paratrooper to the right.

In this blogpost I'' show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc wargame and some kitbashing

There were no figures with Light Machine Guns (LMG) in the sets, and I needed some of those to make the rifle-sections complete. So some 'figure-bashing' and modifications were needed. I simply cut the tank and hose off some flamethrower-figures, and added a bipod and an ammunition belt (yes, I know it's fed from the wrong side). I think the LMG will pass for a M34, MG42/MG3 or some similar small machineguns.
In this blogpost I'' show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc wargame and some kitbashing
The tank removed from the 2 outer figures is not so obvious here as that their LMGs are feed from the wrong side. I considered to have the belt on the right side, but their left forearm was in the way.

I also wanted to add a sniper to each side, and simply just added some plastic-rodding to a kneeling rifleman. If I'm doing this again I would use a little thicker rodding next time.
In this blogpost I'' show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc wargame and some kitbashing
Since snipers are suppose to hide, I gave these guys a little more camouflaged uniforms than their fellow Brother in arms.

Now the leftover-figures became handy; already in the cutting-prosess I got inspired and added som variations to other figures as well. A kneeling bazooka-guy got new legs from a handgrenade-figure (a kind of figure I find kind of useless for wargame purposes anyway. Who goes to war only armed With handgrenades? -Except for North Koreans during the Korean war).
In this blogpost I'' show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc wargame and some kitbashing

A couple of standing HMG-figures might also be handy for wargaming, operating either stationary or vehicle-mounted HMGs. Again the legs from the otherwise useless handgrenade-figure became useful.
In this blogpost I'' show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc wargame and some kitbashing
Not looking so good by them selves, but they'll probably look better in a watchtower or on a vehicle.

Depending on what (free) rulesets to use for the wargaming, I've though that a couple of medics might be necessary and useful on either side. Here the again otherwise useless handgrenade-figure became useful again as he's not armed and by simply cutting his hand grenades away.
In this blogpost I'' show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc wargame and some kitbashing
The pose is may be not so typical for a medic. At least he's unarmed, and gives a possibility to use medics in the play.

Since I was a Military Police-officer during my own service, both domestic and abroad, I wanted the possibility to add a small group of MPs to some games as well.
In this blogpost I'' show how you can use cheap army men, toy soldiers, for building armies for wargame like fubar, omog, 1bc wargame and some kitbashing

By now, it's not many useful figures left in the box from those 4 sets, but probably some possibilities to play credible skirmish wargames settled somewhere in Africa, the middle east or in the Caribbean.

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