As some of you might already have noticed in my previous post, there were picture of a MP-figure there which was not from the Tobar's Matchbox clones
As mentioned before, I'm planning to use these figures as gaming pieces to play different miniature skirmish wargames, which rulesets are published online and free to use. I'm not an experienced
'wargamer' and I don't want to spend a fortune on expensive, thick and complicated rulebooks, which I have no time to read anyway, nor spending even more on expensive miniatures to go with these specific games. I want to try to keep this wargaming-edeavour as easy and simple as possible, on a Budget and most of all FUN. One such free wargame ruleset I plan to use is
FUBAR, which covers a lot of different periods. Just go to the download-section to have a look for yourself. One thing with the FUBAR-rules is that is differs between different troop quality ranging from
'green' to
'elite'. If my previously previewed Tobar/Matchbox GIs are going to represent the regular and
'seasoned' infantry, I was going to need some other soldiers to represent a more skilled and better equipped squad on either 'side' representing
'veterans' or
'elite'. I found the answer very quickly at a online flea market, were someone sold a bucket of 70 soldiers in 10 different poses for just 50 kr, or about $ 5.5 or £ 4.3.
This Bucket was actually a licensed
'Bucket O Soldiers' from Pixar's/Disney's Toy Story movies. The figures are about 2.5" tall and a tad bigger than the regular 54mm/1:32 scale and are made of very soft plastic. Therefore they were in pretty good condition as they're made for a lot of handling, but I'm not sure if they're going to hold paint very well despite propper washing and priming before painting. The soldiers themselves are a representation of the army men from the Toy Story movies, and are based upon the M16 Army Men from
Tim Mee. Many poses are exactly the same as the Tim Mee soldiers, and some others are from the movie (as the saluting Sarge and a couple of others). The 2 paratroopers were missing in action, and were not in my bucket. I didn't mind as I was not going to use them anyway, as with some of the other not so suitable poses for wargaming. I was only going to build a
'veteran' squad of 10 men on
each side, and didn't need that many figures. The little more modern look with assault rifles fitted perfectly as they are supposed to be better equipped and higher skilled than the regular infantry, and assault rifles gives 2
fire points at close range with the FUBAR-rules. These are going to have both more expertise and firepower than the regular infantry, and will fill the role of better trained and capable troops.
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| All of the 10 different poses in the bucket. The saluting Sarge. and the 2 soldier to the right of him are not identical to the Tim Mee poses, but the rest of the figures are. |
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| They are pretty large |
Again I wanted a generic and credible
'Green vs. Tan' approach to these figures. They also needed to go along with the earlier previewed and painted regular Infantry from Tobar, and at the same time be different enough from them to sort the
'regulars' from the new
'veterans'. This time I painted the UN-troops with khaki uniforms, again identified by their blue helmets. I've found prototype for this among both Norwegian and Swedish UN forces. For the opposing forces I did just the other way around from their regulars; Giving them olive uniforms and tan helmets and webbing. I found this suitable for both Israeli paratroopers, Egyptian troops and the Iraq republican guard. To make the assault rifles a little bit different from their UN-counterparts, I painted the butt and foregrip in a wooden color.
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| Note the base was too small for successful wargaming, so I enlarged it a bit. |
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| Even though I washed them, primed them, painted them and sealed them, the figure to the right flakes alleready… |
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| A larger base was also needed on these figures. |
Since this bucket also included figures firing light mortars, I decided to include some support weapons to the regular infantry, and painted them like I painted the Tobar/Matchbox soldiers previously reviewed in former posts.
As I'm intending to use these troopers for wargaming, I'm organizing them into rifle squads/sections. But to so in a propper way, they actually miss one thing which most rifle squads have; a machine gunner armed with a a LMG. The 'Bucket O Soldiers' didn't contain any such figures.
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The two sections are kind of large (at least bigger than a Norwegian section of 8 men), and can be divided in to even more fireteams. A LMG might get useful for them
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As I wanted my new machine gunners to match the rest of their squad in both style and size, I decided to convert some of the other Toy Story figures left in the bucket for this purpose. Since I've used most figures for different purposes, there wasn't so many left to choose between. I had some engineers with mine-detectors left, as they are not so useful for my type of wargaming. Besides, their position is not that bad for a soldier carrying a LMG (at least not for a "links-shooter").
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Still in a Classic style and pose
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The next challenge was to find a suitable LMG to arm them with. I keep leftovers from kits in a box full og bits and pieces, but my guns there were mostly 1:35 scale. I found them to small, as the Toy Story-soldiers are bigger. To buy other kits just to get the machineguns wasn't tempting, but on Thingeverse I found a lot of 3D-files for free to print. I also found a huge selection of different weapons there as well. As I was able to print some files from Thingeverse (more on that in a later blog-post), it was just to take a pick.
Even though their generic, green and tan "Imagi-NATION" style, I kept Norwegian soldiers in mind making the UN-troops. Therefore I wanted to arm them with a machinegun used by Norwegian Armed Forces. As the MG3 was one of my favorites from my own service, it had to be one f those. It is very similar to the WWII German MG42, so it was easy to find some models/files on Thingeverse. I had to try to print different files of the MG42, as not all of them came out successfully due to the small size. I found a "Lego MG42" for "Lego Minifigs Wargaming", and resized it to 1:32 scale. It was a robust model and turned out quiet well, so I printed 2 models with both folded and unfolded bipods. I kept the drum magazine on, as it enables the LMG to be operated by 1 person and will be an advantage in wargaming.
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| Printed in both black and white PLA-plastic with bipods both folded and unfolded. |
Now the soft, oily plastic the soldiers are made from became handy, as I was able to bend the left arm on one of them easily by hot water. The other one I kept a little different deliberately to get a slight variation. With the LMGs fitted, my soldiers became wobbly due to their small original base and added weight. Back at Thingeverse I found different bases and resized and printed one of them. Now they stands steady.
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| Don't look to good yet, as some putty and glue is still visible |
Painting is straight forward, nothing new here. Washed, primed, painted, and sealed with Mod Podge directly this time.
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Primed and ready
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I tried to add further variations as some of the drum magazines looks different from different manufacturers. Some MG3s uses old and new parts, and some even has old MG42 parts. That's why I gave the soldier to the right an older 'brownish' Bakelite sholderstock to his weapon.
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A quick wash and drybrush brings out the few little details that these 'smooth' figures has.
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Now they're ready to team up with their BIA and complete their squads, and probably for some action as well....
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