Looking for some guns With the bulk of the Cape Town troops close to being completed, I kept mulling over a problem. While the troops we bought covered most thing in a basic platoon, there were gaps. Most obviously, there were no SMG armed minis, and the Thompson SMG was a common armament for section leaders in the desert. There were also no anti-tank rifle, and only a medium mortar, not a light one. We were also a tad short of support weapon crews. Needless to say, the options out there to add these are not great. There's a set of kilt wearing specialists from Pulp Miniatures which would net me a Thompson, but it would be quite impractical for equipping an entire platoon's worth of leaders. I had to look elsewhere. Filling the gaps Green stuff and magic sculpt are useful putties for filling in gaps on minis, so why not use it to fill the gaps in our Highlander force as well? We managed to time our North Africa adventures with Warlord's new releases for the theater, so I checked out their new 8th army plastic set. Indeed, it comes with both Boys' anti-tank rifles, 2 inch light mortars, and a bunch of Thompson SMGs. Perfect! It even comes with several head options, one of them being tam o' shanter caps. That's pretty much everything we need... ...except the kilts. I went about to make some kilts and the kilt hose flashes out of modeling putty. It was a long time since I tried sculpting, so I tested several options. Both Kneadatite ("green stuff") alone, magic sculpt alone, and some different mixes of them. In the end, I liked mixing them best. If you mix a bit of magic sculpt into your green stuff, it becomes much harder and you can scrape or even file the material after it cures. Pure green stuff becomes much more like rubber. Leaders with Thompson SMGs. Comparison mini on the right. Mortar and AT rifle weapon teams, as well as an extra crew for the MMG. Initial impressionsWell, for good and for bad, Warlord minis are really beefy. To me it feels a bit odd, especually as you look at pictures from the desert, and a lot of soldiers look thin, lanky, and sinewy after serving for a while in the arid climate.
On the positive side, it was a great way to add both weapon teams and extra leaders to the platoon. The kilts were pretty quick to sculpt, even for a novice like me, though I'm not sure I'd have the stamina to sculpt kilts on the entire box. Now I look forward to see how these guys will match up with a coat of paint on them. That, and I'll need to decide what to do with the rest of the box! Cheers, Jonas
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