Friday 25 November 2016

Adler Command

While I was painting my Baccus UK Paras, I needed some extra variety in the command figures. I ordered a couple of command strips from Adler, and while I was at it I picked up two command strips each of Wehrmacht, Waffen SS and FJ. Each strip has four figures - the poses vary from one range to another, though in every case one of the four is a kneeling radio operator.
So in each group I had eight figures in four poses. I used one set to make a four-man command team in a 1" square base. The other four figures I put on coin bases - two singles and one pair including the radio. Good figures and they paint up well - and they have the advantage of being available in small quantities if you need them to make up a unit or for some particular purpose.











Thursday 24 November 2016

Baccus Paras

At Joy of Six in July I picked up a number of packs of Baccus British Paratroops - two of the standard infantry packs of about 100 figures (one each of Advancing and Firing) plus some of the support packs - MMG, PIATs, 2" Mortars. The support items come based on small discs about the size of a 5p piece, and I left some just like that, while others I based on my usual 1" square steel. The individual infantry come as strips of four figures - you get four command strips and 20 line strips in each pack. The command strips are the same in both packs, though the line strips are obviously different (one firing, the other advancing). So in the two packs I got 32 command figures in four poses, and 160 line figures in 8 poses.
It would have been nice to have a little more variety, though the figures themselves are very well sculpted, perhaps the best at this scale I have tried (competing for that honour with GHQ and Adler). For the basic infantry this wasn't really a problem, but I wanted a little more variety for the command, so I ordered a couple of Para command strips from Adler (as well as some other command figures, for which see another post). All told I made seven 1" square Command bases, and 23 infantry bases. I painted them in a three colour camo pattern - a base of khaki with spots of desert sand and a terracotta brown.
In addition I had been playing some IABSM, which really needs individual Big Men. So I made a dozen single figures, mostly command but also a few from the basic infantry, based on 5p pieces. Previously I had thought that single figure bases in 6mm was a bit too far out, but in fact with the quality of these figures it works perfectly well. This opens up the possibility of skirmish games at this scale, which I had previously ruled out.
Overall I would rate these figures very highly. Slightly more variety would be nice, but that's not a big gripe. There were a few casting problems with figures having one leg gapped at the ankle, and I lost 2-3 figures that way - not a high percentage. I have a lot more Baccus to paint - British and German infantry - and I see that they have just released a range of German infantry in the smock.
The pictures show a variety of the units, support weapons and single figures, and at the end a couple of pictures of the whole lot in their container.