Blister with cover
Background
One of the many long-term modelling projects I’ve been working on is a Mid War force for the British. As part of that, I’ve assembled a reasonably-sized force for them, totalling around 200 points, including a two-platoon Rifle Company with a fair number of integrated support units. One thing I didn’t have, however, was a Machine-Gun Platoon. My actual need for one is perhaps a little questionable, as I’m not sure they’ll really bring much to the table, but I find their quirky little party trick of being able to fire a barrage of MG rounds up in the air to land like an artillery strike quite appealing, so I resolved to get one anyway.
The first speedbump was one which many players complain of- Battlefront’s current focus on the Late War time period means that their restock for Mid War can be erratic; it also means that some units have been eliminated entirely for the period, as appears to be the case with the Machine-Gun Platoon. Undeterred, I went about looking for other options.
Fortunately, there is still a Late War version of the unit. At this scale, any difference between the figures is likely to be all but unnoticeable from further than a couple of feet away. The real problem would be that the uniform style doesn’t match with the main body of my Brits, who are all kitted out in their Desert Rats finery. I rationalised this by figuring that they were new deployments who hadn’t yet been issued their desert fatigues, or perhaps the units were fighting in Italy and the parent company hadn’t received their European togs. Whether either of these explanations would be historically correct I have no idea, but dammit, I wanted those machine gunners!
Contents
There are four of these to a blister (note obligatory model snapped from sprue!)
This little blister contains enough models to build four teams of machine-gun troops in that brittle resin of Battlefront’s (I’ve never had a single set made of that material which has arrived with all of the figures attached to the sprues, and I’ve bought a lot of them). There are also three Late War unit cards (for standard soldiers, Desert Rats, and Commando units), as well as the necessary bases and a couple of sprues of base plugs.
The unit cards
Building & Modelling
There’s no variation in the figure poses offered for each team, so if you want the stands to look different you’ll need to do it through creative positioning. The two-piece machine-gunners can be a little fiddly to line up properly; while this isn’t exactly uncommon with infantry at this scale, it’s compounded by the casting of the joining piece between the two parts, which honestly isn’t great. There’s also a bit of cleanup to be done, and because it’s this weird resin, mouldline scraping isn’t really possible, the flash needs to be cut away with a sharp knife (seeing the closeups in the photo below, I realise I’ve managed to miss some).
Examples of the finished stands
Summary
While the finished models look good, the building process isn’t a task I’d be in a hurry to repeat. However, with a coat of paint, I’m sure everything will be worthwhile, and the fun of watching them dump rainstorms of lead on their opponent’s heads is something I’m very much looking forward to!