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Tuesday 14 September 2021

Hit the Beach!

A few weeks ago I received some kindly donated Airfix US Marines.  Some were in an original box with some very insprational artwork:

All sorts of ideas emerged and I decided that an assault on a Japanese held island, run as a linear campaign, as described in 'Developing the Portable Wargame' might be an interesting project.

I have painted loads of Airfix marines before, but normally as ordinary US infantry.  After a little research I decided to go for a plain green uniform with camouflaged helmets. I had to convert a few to create mortar teams and re-roled some Matchbox US infantry.  Here are the results:






I didn't know what to do with the chaps walking along holding rifles above their heads, so I chopped them off at the waist to simulate wading ashore:

Fire support comes from some LVT(A) - 1s.  There is a box of Buffalo, DUKW and Landing craft in the garage that I have yet to dig out:

The beach gaming mat is 6 x 4 from Deepcut Studios.

What fun!




21 comments:

  1. Smashing Bob, they look great.
    Regards,
    Paul.

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    1. Thanks Paul, they were fun to paint. Looking forward to doing some Japanese next. I am thinking of dug in infantry. and machine gun nests.

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  2. Those old Airfix look great with paint!
    I'm sure that somewhere on your blog you've discussed how you paint 1/72 plastics, but darn if I can find it.
    Can you provide a quick "how to" regarding what you prime and paint with, and how you seal them so they don't flake?

    thanks!

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    1. Hi Pan Marek, thanks for your comment. First off, mounting figures on bases does much to protect them as the base rather than the figure is handled. I 'prime' my figures with a thin coat of PVA wood glue. I then block paint all the colours and seal with another coat of PVA, again very thinly applied. This dries glossy, but a brown wash gives the figures definition and dries Matt - I use a sepia wash from Citadel. And that's it. Sometimes I do a light dry brush to highlight detail. Hope this helps. Bob

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  3. These came out great, and I love the mortar team conversions !

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    1. Thanks JohnM. It was always a challenge creating machine gun and mortar teams for the early Airfix sets. Only the 8th Army and Russian sets had medium machine guns. The Russians had a mortar too.

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  4. The artwork on the Airfix boxes always sparked the imagination when purchasing their figures and model kits.

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    1. Peter, I agree. I was a sucker for Roy Cross artwork.

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  5. Fab art and bases of wading soldiers - visually, the game is there, even before the first die is rolled. Very nice.

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    1. Thanks Norm, just hope I can do the Japanese some justice.

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  6. Way cool. Have you got the Japanese bods to oppose them?

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  7. What a great set of figures. I still have my old Airfix US Marines (painted as infantry) from the 1970s.

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    1. Thanks Martin. I think that this was a great set from Airfix, although there were some odd poses in the box. It is a shame that they didn't produce some crew served weapons rather some of those strange figures.

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  8. A really great way to use those figures holding the rifles above their heads. How about a longer base with them progessively getting higher out of the water as they approach the beach?

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    1. Food for thought..... or alternatively go the other way so that just the head is poking out! I need to work how to use the other odd bods in the box.

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    2. Or perhaps one shooting while still in the water, or is that a waste of a useful figure?

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  9. Now there's some figures that really do bring back some good memories-still look good too.

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  10. Replies
    1. Thanks Prufrock, I am thinking of doing something similar with the dinghies.

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  11. First issue US Marines are my favourite Airfix set! Funny but I always thought the guy with the rifle over his head was surrendering but now I see what he’s supposed to be doing…

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