Doin' it Easy

Ever since watching Band of Brothers I have wanted to build a US Parachute Company, based around the Battle for Foy. 

When I saw the winter troops for the American Bulge book I knew the project was on. Starting with the figures - I don't know why I was expecting plastics, but when they arrived they were metal. They are terrific sculpts with a good variety of poses and cleaned up really well. 

I like the chunkiness of the figures, as if they are wearing as many layers as they can. For inspiration I went back to Band of Brothers again. I wanted to pick up on the way the winter uniforms were haphazardly pieced together. Some men had winter coats, some in normal uniform, lots of scarves and gloves. I like the way there is only the occasional white helmet too, supplies were short and they spread them out as best they could. 

As the paint scheme came through the basing was my next challenge. White is alway a tricky colour to get some depth in. Citidels Wraithbone is off white enough to give a little depth into the basing. I decided to paint the bevels white too. I then put a snow flock over ther base. Some bases were finished with winter grass and some with log piles cut from trimmed plants in my garden. I like to base platoons slightly differently to be able to tell them apart on the board (small numbers on the back of bases don't work for these old eyes). I then went mad and bought Armour, 3" guns, mortar and an HMG platoon. Plenty of this project to complete. 

And here is what I have completed so far.