Commando Raid!

Oh, nice delivery by Mr. Posty! Though, in a way, this arrived a little sooner than I might have wished it as I'm still tinkering with my Commando test figures...

A useful advantage to buying the Warlord Commando starter set - aside from the cost - is that this set includes a set of decals for the Commandos' shoulder badges...

Should be interesting putting all these on (though I'm pleased to see that they include - in theory - enough decals to do 66 Commandos...IF you don't spoil any of the transfers!)

Still, I guess I now have to decide how my Bolt Action Commando force will be put together. At this stage, I am looking at just a modest 500 point army, so the core will be two infantry squads. And I know I want to take advantage of the Commandos strong points, particularly for close-in fighting, so one of those squads will be heavily SMG based (the other being rifle for longer range engagements).

The 'coolness' of the knitted Balaclava helmet was a short lived thing! LOL

I'm sure my opponents at the Scarborough Games Society will soon show me (and take advantage of) any errors and weaknesses in my organisational skills! :)

Another new arrival was a couple of figures I ordered from Black Tree Designs. While the bulk of my army will be made up from Warlord's plastic figures - to keep costs down - I still want special characters within my army to be ones from the Artizan Designs range. But, at the same time, I also wanted to have a look at other makes of 28mm Commandos out there.

Here's a little selection of some of the samples I've bought so I can compare them...

All of the metal figures I ordered are a smidgen taller than the Warlord plastics, but not as much as you might notice when they are mixed in together. The tallest figures are the Black Tree Commandos, which is a shame as this is the only range that includes things like silenced weapons and specialist demolition teams (the downside is that they are wearing the comforter - or 'watch cap' - instead of a beret).

The Dixons Miniatures figures are rather nice in their own way - and are closer in design to the Artizan ones if you want to mix and match - and they have some nice individual poses. I bought the officer with Colt 1911 (or possibly a Browning HP35) and the walking radio operator as they are something the other ranges don't have. One advantage of Dixon's Commandos is that the poses come with the options of headgear - beret, comforter or helmet.

Foundry Commandos

 I came across two other ranges - Foundry (wearing comforters) and Westwind's Berlin or Bust (wearing berets) - but they were both a bit pricey, with basic sets coming in at £11 so I didn't bother with them. But, they did look very interesting. Let me know if you know of any other 28mm WW2 Commando miniatures out there!

Westwind Commandos