Tell That To The (Pound Store Plastic) Marines

Marine Infantry with grey helmets and blue sailor’s neck cloth.

Marine Infantry with green helmets and side packs

Two new skirmish or raiding forces added from the 200 tiny Airfix cloned or pirated figures from the current Combat Mission Mini Play Set. https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2020/06/23/the-joy-of-pound-store-play-sets/

These two groups of generic Marine Infantry are loosely based on two different sources:

1) L & F Funcken, Uniforms of WW2 page showing German sailors in landing rig and grey steel helmets.

2) the Russian Navy Marine Infantry or ‘Black Devils’ as the Germans called them after their dark navy blue uniforms. Other equipment like packs and helmets were Russian Army Green.

A page from An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Uniforms of World War Two

They were undercoated in a blue- black acrylic mix. Painting was kept very simple, the kind of painting you did with Airfix figure as a child in the 1970s. They usually already had the basic uniform colour plastic. Face, rifle, packs, boots and base painted.

Marine Infantry (Grey helmets) alongside Marine Infantry (Green Helmets)

Otherwise no wash, no fuss, just a green painted washer for a base. Simple.

These new dark blue figures can join in ImagiNations skirmishes with or alongside existing Verdan or Grizan troops.

Verdan forces

Grizan forces

Grizan versus Verdan forces can be seen in this Interwar border skirmish:

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2020/06/28/verda-versus-griza-pound-store-plastic-soldiers-20mm-interbellum-fms-skirmish-now-with-added-esperanto/

I was pleased to see these simple Airfix copy figures crop up on Maudlin Jack Tar’s excellent blog:

https://pampersandp.blogspot.com/2020/07/army-men-activity.html

Four groups or units of figures so far – this still leaves me with over a hundred more green and grey basic figures for future projects and groups (albeit with a whole fiercesome unit which will be made up of bazooka men and officers waving pistols!)

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 13 July 2020.