The Littlewars event we are running is a King of the Hill style event where the aim is to be the only side close to an objective at the end of each turn. As such we need an objective that’s worth fighting for. With the plan to have the fight occurring in a city it seemed natural to have a square with a statue or fountain in the middle and that would form the objective.
A fountain seems a bit dull, and while a group of children playing ring-a-rosie a la the centre of Stalingrad might be poignant I’m not sure how I’d pull it off.
So heights were set a little lower, but still a statue would be nice. Options such as a standing bear or Lenin/Marx/Stalin, but it’s not easy to find something that’s affordable and about the right size: 10-15cm (4-6″) was my sweet spot. Now, Dust Models do make a Victory Square Statue that would work, but over here in Australia it’s going to take a while to ship and cost a heap. Thus that was shelved. However, I don’t mind the idea of a patriotic figure on a pedestal as it feels like a pretty Soviet style thing to do.
A couple of days of pondering raised the idea of picking up one of the larger scale (1/16 or 1/12) figures that the plastic model producers put out. A lot of them are WW2 military figures and they’re readily available and straightforward to put together. The plan was to mount it on a pedestal and give the statue a bronze patina paint job and the pedestal a concrete/stone job depending on what it ends up being.
This plan had sat idle for a little while; I’ve currently got 5 SSU walkers all nearing painting completion that have taken all my hobby time for the last couple of weeks. However the little lady (who is a frequent facilitator of these projects) arrived with a surprise today: a 1/16 Russian WW2 Commander figure by Tamiya (pictured below) that will be perfect. He’s about 11cm tall, unmistakably Russian and of the right vintage.
Now my paint job is going to be nothing like what’s pictured, but I think done up with a bronze patina and with an appropriate plinth he should make a pretty good objective, definitely something worth shooting up some dirty Axis Facists and Allied Capitalists over. As he progresses I’ll post a few WIP shots. However the next missive will – hopefully – be a hoard of finished SSU KV walkers.
