Matt from Elhiem Figuers recently published these excellent shots of his cold war infantry range on the Guild recently.
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| Elhiem German Range |
The NATO range currently covers British, US , German and generic NATO. The figures are capable of portraying forces up to company level with the focuses on basic infantry, and light support weapons found within the platoon and company. The range will be expanded over the coming year to enable representation of the forces required by the scenarios in Ambush Alleys Cold War Hot Supplement for their Force on Force rule set.
Elhiem Generic NATO Range
The German and Generic NATO figures are suitable for Danish, Norwegian and German. They can cover a number of other NATO nations with some green stuff adaption of webbing or as is depending on taste, these would include Portuguese and Spanish. The Spanish in particular offer some interesting opportunities around head swaps with WW2 germans. The range also offers oppourtunities into the middle east for units that wore M1 helmets and carried G3s.
Whilst the G3 and FN FAL SLR were similar they are bizarly quite distinctive in there own right so Canadians, Dutch, Belgium and Greeks are more of a stretch but this depends on your taste, most of these armies also deployed the FN Mag GPMG whilst Matt's Generic NATO figures use the German MG3. In addition to the smaller NATO nations Matt also covers the US and British forces of this period. Using the British to represent some of the other minor FN FAL SLR and FN MAG equipped nations is difficult because of the distinctive appearance of the British webbing and Helmet. The US component of the range currently includes both flavours of US helmets. The M1 Helmeted guys are equipped with M16A1s and a M60 whilst the guys in the K pots have body armour, M16A2s and an M249.
Elhiem US Range
Elhiem British Range
All up a great looking range offering a degree of flexibility of use to represent a wide variety of Cold War forces, and some great painting by Matt. Its good to hear there are plans to extend the range. If I was asked what would add to the range I think I'd plum for the odd European beret and some heavier anti tank weapons including Milan as well as some M1 helmet, SLR and FN MAG equipped troops to round out the minor nations and offer scope for representation of African forces.
NATO Armies today, Osprey
Great painting by Matt. Thanks for the review. Looking at the generic NATO, I don't think it would be that hard to adapt to Belgian forces. I was fortunate enough to spend some time with the Belgian army back in the late 90's and they were still using more or less the same kit as they did in the Cold War. Infantry eapons wise at least. Those cold-war NATO miniatures look pretty much like the Belgian infantry did when I knew them in the 90's.
ReplyDeleteNice review Andy. I have a soft spot for the 4th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group in Germany circa 80s. This is mainly because of the excellent "First Clash" Novel come field manual by Kenneth Macksey which I read as a cadet in the mid 80s. It occured to me that Argentine infantry would be pretty close for NATO Central Front Canadians with the M1 helmet and SLR/FN FAL. After my current Falklands project I may just dabble in a bit of Cold War. Thanks for the inspiration.
ReplyDeleteAye,
Rusty