Partial as I am to leaping from my bath naked and running through the streets, propounding my latest theory, I thought I’d share this one with you: when it comes to Afghan civilians for Fighting Season you really cannot beat the range produced by Eureka Miniatures.  Maybe this is unsurprising as Eureka have worked very closely with us to ensure that when Fighting Season is released this summer they will be ready with a great range of figures have been sculpted with the system specifically in mind.
 
Rob at Eureka USA very kindly sent me a set of the civvies through as soon as they were ready.  They do produce a set of generic middle eastern civvies which are fine but not all are particularly Afghan, so this pack of specifically Afghan civlians was very welcome.  Here was can see two civilian bases, the one on the left is all Afghans, the one on the right has two ahem “heavily built” ladies on the left which are in the middle eastern pack.  Rigged up as they are they are perfect for populating an Afghan marketplace as they check out the good available.
 

Next we have the men-folk.  On the left, Ziggy plays a mean guitar while a couple of friends watch.  The chap displaying the large bloomers is from the middle east pack but has had a beard added from Green Stuff.  The base on the right is all Afgfhans and provides a really nice mix of m odern and traditional clothing.

It is important to remember that these civilians are the people that ISAF forces have been sent to protect and they play an important part in the games, being a source of information as well as their well-being providing a game objective.  Courageous Restraint anyone?
 
Below are three rather more martial types, two of which are from the fantastic ranges from Empress Miniatures.  The figure on the left is the mythical Chechen sniper, fighting for the insurgents and using the skills gained in combat with the Russians.  On the right is an Interpreter who will be working with the ISAF forces.  In the middle is a “Dicker”, this is another of the Eureka civilian pack, who could well be an innocent chap ordering a kebab after a night out, or could have a more sinister agenda, calling in mortar fire or setting off a CWIED.

It’s not just been civvies on the painting table thought.  We are about to start our campaign and I fancied running out a British force from 2009.  I’ve always had a soft spot for the good only FN MAG, the “gimpy” in British Army parlance, so I needed anothe couple of those along with a couple of SA80 armed lads.  To their left is a JTAC on his lap top (this could double for ELINT and other fancy kit if I can’t be bothered to paint extra toys), and a sniper.  This bloke should really come with a spotter mate, but I need to order some more figures for that.  These are all Empress Miniatures.  The JTAC involved a minoe head swap as he was originally an SAS man with a bare head.  I added a scrim netting scarf as well, just to cover the join where the head had been replaced.

Next we have the Platoon Sergeant on his quad bike, ready to retrieve any men down.  This again was an Empress SAS model, but a head swap was all it took to chage the use.  To his right is a three-man Royal Engineer Assault team, all equipped with bar mines and ready to mousehole compound walls.  Empress miniatures again with some minor conversion work to add the bar mines.

And finally its tiome to add some nasty insurgents in the form of foreign fighters who are coming to the area for jihad.  I think that these are a mix of Empress and Eureka, but they have been on my painting desk for so long that I can no longer identify which is which.  They are a real rum bunch who could be used in pretty much any part of the middle east if you fancy gaming some of the more distasteful conflicts there.  I personally do not fancy that, but you cannot fail to be impressed with the quality of the sculpts.

If I am honest, I can no longer paint like I used to, I am much more relaint on dips and washes to get depth to the figures.  My eyes are getting old even if I still have the mental age of a twelve year old.  That said, the advantage there is that I can’t really see how bad the paint job is, so I guess that provides some kind of self-governing balance.
The next post here should be on Wednesday morning as we look at the result of the first patrol of the West Sussex Battlegroup out of FOB Cawnpore.  I’m getting excited already!