The Lion's Den Wargaming Club is certainly involved in wargaming WW2. It goes without saying that any project we undertake in this era will be in 54mm scale. I have in my vast toy box nearly every theater of operations collected in depth as far as infantry goes. Our group is trying to expand our playable figure collection by adding some of this "dead plastic" (?) to our troops in uniform. The club project that grew out of this desire, was to paint the grocery bag of Russian soldiers I had. This is how it came about and what occurred.

James N. & his wife Jana are very interested in painting and developing their skills in wargame figure work. Jon H. is interested in scenarios and wargame theaters and has taken over the job of game referee. He needs more infantry to work with and more variety to keep our WW2 era gaming exciting. Ken V. has a grocery bag choc full of Russian 54mm figures from various manufacturers, and a keen insight into how to combine these interests into a Lion's Den club activity.

Step 1: The Russian horde was delivered to our club game master to pick through and develop a table of organization. Currently, we are using the game Under Fire by 1:1 Games, for our platoon organizations. Jon H. picked through the: Marx, Airfix, bootleg Airfix, MPC, ESCI, figures and put together a Russian platoon.(Sadly, none of the MPC figures made the cut. They are a bit too dramatically goofy.)

Step 2: The figures came home again for the preparation to paint them. I cleaned each figure with an X-acto blade. Glued them to washers. Then primed each with black and white spray paint (the cheap kind). The technique involves spraying the figures in all black and covering them well. The white spray paint is used to highlight the figure. It is applied from above at no less than 45ø angle. This will create dramatic shadowed areas that work well with the wash technique used in figure painting.

Step 3: Holding a painting class. The evening wargame night for three weeks was devoted entirely to painting as a group. We met at Ken V.'s house, May 25, June 1 & 8 and painted 81+ 54mm figures; the focus of which were the Russian platoon. (We also put a lot of paint on some Japanese and German Waffen SS troops.)

The club meetings did take on the aspect of a class in painting wargame figures. Intentionally or not, the whole organization of what needed to be painted and in what order was handled by myself. James & Jana were very appreciative of the chance to paint with other club members. I feel they really benefitted from the "class." Also painting in the project but needing no lessons from me were Jon H., Joe T., & John C..

The text used for the uniforms and research into coloration included:

Mirouze, Laurent. World War II Infantry in Colour Photographs. London: Windrow & Greene, 1990.
Mollo, Andrew. The Armed Forces of World War II. New York: Crown Publishing, Inc., 1981.
Weeks, John. World War II Small Arms. New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc..
Mayer, S. L. The Russian War Machine 1917-1945. New York: W. H. Smith Publishers, Inc., 1977.

The final analysis of the project is that the figures look good. The 80+ Russians will debut in August at Dallas Con. They are painted in what I call Q&D style. They will fight the German SS troops that were begun during our project. The painting class was a big success for our club. It proves that you get out of something what you are willing to put into it. As far as involvement and developing a sense of contribution, it was a real boost.

Q: Where do a heavily armed platoon of Russian machinegunners go to play?

A: In a masterfully sculpted scale model of Stalingrad, of course! (Next Issue)