28mm Warlord WWII Mid/Late War US Marines

 All,

Well, here they are, the guys that started this whole descent into madness that is my collection of 28mm wargaming miniatures.  The are 28mm United States Marines from Warlord Games, and they are pretty damn cool, I must say.  I was in a comic book shop (the same one that got me started back in 15mm five years ago) and saw a box of Bolt Action Marines, and I just couldn't stop staring at you.  As some of you may recall, I've gone quite a bit of skirmish gaming in 10mm, and then 15mm (even did some in 6mm).  As I'm staring at these 28mm dudes I just kept thinking "I shouldn't be playing company-level games in 15mm AND skirmishing in 15mm, it's silly, I simply must have some of these 28mm guys for skirmish gaming.  Yes, I'll just buy one box of these guys.  Wait, what is that?"  'That' was the Bolt Action "Island Assault" box, which had Gyrenes, to include a halftrack (not sure why, don't think the Marines actually used halftracks in WWII, minus some specialized stuff like the ones that carried the 75mm guns), and some Japanese, with a Type 97 tank, and a bunker.  Well, that did it for me; "I'll just buy this one box and I'll never need any other 28mm stuff ever again."  As usual, I couldn't have been more wrong.

In any case, I bought the stuff and it languished for a little over a year, waiting to be assembled and painted.  I just wasn't to hip to painting up these GIANT 28mm troops, didn't seem fun.  But then I got hooked into buying some other 28mm troops (some Ultramodern stuff, will show you soon), while simultaneously hearing about the new (at the time) Contrast paints.  I quickly built a few modern 28mm dudes and started playing with the Contrast paints.  Simply put, I fell in love.  They were quick and easy, and looked great (to me, at least).  Once I knocked out a box of those guys, I tore into my Marines with renewed passion; took me a minute to figure out the color scheme, but I cracked the code and am super happy with how they turned out.  

So let't get to them!

The whole mess (yeah, first time I'm showing you vehicles as well!).  Now please keep in mind, these are just my mid-late war US Marines, I also have an early-ish force of Marines built specifically for Guadalcanal, will show them soon.  So here we've got three with Tommy Guns, nine with BARs, ten with M-1 Carbines, thirty with M-1 Garands, a bazooka team, a flamethrower team, a sniper team, an MG team, a mortar team, a 37mm ATG, a 75mm pack howitzer, a radio jeep, a Stuart light tank, a howitzer-armed LVT, and a Corpsman.

A look at the three Tommy Gunners.  I have a bunch more in my early war force, but only three for mid/late war.

So, the first clear look at a Marine; green dungarees, Thompson SMG, and brown'side out helmet cover.

Another look, from his port quarter.

And one more, from behind.  Love the unbloused trousers.

Another Tommy Gunner, this time with leggings on and pants rolled up (like Sgt Stryker in The Sands of Iwo Jima!).

Reverse, you can see the brown-side out shelter half around the pack.

And the last one, again with unbloused trousers and rolled up sleeves.

Rear.

No Marine force is complete without their Doc.

From the front.  Love the fact you can see "USN" on his Unit 1 (or whatever they were called back then).  He actually has his trousers bloused into his leggings, like they were supposed to, but that apparently didn't usually last long in combat.

Opposite.  Put two Unit 1s on him.

And his back side, showing his -1911 and K-Bar.

These are metals, Warlord's 60mm mortar team.  This @#$% absolutely aggravates the piss out of me.  This is the first miniature mortar team in the history of miniature mortar teams that has the bipod set up, ready lay the tube, and the gunner standing by waiting to place the tube.  Couldn't I just have a mortar team with the damn tube in action, like everyone else, please?

Reverse.  The gunner has a Tommy Gun slung over his shoulder.

The bazooka team, also metals.  Certainly it was done, but I still don't appreciate that the kneeling gunner has the wrong foot forward.  You can see on his A-gunner the first of the different uniform combinations I did; he's still wearing the regular green dungarees, but I've got him wearing a brown-side out cammie blouse to go with his brown-side out helmet cover.

Reverse.  The A-gunner has a Tommy Gun slung over his shoulder.  That's something else I don't love, all these weapons crewmembers with Tommy Guns; they could be sprinkled in here and there, but most of them should have M-1 Carbines.

Another look at the A-gunner, 2.36" rocket in his hand and Tommy Gun slung.

The sniper team.  The guy at left was the first one I painted, my test figure, the one that convinced me Contrast paints could work for these guys (specifically, the camo).  His flesh is a bit muted because when I started I painting Gulliman Flesh over the light gray primer, and later I changed to painting matte white on flesh then hitting it with the Gulliman Flesh in order for it to 'pop,' as you can see on the sniper.  In any case, the spotter has a special place in my heart as the test dude for this whole concept.  And look at that stubble!

From the side.  These guys are metals, and I'm so aggravated with the sniper's head.  Not to say no Marines wore the netted helmet like that in WWII, but it certainly wasn't common.  I put him in greenside out cammie blouse and trousers to make up for it.

Back side.

Another look at the spotter.

My flamethrower/engineer team.  The two guys at left metals, the guy at right is a plastic out of the box that I built as an engineer (demolitions).

Oh yeah, flamethrower in the house.

Again.

And once more.  Expect to see this shot often, with burning, jellied gasoline shooting out, once I start gaming.

Next up is a dude advancing with a shotgun; also, you can just make it out, but he's got a bandage covering his right eye.  Not a huge fan of shotguns, but at least some Marines actually used shotguns in the Pacific...

Reverse.

And here's my plastic demolitions dude, with satchel charge affixed to his chest and in his right hand, M-1 Carbine in his left.

Another look.

And one more.  Damn, that's a good lookin' Marine!  Looks straight out of a photo on Iwo Jima, Peleliu, Tarawa, Saipan, or Okinawa.

Alright, on to the heart of the rifle platoon's firepower, those nine (yes, NINE) Browning Automatic Rifles!

Two guys kneeling on the right, two crouching on the left, laying it down with the BAR.

Close up of one of the crouching dudes (I'm just calling it that to differentiate from the 'normal' kneeling position, where these guys are on both knees).  Brown-side out blouse and helmet cover.

Here's a kneeling guy, brown-side out everything.

One of the more 'normal' uniformed guys with green dungarees and brown-side out helmet cover.

A few guys advancing.

"Mac, Mac, see if there's any sake in that bunker over there!"

Moving on up.

"Spider hole!"

Last two BARs.

Not a horrible pose, but I hate how far that weapon sticks out, but hey, that's what happens when you try to make as many unique poses as possible.

Which leads us to this young man; not bad from this angle, a little awkward from the opposite.

Now for the Marines with M-1 Carbines.

Two Gyrenes down, looking over their sights.  And this leads me to one of my gripes; the box is fond of some arms with no sleeves.  If I had a guy or two with no sleeves it wouldn't bother me, but because of the limited amounts of body/arm/weapons combinations, you are potentially going to have a whole bunch.  That didn't sit well with me, so I just painted sleeves on some of the guys (not the guy on right, that's actually a different set of arms).

Reverse.  This guy has BAR pouches on his belt; the 1943 TO&E had the BAR A-gunners with M-1 Carbines, so I threw BAR pouches on some of them, though 1944 TO&Es have the A-gunners with Garands.

The other guy.

Two more, pointing out targets, brown-side out on right and green-side out on left.

Two Leathernecks moving up, run between the raindrops.  The guy on left has the painted on sleeves I was talking about...

Two leader-types, directing traffic.

Reverse.  Guy on right has green-side out blouse but brown-side out helmet cover.  Such thing (mis-matched uniform items) were apparently common for Tarawa and the Marianas (or at least Guam, maybe it was just 2nd Marine Division?), with Bougainville, Cape Gloucester, and New Georgia sporting all camo uniforms, andcamo uniforms largely phased out by Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.  4th Marine Division in the Marshall Islands happened in early 1944, but it looks like they weren't wearing cammie uniforms.

Two more leader-types, with field glasses.

Reverse.

How about a whole slew of riflemen with M-1 Garands?

Three dudes in the prone, one in all brown-side out, one in all green-side out, and one in the 'normal' late-war green dungarees and brown-side out helmet cover.

A closeup of the 'normie.'

The brown-side out Marine (you can see I put BAR pouches on these guys).

And the green-side out.  This is my favorite uniform.

A group of kneeling Marines with Garands in varying uniforms.

A leader type.  By late war, fireteam and squad leaders were supposed to be armed with M-1 Garands, though many veterans held on to their Tommy Guns or M-1 Carbines.

A good kneeling pose.

Taking a breather.

Another firing pose.

"Frag out!"

Bunch of Marines with Garands in the crouching position.

Another leader type.

Scanning a nearby treeline.

"Here they come!"

Chucking a grenade.

"Stay down, Doc will come and get ya!"

"He will?"

Blasting away.

Four Marines advancing.

Lots of pointing going on around here.

As I said...

Clearing a bunker.

Coming off the landing craft.

Five Marines dashing forward with M-1 Garands.

Damn, that IS a lot of pointing figures.

That's a good one, moving up, rifle at the alert.

Another.

Another, coming at ya.

One more, going away.

And the last six riflemen.

I really like this pose.

And this one.  I wish all my Marines had their trousers unbloused like this.

"Have a pineapple," as they used to say in my comic books.

Wary Marine.

Another, without pack this time.

Same, but with green-side out cammie top and helmet cover.

My M-1917 .30-cal machine gun.  These are actually metals from Brigade Games.  Very nice, but noticeably smaller than the Warlord figures.

Again.

The team leader.

The gunner.  It's cool, if you look close you can see the gunner has a soft cover under his helmet.

The 37mm anti-tank gun, useful for firing beehive rounds into Japanese bunkers.  The gun is Warlord (I think), but the crew is definitely Brigade Games.

Same crew with a 75mm pack howitzer.

Closeup of the loader.

The obligatory 'cover your ears' crewmember.

And a 'talker,' as they used to call them, using the US Navy-style phones and mic.

An M-3 Stuart for my Marines.  I believe this is from Company B, and I actually used Contrast paints to do it (Creed Camo).

Other side.

Back end.

Got some dismounted tank crew from Brigade Games.

And my radio jeep!  The jeep is from Rubicon, the figures are Brigade Games.

Again.

Once more.

And then I have this monster, an LVT(A)-4 with short 75mm howitzer.  Don't know who makes it, bought it off a gentleman on Ebay, and it's actually British, but I did a little work to make it Marine.

And the reverse.

There it is, my mid- to late-war US Marine force, rearing to go.  I'm super happy with how they turned out, and I can't wait to get them on the table, but still finishing up some Germans and Soviets.  As soon as they're done I swear I'm putting the paint brushes down for a year and doing nothing but playing games!

V/R,
Jack