The Red Berets Are Coming

I began a large commission for a local friend's British Airborn army.  He bought in a few weeks before the announcement of the upcoming plastics.  My feelings on pewter are mixed.  On the hand you get personally sculpted poses that just have so much more character than plastic can give you, and on the other hand, you have a medium that paint hates to stick to and requires constant care and attention.  But anyway, here's some of the little red devils.  Please do click on the images, as they're much higher resolution than what fits on the page.

I particularly like the firing poses.  I don't know why, but something about their stance just feels a lot better than a plastic model's firing stance.

And as a surprise, they brought a Churchill with them.  How they fit that on the plane is a mystery to me.

Is that a Churchill Crocodile you ask?  Yes.  Yes it is.  Have I played against it in a game?  Yes I have.  Twice.

Is it a filthy vehicle flamethrower like everyone thinks it is?  Well......sort of.  It's also 500 some points so while it is particularly nasty, it doesn't do it without being half of an entire list.  In my first game against it I immobilized it with a medium anti tank gun and proceeded to easily secure the objective that was far away.  It kind of has the same impact as an air observer.  Depending on how the dice go, someone is going to have a bad game.  It was actually reasonably interesting to play against on occasion, though I wouldn't want it to become a mainstay of the weekly game.  

The lighting here really disappoints me.  The mud has much more contrast to the vehicle's green color than the image shows.  The wheels and suspension also has some nice gritty dust in it that I thought looked very nice, but might not be showing up on the picture very well.  I'm working towards a functional light box at the moment, but as you can see, it's currently in construction.