"I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy;

we fought ourselves. And the enemy... was in us."

A huge thank you to all those that suggested ideas for rules systems for the 'In Country' project.  At the moment, I am looking at Fistful of Lead, which looks as if it will meet many of the initial requirements, certainly from the point of view of fewer miniatures and quick, intuitive play.  I will keep you posted as I start to roll dice in anger. 

In the interim, I have been enjoying some painting time as a way of relaxing into the summer holiday and have managed to complete a number of movie related miniatures, the first of which I present here.

Bearing a striking resemblance to Staff Sergeant Barnes and Chris Taylor from Oliver Stone's Oscar winning film Platoon, Sgt. Burns & PFC Noble are from the 'Wargames Illustrated' Giants in Miniature range.  Added to the group is a character miniature from the 'Assault Group', completing the unholy trinity as a stand in for Sergeant Elias.  It's interesting seeing the three together and the discrepancies in scale, not something that seems to worry me unduly anymore. 

Given that these were my first foray in to 'Nam, the realisation suddenly dawned with regards to just how little, I actually knew about the era, uniforms and combatants.  Falling back on the idea that this was to be a flavour of the cinematic world of the Vietnam conflict, as opposed to a historic representation, I brushed aside the often crippling considerations to palette and reached for the green, lashings of it!  Washes were employed for shadows and an occasional highlight helped to pick out a detail or two and before I knew it the first three were done.

Expect more in due course, perhaps something inspired by Stanley Kubrick's work?