Listen, you may not know this, but I have a thing about Operation Market Garden in WW2. Probably because the first game I actually tried to sit down and learn to play (rather than simply slapping the buttons to see if it worked) was Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far. Not the best choice for a 5 or 6 year old but technically it counts as history and honestly my Dad was better equipped to actually win missions. Even to this day, specific voice lines from that game echoes in both my head and his.
This, of course, means that I have a fatal addiction to anything featuring Red Berets, drop zones and everything going horribly wrong while driving down singular roads. So when Empress announced they were doing a Kickstarter to bring out a range of Paul Hicks sculpted Paras, I may have been JUST a little bit excited.
Surprise surprise, the day is here and the Kickstarter is out now. I’ve embedded it below (and you can find it here). At the time of writing, it’s already reached it’s target goal, so now it’s all to see how far we can go down the goal list. It is a little concerning that the Kickstarter mentions that these figures will not be sold at retail (mostly because they look excellent) so I guess this is very much a limited-time offer, with Empress running the Kickstarter so they have a better idea of how many to make (and so people will actually put their money where their mouth went). There are a collection of unique figures to go with the major deals or you can go all in and get all of them. I really like some of the neat little touches – one figure has a Pratchett machine carbine prototype (an interesting place to test what could become the Sterling) while all the packs show the variety of headgear made available to airborne units. Paul Hick’s skill is evident in all of them, and I don’t think there is a single dud among them.
=As you might guess, I may have already backed this. I could have gone all in, getting everything, but seeing as I am most of the way through another British platoon (we’ll get to that in a bit) and with the limited selection of sculpts, I decided to go with Deal 1 (rifles and SMGs) before adding some addons such as the eternally useful Bren gun, the PIAT and the 2″ mortar. Having an airborne section is handy for late war Chain of Command, as it sits down the support list but can give you a very useful set of troops; combining a Superior Junior Leader with an Aggressive section with an SMG in the rifle team makes for an effective support section, a good addition for pushing forward and getting stuck in while your regular troops put the fire down. With my main force being late war and covered in grime, the concept of linking up with some Paras after Operation Varsity (or even better linking up with their support weapons) fits my force perfectly.