Airfix Commandos

 Gosh, this is a blast from the past, it must be almost 50 years since I last painted a set of these boys. Anyway, I 'needed' some 20mm Commandos for the Sicily game I'd been planning, and I'd actually acquired a few grab bags of old Commando figures from Bring and Buys some years/decades ago.

Unfortunately they'd obviously been stored in an outhouse or something as they had dreadful plastic rot and a number of them just fell apart in my hands.

Here are the finished article, three stands for Megablitz, so each base representing a battalion sized unit. There were supposed to be four bases but one of the figures crumbled as I was handling it. The others seemed to be OK though and three bases is enough for the scenario I had in mind. 

They are still lovely figures, very delicately moulded with human proportions. Just enough depth on the moulds that a wash takes OK, and the rifles are nice and slim. A big improvement on the ACW figures, and more natural than the old "Combat Group" figures. 

Running rifleman and kneeling officer with his spindly Webley. 

Another rifleman (these guys seemed to survive the rot OK) and the very useful radio operator. 

The infamous "running with you arms out" bloke and the nicely posed Tommy gunner. Unfortunately the end of his SMG barrel fell off, perhaps it is a special cut down Commando version. 

I just did the guys in khaki with tan webbing as it makes a nice contrast. They got a brown wash and a very, very light dry brush (the shallow detail won't take any more). I was a bit anxious they might fall apart in use, but they did actually survive the game intact.