Warlord Release Afro-American and Japanese Soldiers

[Bergil]

Sorry, but why wouldn't you just paint soldiers you intended to be black, a mid to dark brown?

[answer_is_42]

Sorry, but why wouldn't you just paint soldiers you intended to be black, a mid to dark brown?

Because then you wouldn't be spending £25 on these figures from Warlord, obviously. Do keep up, won't you? 

You're quite right, actually. The more I think on it, the less I can see the point of these at all. Especially considering they could have used the time and money to produce something that really had never been touched on before, such as troops for a minor nation, or whatever.

[Hildred Castaigne]

Hum, yeees. It's certainly an interesting release. But will they sell? From that single image the figures don't look too great to me.

That is what I was getting at with that picture earlier!  
A touching subject, but strangely shaped figures.

[answer_is_42]

Touche Answer is 42- excellent riposte!

But come on! Among your mates how many paint figs. Even in my day it was fairly unusual
, nowadays how many.

Us baby boomers grew up with Airfix as past of life, now James May has to have a programme to tell kids what it is all about.

About eight (though I did convert a couple of them!), and I must say I know very few guys (at uni anyway) who have not made at least one airfix model at some point in their lives (even if it was pushed on them by their dads!). Also Lego, plastic soldiers, toy cars etc are universal.

Kids today are not, as a rule "maudlin, comatose, and sunk in self pity". They are ignorant, certainly, but then kids have always been ignorant. And if they grow up to be ignorant adults this too is not some new phenomenon, but quite natural. And old men have always complained about it, too. ‘twas ever thus. 

Thinking over the non-university 'young people' I know, almost all have jobs and not one has a criminal record. If there is a 'Broken Britain' I have yet to seriously come across it beyond the obvious examples – tabloid editors, backbench tory MPs, etc.

And computer games are fun Ok? Really fun. At times, would you believe, even better than trying to stick the bloody landing gear onto an Airfix Spitfire without them going all wonky or snapping off.

Well, this has gone wonderfully off-topic, hasn't it? 

[carlos marighela]

Well said that man! (Note: I did not say well said young fellow, me lad) Near as I can tell today's young are little different from earlier generations. Social media may provide more tools for self absorbtion but I notice that folk of my generation are no less self absorbed. I spend a considerable part of my working life getting people out of jams, which, in the vast bulk of cases they, themselves are the principal agents of their predicament. The most maudlin, self absorbed among them tend to be people of my age and upwards.

Supposedly it's one of the few perquisites of advancing age to spout things like ' youth weren't like that in my day'. I gather this phenomena predates the ancient Greeks. One would have thought modern advances in treatments for gout, hearing loss and erectile dysfunction would have compensated for this but apparently not.  

 As I am fast approaching the age where it is traditional to join this particularly chorus, I shall have to start saying things like 'all your music is rubbish and so's your dress sense' etc etc. This works better if you imagine the words being delivered by Rick Wakeman with an overdubbed commentary by Geoffrey Palmer.

As for the need for the figures, well I suppose the same thing could be said of say Perry, Young Guard volunteers or whatever. Surely some tin snips and a dab of paint would remedy any gap in the market. No doubt, they see a market but if it raises awareness of largely forgotten warriors, then I see no harm, indeed I think it's laudable

[Helen]

Folks, unless you stay on topic I'll lock the thread.

Thank you.

Helen

[Hildred Castaigne]

Carlos - I think the young ARE different. This is the first cyber generation, they have grown up with social networking, cyber bullying and about 100 things I do not even know about.

I have long maintained the BEST generation this planet will EVER know is those born in the early/mid  50's. I cannot begin to list the benefits but  (even if it was possible) I would not swap my birthdate with anyone on this planet.

We are also one of the first generations that took university for granted.
Values and expectations have changed, I think we're all still in shock.

I'm a cleaner and my peers have that pretty terrible work ethic you've seen.
A lot of them really see the work as beneath them.
Sure, it isn't glamorous work. But it is still a job!

[Hildred Castaigne]

Hildred

My work? Okay I work in the National Health Service.

I am currently lead for teams in Learning Disability, Older Persons Community Mental Health, and Memory Management Services. Because of staff shortages I am ALSO overseeing Psychological Well Bweing Services. I lost track when I got to 35 staff reporting to me

Hildred do you want to swap? Do you want my workload? Do you want my job? If I take a day off I spend the whole time....
oh forget it

Bezzo

I'm not sure if I'm qualified for that. :/
But if you could stand eight hours on your feet picking up rubbish, why not?
Some time out doing work that isn't very demanding would probably do you good.

Usually I wouldn't ask personal questions here, but when I heard about the bad attitudes I got wondering.
So many of my friends in college are complaining about the prospects for graduates at the moment.
It really is sickening to hear about those people wasting such an opportunity!

[Johnnytodd]

  This topic has become something of a catharsis !

[joroas]

The job situation in the UK, at the moment, is far too precarious to give up a job, any job...... 

Anyway, back to the thread.  As I said at the start, whatever WG's motives, and I don't know what they are, it is nice to see a company adding a new range to cover part of a WORLD war and not just cover the obvious chaps yet again. They have shown quite a commitment to this conflict, buying up and extending ranges, producing BA and at least four army guides, with several free on their site.

[Poiter50]

If they continue to expand on BA, I hope they are going to put the rest of the old Chieftain/BEF range back in to production.

The job situation in the UK, at the moment, is far too precarious to give up a job, any job...... 

Anyway, back to the thread.  As I said at the start, whatever WG's motives, and I don't know what they are, it is nice to see a company adding a new range to cover part of a WORLD war and not just cover the obvious chaps yet again. They have shown quite a commitment to this conflict, buying up and extending ranges, producing BA and at least four army guides, with several free on their site.

[Sarmor]

You're quite right, actually. The more I think on it, the less I can see the point of these at all. Especially considering they could have used the time and money to produce something that really had never been touched on before, such as troops for a minor nation, or whatever.

The amount of time and money spent to produce these two sets is much smaller than it would be to make a minor nation. They had the basis - the plastic GI sprue - and all they had to do was sculpt and cast some metal parts. And if it won't sell, they can always repackage the plastic parts and sell them as standard US infantry. For a new nation (unless it would use equipment from one of the existing plastic kits) they'd have to sculpt the whole kit from scratch. And the chance of selling both is quite similar, I think (though there probably are some exceptions).
Of course you could use the basic kit and paint the skin non-white if you wanted to have a colored unit. But maybe some gamers, who didn't plan to make an ethnic unit, will see these sets and think "now that's something interesting, let's give it a try". Plus it's kind of an official recognition of the non-white troops and their achievements from the wargaming industry (small as it may be).
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see minor nations done (especially Finns and Chinese). But considering that WG primarily has to do stuff that sells, I'm happy they make segregated US infantry instead of (or at least next to) another German set which will surely sell.

As for the 5 pages of Waffen-SS stuff - well, they make them cause we're buying them.

On a side note, that idea of using plastic kits for new sets got me thinking... Maybe they could make the People's Army of Poland?  

[Old Goat]

Morning All,

You know the best thing about this forum, it often reminds me of a pub conversation...A pretty drunken conversation but a pub conversation non the less...

I'm with Jororas on this, I generally get a bit sniffy about WG...Yes there is more than a whiff of tokenism, and yes they could have just produced head swaps but they didn't, they commissioned the artwork, printed the boxes and actually launched a truly diverse range for WW2, which is no small thing and in all I think it's a good thing. 

They won't be for everyone but that's sort of the point, normally it's smaller firms that push out the more esoteric fighting units but in this case it's one of the bigger fellas.

Good work says I...Now what about West Indians and Africans for Burma in British service, Sikhs in Japanese Service and some bloody Ghurkas!

God save all here and mines a pint...

Goat.