A huge part of what makes historical wargaming fun for me is trying to find where the Polish guys were fighting in whatever setting we're doing. During the real WWII about half a million Poles continued the fight from the West (with British equipment) and East (with Soviet equipment).
This alternate history thing was a bit new for me and to be honest I wasn't really too psyched about it until I got the best (or worst) idea ever. I could bring the Poles in myself! After all, who could stop me? I decided to do a Western force first, where the Polish jump pack squads see themselves as the latest in a long line of peerless cavalry stretching back 600 years.
Ta Daaaaa:
If you're thinking to yourself, "Those wings are ridiculous," you might be right. And I bet 17th century horses said the same thing to each other when their riders were out of earshot. Nevertheless winged hussars are as iconic as it gets for Polish heroic cavalry. I spent half a day scheming about how to make them for my elite jump pack cavalry until discovering that you can just buy 28mm hussar wings from some dudes in Poland. The same guys sell British helmet heads for my infantry too. Score!
Finding replacement heads for my cavalry was nowhere near as easy. This was made even more irritating by the fact that I can't stand the Grim Reaper helmets. They make me think Krang from TMNT is sitting inside for some reason. Maxmini sells some cool heads but I'm not in love with any of them, except maybe one steam knight head for Rhino (pictured). I was thinking of converting some conquistador heads into the hussar helmet (which is like a metal baseball cap with a mohawk and a sun flap) until I decided the big pointy beard was not very Polish.
If I bought 28mm hussars just to cut the heads off I thought my dice would roll 1's for all eternity. Then I found some awesome "soviet" astronaut heads with giant moustaches. Oh Hell yeah! The "soviet" part might curse my dice to roll 2's for all eternity but that company happens to be a bunch of Polish dudes too, so I hoped that made it OK with the dice gods. They also made officer heads for my "Boss." That order isn't here yet but I can't wait.
STOP THE PRESSES: Puppetswar.eu just came out with winged hussar bikers complete and sci-fi wings and helmets on Wednesday. @#$! For the first time in my life I did something too early and I have been punished severely. I'll try to convince them to sell me 15 head/wing sets to see which one I like best.
I am leaning heavily towards painting the hussars with blinged out shiny armor instead of earth tones. I can picture both.
Ok, enough already. I'll be back when something's painted.
If this kind of stuff interests you, you may enjoy my blog at dobroni.blogspot.com .