US Combat Engineer Box (UBX36)

Let's talk about the new U.S. Engineer Combat Company (Winter - UBX36) box set. Priced at $52, it provides a good start for a U.S. Combat Engineer Company from Devil's Charge. Clocking in at 84 figures, it gives you enough little men to build two full platoons, including the option to swap out the HMG for more rifle stands, four command stands, and still leaves about 15 figures left over! The box set also utilizes the newer style of Battlefront plastic base - the brown plastic ones with the holes precut out for the figures.

Here's a shot of what the box can make. You can get enough "pioneer" figures to put one per base - shovels, metal detectors, etc. You also get three booby trap markers!

This is an army shot before painting that gives you an idea of how much pewter you get! There were two pieces missing from the box - one command base and a stand for a HMG. I just mounted the standless HMG into a blob of green stuff, assuming it'll look like a snow mount later on, and used a normal base for the lacking command stand.

I'm sure many folks are interested in how these new Battlefront pre-holed bases work out, so I took a closeup of two stands of figures at base level. As you can see, some figures sit more or less completely within the recess, and some sit a little bit above. It's a big improvement over the normal bases. It still requires some putty work on the base to cover up, but not nearly as much as before. For those worried about not having control over where your figures stand on the base, it's not a big deal. Most of the bases have 5 holes cut, and they're all in seemingly different arrangements as you can see, so each stand doesn't look the same. As mentioned above, one of my command stands is on an older style base, and they sit noticeably higher and required a lot more basing effort to cover up.

Overall, these painted up fairly quick. Standard U.S. paint scheme with some simple snow bases.

It should also be noted that you can use this box set as the basis for Rifle Company out of Devil's Charge as well. You get 12+ Rifle Stands, which is more than enough if you are doing some Bazooka swaps. Otherwise, you'll need to pick up some extra riflemen. You don't get any SMGs (besides the command stands) if you're heading that route.

PROPS: 

-Great quality sculpts. Definitely an improvement from the EW Frenchie greatcoats.

-Getting the extra figures to make the HMG swaps

-The newer style BF base

SLOPS:

-It would have been nice to get a third platoon in the box. I know a lot of people like taking the full three combat platoons in their lists. You get enough extra figures to make most of a third platoon if you do 4 figures on a base, so it'd only take two more HMG and another 8-10 figures to complete the company.

All in all, I like the box set. And more winter-based troops on this site can never be a bad thing, amirite?

Make sure to check out Scott's Blog at Itty Bitty Soldiers.