By Anthony "Anfernee" MasonToday I am going to take a look at one of the Warlord Games Partisan Squads and talk about the possibilities available when using these cool models. I will also look at how I used them to start my Lithuanian Forest Brother partisan force for Bolt Action.
My blister pack of ten metal partisans held a mixture of clothing styles and weapons in a variety of poses. One of my own personal gripes with metals is limited number of poses in some ranges, which can cause a boring sameness look over an army. Well these guys were pretty unique, so I was not worried about that at all.
Now for my partisan army, I am making a Lithuanian Forest Brother army (I'll have an article with the history details on these guys in the future). These guys often wore a brown/khaki military uniform, along with peaked caps, to stand out as more then just bandits that the Soviets, who they were fighting made them out to be. Because of this, my needs for what made a suitable model were quite exact. I chose five of the ten partisan models that had military-looking clothing, or could be painted as such and that were equipped with either Soviet and German looking weapons. One already had a peaked cap, but the other four needed their heads chopped off. A few cuts later, I had them re-equipped with some peaked caps from metal and plastic Warlord Soviets. Below you can see them painting up and ready to take to the forest of Lithuania to fight the bolsheviks.
Out of the remaining five partisans, two looked like they were perfect to fit in with my Volkssturm for my German army. They were in civilian clothes and armed with rifles, one even sporting an arm band. They were quickly painted up and added to my 'Last Levy' Volkssturm. They blend in well.
The remaining three, had civilian clothing but were armed with Allied-made weaponry. One with a Sten, one with a Bren and one with a Thompson SMG. These will be finding a new home in Old Man Morin's partisan list soon (Editors note: Sweet!).
These models were great. There was a small amount of the typical flash you get with metal models but each took only a minute or two to clean and prep. None of them had their face mangled by excess flash and most of them were easy to conduct head swaps on. They are usable for a variety of different partisan army themes and even some other units (like Volkssturm). While the pack I got wasn't entirely usable for my Forest Brother list, you can order them individually from Warlord.
The level of detail is great and there are a variety of poses, from at rest to firing to advancing. I really can't find a fault with them, and so I give them a 10 out of 10. If you find yourself building a partisan army, I'd highly suggest you head over to Warlord Games and check out what they have on offer.
"Anf" is a long-time gamer from Down Under, who currently focuses his hobby time on Bolt Action.
With an equal love of rockets and Ice Hockey, he constantly explores weird and wonderful army lists in his
never-ending quest to collect them all.
