World War II Project - British Airborne - reboot

I have been more than a little distracted lately with work and Christmas projects (I may have over committed on puzzles this year). Not to mention that after developing a window solution for the Church I have run out of steam. So in order to try and get back on track I pulled out my British Airborne to figure out what I have and what I might need.

In theory I have one section finished and second section getting close. However, I thought I should just work it out from the beginning again. My rule set of choice for platoon/skirmish level actions is Chain of Command (CoC) by Too Fat Lardies. All the miniatures I have on hand are from Warlord Games. I would love to replace these as there are some much nicer options out there now, but this is what I have in hand. In addition to a much of metal I have box of their plastics which means I could probably put together a second platoon.

After the initial sort I have all the components of the HQ section, all three sections and most of the support options (including an additional section of Airborne). All of this in metal, although the extra Airborne section will need some plastics to fill it out to full strength. I also wanted to use different figures for each section leader so three of those will be made up from the box of plastic minis.

I put one section leader together last night, he is definitely a bit bigger than the original metals. Shouldn't be a problem once everything is painted and based. And speaking of that I'm going to repaint everything to ensure that its all consistent, even the finished troops that are based. I'm not going to strip them just re-prime over what is there. I'm going to change my painting philosophy about this and go the army speed painting route.

At the moment I just plan on getting everything prepped and ready for priming. I still need to finish the church and the group of HO scale minis I have started painting.

In this shot, three full sections for the 1st Platoon, two Vickers supports, 2 mortar supports and most of a 4th section (way to many sten guns in the metal packs, I need more rifles).

Here is the platoon HQ section and some additional supports; medics, 2" mortar team and another piat team (in addition to the ones in the HQ section

There are still some support units that I need to get my hands on, most of which are engineers which may need to be converted from my box of plastic British infantry. I also need to put together a section of regular infantry as a support.

Warlord Games - Red Devils, British Paras a closer look

Needless to say I did have to dig through the Warlord Games Army Box set for the British "Red Devils" that I purchased. This is designed as a 1000 point box for Bolt Action although I'll be using them for Chain of Command from Too Fat Lardies. I was able to talk the store into giving me a discount on the box which allowed me to pick up three more packs of miniatures; the extra Vickers MMG team, the piat and light mortar teams and the 3# mortar team.

For some reason I thought the box set of miniatures were plastic but they are actually metal. That was a pleasant surprise as I have decided that I do prefer metal minis. While the plastics are more versatile in assembly and certainly cheaper the way some of the details have to be handled are less than desirable. So bring on the metal!

The box

Minis from the box, plus laser cut bases. They are made from MDF so I probably won't use them.

Also in the box, three more squads and the 6# ATG and crew

One Jeep is in there somewhere

The set should have come with two of these but there was only one in the box. Since the box was plain white and not shrink wrapped I'm not sure if it was stolen out of the box or just mis-packed.

The reinforcements that I added