Having finished another 36 figures for John this week (French Line and Guard pikes and Austrian musketeers by 'Mars') I'm having a bit of a change by starting on these lovely 20mm metal figures for new customer Alister. The link Alister sent was to Simon's Soldiers (click). I am totally unfamiliar with this range but I must say they are some of the best 20mm WW2 figures I have seen, far better than even the AB 20mm's in my humble opinion which simply failed to inspire me to paint them. These of course represent the late war Volkssturm called up for the last desperate defence of Berlin consisting of older men and younger boys, equipped with whatever could be found, many of them trained in the use of Panzerfausts which seems to have been a very common weapon judging from the number of them that appear in photographs from the time.
I have around 75 of them to paint and there are a wide variety of uniform types, greatcoats, civilian clothes, a couple wearing the distinctive French helmets others in trilby type hats and forage caps, the only issued item in many cases being the red/white/black Volkssturm armband. Most carry rifles, some assault rifles and there are a couple of machine gun teams, MG42 or possibly the older MG34, not had a close look yet. I'm very much looking forward to painting them.
