Refugees

One of the most common images in the Second World War in Europe is long streams of refugees fleeing the fighting. At the beginning of the war you see French people fleeing from the advancing German Blitzkrieg. Late war, you see long lines of Germans fleeing advancing Soviet troops.























Often these groups of refugees will be seen with a small wagon full of their world possessions. Sometimes they include livestock and even kids or old people are riding on them.























These are the JR Miniatures ruins and the Forces of Valor Germans with the new Preiser WWII Refugees, in 1/72nd scale hard plastic. They have several optional parts, and the wagon can have the supplies load of baggage, but they are separate parts and so you can load it with your own gear.





















This is a very good set but it runs about a dollar a figure so it will be rather expensive to build up long columns of fleeing civilians. I really like the small wagon and will probably get a couple more. There is another set with the wagon and a couple kids, if it is cheaper I may get a few of those too. Refugees in the wargame can serve several purposes. They can block roads, they can be the reason you have to defend the city until the civilians escape, they can hide infiltrators, very common in the Korean War; they can have a mix of civilians and soldiers fleeing the front lines.

More Ruin Uses

Matchbox, the folks that make the little metal and plastic cars, have also made some sets that have figures, plants, and animals. This set is the cowboy set, it has a big horse, a man on foot with a six shooter, two cacti and a wolf or big dog. The set originally came with a couple vehicles. These sets are pretty good as 1/72nd scale figures but the vehicles are way too large. Matchbox has made many of these sets; military, civilian, cowboys, even space aliens.






















I posed these figures with some of the previous 15mm JR Miniatures Stalingrad ruins. Buildings for Stalingrad work well for many eras and regions of the world. The American West saw many towns build up and fall down in very short periods of time. The mine runs out, the railroad stops at the next town but not this one, any number of things could kill a town. Sometimes major fires would sweep through towns and there would be little left over. So ruins were not uncommon in the Wild West.

Ruins can be used in many areas of the world and in many eras in wargames. I like ruins because they can be used in so many places. The ACW saw a lot of civilian buildings destroyed, as did the First World War and World War Two. They can also be used for construction sites where the ruins represent buildings being torn down. Ruins can provide troops cover, can block attacking forces and provide some interesting things to look at on the table.

Mars Exploration

One of games I like to play is science fiction wargames. Some kind of space creatures attack, the aliens moving their war machines down the street, or astronauts find some terrible thing on another planet. Several nations have sent various probes to other planets and I would expect that they would be visited by astronauts when we get there to check out the effects of time on the machines.






















The Airfix 1/72nd scale US Astronaut figure in this photo is standing by the Viking Lander from World Space Museum. They make a number of small scale space toys that are highly detailed and some of them are actually the right size for 1/72nd scale use, like this one.






















This model is right out of the box, fully assembled and painted and ready to go explore. I took a couple photos with the little base that comes with the kit. It shows the digging arm extended and taking a soil sample. So I then took it outside and placed it in real soil and took a couple photos. I think they turned out looking pretty good. The model is highly detailed and seems to be just about 1/72nd scale. There are even little American flags on the lander, not bad for $10.






















The small diorama base is very well detailed and the lander sits on three small indentations. As you can see it scales nicely with the astronaut figure. Even I don't require a huge fleet of these, but I will probably get a second one, just in case the Martians get this one.

Ruined Models

I got some new ruins at my local hobby shop. These are supposed to be Soviet ruins from Stalingrad, in 15mm scale from JR Miniatures. These are highly detailed one piece resin models that have flat bases and are free of flash.























I find these 15mm ruins actually work well for 20mm 1/72nd scale figures also. These are Forces of Valor WWII Germans.






















How large is a brick? How big is a doorway? Often doors and windows can look very small, particularly on older buildings. Since these are ruins, I figure they will work just fine with my 1/72nd scale figures. I typically use buildings in 25mm, 20mm, 15mm and HO scale and even O Guage. In real life doorway size varies from too small to very large, bricks and stones vary in size, so as long as the building looks right with the troops, I figure it is okay to use.





















Ruins are important wargame pieces as warfare often destroys buildings, either the attacker destroys them trying to capture them or the defender destroys them trying to save them. Ruins can be used in wargames to provide cover for defenders or to canalize the attacker into areas of limited movement. Not until the infantry move in and occupy the city have the defenders lost and city fighting can be very dangerous, ruins like this allow you to conduct those kinds of operations.