The Great Isolation Army Project – Marcus Vine’s British Airborne

In these troubling times and stuck at home, naturally I’ve got a bit more tme on my hands. Being the world’s slowest and laziest painter, I often struggle to get armies finished in a timely fashion – my late-war Waffen-SS have taken almost a year (although, admittedly, most of that time has been in frenzied 12-hour blocks the night before a tournament!). I want to challenge myself to get a 1000 point Bolt Action army finished, from conception and grey plastic to based and on the tabletop, in the space of about 6 weeks. This may not sound like a particularly fast pace for some people, but for me it’s something of a personal 4-minute hobby mile!

Having just (nearly) finished a camo-heavy army, and being something of a hobby masochist, I’ve elected to go for late-war British Airborne. They’re a project I’ve tried (and failed) to start on a few occasions now, which helpfully means I’ve got loads of kits laying around the house, still shamefully shrink-wrapped. What better time than now to get a move on, and get them done?

In order to do this, I know that I’ll have to be quite strict and regimented with my time, as I can easily become distracted by the twin demons of beer and TV – discipline is the key here! To that end, I’ll be committing myself to a minimum of an hour and a half of solid hobby a day – enough to make meaningful progress, but not so much that I get burned out. I’m also committing to writing an article every two weeks, with accompanying photos.

In this article, I’ll set out the list, the themes and concepts, and what I want to get out of the project. I hope this might provide some light entertainment to my fellow hobbyists stuck in their houses, and (just maybe) some hobby impetus – if I can knuckle down and paint my toy soldiers, so can you!

As a hobbyist and history enthusiast, I’ve always found the very early and very late war to be the most compelling periods. Since I’ve already got a late-war German army, it made sense to me to give them somebody to fight against! I originally toyed with the idea of a more “generic”, tactically flexible force, but I decided to really push myself and actually paint in volume! Additionally, my Germans are very well-supplied with heavy armour, so an all-infantry force is a nice contrast – plus, it forces me to stick to my schedule!

You can follow Marcus’ example with our excellent range of British Airborne miniatures. With trademark red beret and armed with Sten and Bren Guns the British Airborne were determined and tenacious, as only the British Tommy can be.