Evan’s US Parachute Rifle Company Evan spends his days up to his armpits in putty, pumping out guns, infantry and tanks. When he is not doing that he is often locking horns with Phil over matters of historical or technical honour. They are often seen dualing it out in the car park, Phil with his red pen and Evan with a jeweller’s screw driver!

I decided on a US Parachute Rifle accompany mainly because the test samples from the moulds were sitting on my desk just screaming “paint me! You know you want to!” Being reasonably expensive, points wise, I started with the basics ~ an HQ with bells on followed by a full strength Rifle Platoon.

To make it up to 600ish points you can’t go past the awesome firepower of eight machine-guns from the Parachute Machine-gun Platoon. US Parachute Rifle Company Headquarters Company HQ (20 points) Add Eureka Beacon (25 points) Add 3 Bazooka teams (60 point)

Combat Platoon Parachute Rifle Platoon 3 Squads (285 points) Weapons Platoon Parachute Machine-gun Platoon 2 Sections (200 points) Total: 590 points For the initial 600 point phase you really need to start, obviously, with the company HQ but also add the maximum number of optional bazookas for lots of Anti-tank protection.

Next came the first Rifle Platoon at full strength with 3 Rifle squads, later I added a second full strength platoon. Between the Parachute Rifle Platoon and the Company Headquarters I now have 4 bazooka teams so the next thing to add is a full strength Machine-gun Platoon. The immense firepower that 8 M1919A4 MGs can throw out will stop most infantry attackers in their tracks!  I’ve gone for what I hope is a Normandy feel to the bases with lots of suggested hedgerows and Paras hiding behind shell and bomb damaged countryside. One little tip I’d like to pass on to you was the spent ammo for the M1919A4 MGs piling up around the guns.

I chopped up lengths of fine brass rod until I had quite a pile, and instead of trying to glue them in place I used a small lake of matt varnish that I quickly dropped the bits of brass into. After it was dry I gave them another coat of matt varnish so the brass, hopefully, doesn’t become tarnished over time. Evan has since complated the force to 1750 points, below is the mortar platoon, one of the platoons he added.