Earlier this year several people in my local gaming group became enamored with the new line of Vietnam figures from Gringos 40. You can see some of the figures on Kevin's and David's blogs, along with their first battle report. With all the email's and blog posts, I found myself pulled into this diversion. Since this would be a skirmish game, I didn't want to just redo the same figures everyone else was doing. During the back and forth emails, we talked about other manufacturers that could be used with the Gringo 40s figures. I liked the look of the figures from Crucible Crush's Black Sun range. The rules and some of the figures in the range are definitely "Weird Vietnam War" stuff, but the U.S. Army and VC figures looked like they would fit in with the Gringo 40 figures. So, I took the plunge and ordered 3 packs of U.S. Army soldiers.
Once the figures arrived, there was little in the way of clean-up or assembly needed (only 1 figure needed to have an arm glued on and there was little flask or mold lines). I did get two duplicate figures instead of five different figures in the U.S. Army Rifles set, but I'm okay with that. Here is how the figures painted up.
 |
| Radio operator (with added antenna), command type figure, and kneeling grenadier |
 |
| The running men. The middle figure is the one that needed the arm glued on and he I added a pack of Marlboro cigarettes to his helmet |
 |
| Advancing (one of my duplicates), M60 gunner, and firing soldiers |
 |
| Advancing (the other duplicate), command (this is my favorite figure of the bunch), and a Grunt |
 |
| Shotgun, high-carry advancing, and standing grenadier |
All the figures, except for the shotgun soldier, have rucksacks. So they are out patrolling instead of sitting in a firebase.
 |
| Group shot (although the front guys are a little out of focus) |
I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I'm planning on ordering the four VC packs, so I'll have both sides. But I don't expect to get any other figures. But who knows, since I wasn't planning on getting these guys.
I think it will be back to some naval stuff after this.
