This is a forgotten game, in the surprisingly crowded Weird War 2 category. DUST, AT43, and now Bolt Action spinoff Konflikt 47 have all been higher profile. But SOTR is still available while the DUST and AT43 are long since defunct, although SOTR's online presence is practically nil. In fact one of the first hits was my 2015 comparison with Bolt Action.
I've added some female 3D print heads to appease my daughter. LOTR is one of her favourite movies which proves she doesn't need lots of girls, but there must be some.
These 2011-era minis were dug out and painted as (a) my son and I have been playing Zombie Army 4: Dead War on PC and thus I was inspired and (b) I need to paint more minis before I purchase any more - which is stalling my Forest project. +39 minis to my current 555 makes 594 this year. It also makes it easy to retort if queried."Buying more minis? Have you painted and played with the last ones?" "Yes"
I've bought (and also promptly painted!) about 100 fantasy plastics for The Forest and 50 for the French Indian Dino Wars so I'm comfortably "in the black" eroding my lead mountain this year by over 400.
SOTR is a 40K-a-like based on the earlier versions of 40K. Or rather 40K+ with suppression, reaction and orders which give more detail (and ironically more gritty realism than Bolt Action). It also scales down to smaller forces.
I'm halfway through with half my Soviets and 2/3rds my Germans yet to go. Hmm I notice Wargames Atlantic have generic zombies with a range of heads including WW2...
I suspect the Soviet chimps are instead from AE:WW2 (another Weird War game SOTR has outlasted!). While the SOTR sculpts are oldskool chunky, AE:WW2 had some weird/spindly/disproportionate ones: most have been purged from my inventory by giving them to my then 5-year-old as a "decoy/distraction" miniature. I reckon I may even have a cyborg gorilla if I hunt around a bit.
I've eyed off some Konflikt 47 models just to add some random cool stuff but so far have resisted easily enough - in Australia Warlord have equivalent pricing to GW but without the quality... *shrugs*
The rather drab uniform nature of the minis makes them quite quick to paint, but a tad dull. I reckon I might switch to some colourful Quar or finish my Dark Eldar as a 'palate cleanser' so I don't get bored.
Eeek it's late already so I'm signing off while there is time to watch a movie - probably a WW2 movie for paint inspiration. (I have 1500+ DVDs which are an answer to the question I posed a year or two back: How many DVDs could you afford if you cancelled all streaming services? Answer: A lot. ....Especially if you buy from charity shops...)
I have bought the SOTR rules due to your recommendation but am strugling to find suitable miniatures as most of the available ones are uninspiring. Especially, the Konflikt 47 miniatures look so boring tha I would never want to paint any of them. Do you think that it is viable to use it for regular WW2 wargaming?
ReplyDeleteThe SOTR rules are perfectly functional for WW2. I played them and Bolt Action years ago and my impression was SOTR was more "realistic" with an early 40K vibe. I liked the build your own mech/vehicles rules as it allowed me to use random stuff I had.
DeleteThe West Wind models themselves are fine albeit old school. I'd recommend instead getting plastic WW2 (Wargames Atlantic, Victrix, etc) and getting separate heads (3D print). WA WW1 boxes might make a good "base" to work from as most gear is similar (and it IS weird war).
E.g. Wargames Atlantic even sells weird war conversion kits. West Wind themselves sells heads separately.
-eM