@P-Unit:
While I agree the minis in 1942 2e are fantastic, I find many of the pieces very hard to distinguish from one another, especially the non-carrier ships. Unlike most, I prefer all of the models to be the same sculpt, with different colors for identifying each nations units.
Does anyone know if someone sells 5 different colors of the same unit sculpts that would work with 1942 2e (all 12 unit types)? I looked at all of the products from Field Marshal Games and everything on eBay but couldn’t find what I’m looking for. Any ideas?
Surely your jest! Telling apart destroyers from battleships from transports from subs is pretty easy. (OK, sometimes that cruiser in-between the battleship and the destroyer muddies things up a LITTLE but once you get to know your pieces, its not really that hard…)
But in any case, to find a piece-set where all the pieces within a type are identical and the countries’ units are distinguished only by color, you have two options as far as I can recall:
1. Go back to classic-style pieces (which, as variable pointed out, are mostly all, if not all, available on HBG’s site for sale by the piece.) Of course this means using a more limited list of pieces. From there you could try using Xeno, Table Tactics, and/or Enemy on the Horizon for supplemental piece types, like artillery, mechs, and smaller surface ships. (These latter three are all oop & harder to find though; patience over time on ebay may be your only option.)
2. Use the piece set from The War Game. Pieces from TWG (as it is known) are really quite good (they were molded and sculpted by Pegasus Hobbies I think), arguably even better than the best pieces from the AH versions of AA… but they are ALL GERMAN SCULPTS in different colors. I think that this may have hurt TWG, along with the fact that most of the TWG pieces were a little large to be compatible with AA pieces (e.g., their Tiger tank is roughly twice the size of AH’s Panther tank… and I’m talking about the fat version…which also makes them about twice the size of the new AA41 Tigers.) I know I had a hard time with my Brits and Americans goose-stepping in Stahlhelms, and ended up mixing pieces at least in infantry, just as I’ll have a hard time with Germans in Brodie helmets in FMG’s upcoming WW1 game, but maybe that’s just me. The quality of the pieces was very good, though. And last I knew, the TWG pieces set was even being sold separately from the rest of the game for a smaller price (though I warn you it still will cost you more than most AH games just for the TWG piece set.)
