Thursday, September 4, 2014

"You might as well use grains of rice!"

As the Presidency was for Teddy Roosevelt, this blog is for me - my "Bully Pulpit". That being the case, I would like to address a wargaming issue. 

More than once, I've heard a comment made by the more boorish class of wargamer (we all know them). When I, or anyone else who games in 3mm, brings out their minis, there's always at least one (generally quite rotund) individual who guffaws overly loudly and says "you might as well use grains of rice!! I can't tell the difference!!" I feel that, in an effort to address this sort of egregious and pernicious ignorance, I should dispel any lack of clarity between rice and 1/600 scale miniatures.

Below, I will mix together several photos of a platoon of 1/600 East German T-55 tanks, as well as photos of a suitably painted East German armored rice platoon. I'm not going to say which is which. See if you can spot any difference:

So that everything would be perfectly fair, I have painted the rice to match the T-55's. I don't want any accusations of favoritism. If you guessed that this:
is the rice, you are correct. 

I'm not sure about you, but even with 52 year old eyes, I have zero problem picking out the rice 100% of the time. 

Thank you for your attention to this public service announcement. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress....

8 comments:

  1. HAH! This is awesome. You need to keep your rice platoon with you at all times when you are playing with 1/600 stuff, Im sure you will get the opportunity to display the awesomeness that is an 80s East German Rice Platoon.

    Nice looking T55s btw.

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    1. I think I may permanently base my East German armored rice platoon!!

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  2. I struggled to tell the difference, until you pointed it out and then it was obvious... but for a moment!

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    1. Your eyes are getting as bad as mine are!!

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  3. Whenever I get a snotty comment like that, and assuming the guy was scheduled to play in the game, I start putting his troops back in the box, explaining that the troops are so disheartened by their commander's disdain that they have deserted en masse. Amazing how quickly the boob shuts up.

    Chris

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    1. Excellent!! Give ignorance no space to grow!

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  4. I now feel I need to upgrade my Lentil Recce Platoon.....

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    Replies
    1. I do offer a painting service for grains of all types!

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