Building your Army with Elhiem Figures

If you are new to miniature gaming or collecting it can be very difficult knowing where to start or what should go with what. I have decided to create this page as a HELP! section which hopefully will make it easier for you to find what you need.

I will start by explaining what the miniatures we manufacture are designed for:

Wargaming and Collecting
A Wargame is a tabletop game using miniatures to represent combat played from a tactical birds eye level. There are many hundreds of different Wargames covering almost every era of mankind's struggle and also includes Fantasy and Science Fiction. These games can be small skirmish games where individual miniatures represent one person or vehicle or large scale abstract battles where for convenience one miniature represents a group of individuals so as to have battles which have hundreds of thousands of men using a hundred or so models. 

Researching, collecting and painting the armies that you use to represent your forces is an enjoyable and relaxing part of the hobby and alot of people prefer to simply build historic units for the sheer pleasure of developing a nice collection. There is something very satisfying to have a draw or display case full of painted units in the correct organisation as their real counterparts. Indeed many people never game with their models, they just like to collect the miniatures and paint them and for this reason we at Elhiem also work hard to ensure our miniatures are historically correct and can be used in dioramas or display.

Real Unit structures

Should you want to create a mirror of a real unit, it is best to do some research into how the nationality structures its fighting men and at what era. As weapons and tactics evolve it the structure of the fighting force has changed accordingly.

It will be hard for anyone to build a 1 to 1 scale Company  or even Platoon so I shall start off at the smallest fighting formation today (though there are of course smaller fighting teams than this), I'll use US descriptive terms as each nationality has its own terms:

Fireteam - Usually 4 men
Squad - 2 to 4 Fireteams one of which will be the command/support fireteam
Platoon - 3-4 Squads with an additional Support and HQ 

Looking at the above very basic example you can see how Elhiem Figures trys to structure its sets, with basic fireteam figures and then more specialist sets. The Fireteam sets can be duplicated if you want to make a Squad and add extras from the KIT range of back packs to create variation.

What Wargame Rules should I use?
Elhiem Figures can be used with any game that you wish. Our modern conflict ranges are designed to work with Ambush Alley Games: Force on Force published by Osprey. We are proud that the team at AAG asked us to be their Licensed figure manufacture for their Modern rules 'Force on Force'. This does not mean you are restricted to use Force on Force, our miniatures can be used with any game system you like and our WW2, Pulp, Horror,Zombies etc are featured in a number of commercial games. A quick search on any internet search engine for Wargame rules for your preferred era should give you a start. There are plenty of free to download rules as well as high quality printed books for sale. Check the reviews and see what takes your fancy.

For ease and convenience we will use the AAG Force on Force rules to give our Armies structure. Force on Force uses skirmish one to one ratio which makes converting real units very easy to do.

As Elhiem Figures are the Licenced figure manufacture for Force on Force, our ranges will be built primarily to meet the needs of the Force on Force games. Specialist units will be added to the ranges as we flesh them out. 

We provide a growing range of KIT sets which contain many different back packs, Night Vision, Radios, medic packs etc which can be glued to most of our figures to radically change the appearance and role of the soldiers depicted.

Force on Force Army's - what should be used?

The following lists should help you to find the figures you need to play each Expansion. Where no information is available yet, it will be soon!

Expansion : Road to Baghdad (RtB)

There are four Allied Army's listed in RtB, you don't need all of the the forces to play the game as some forces are pretty much interchangeable. As well as these four Army's there are other Allied forces listed in the rear of the book to allow you to re-create other nationality forces.

USMC - For the most part the USMC as listed would be wearing a Nuclear Biological suit over their body armour and desert uniforms called a MOPP suit. The MOPP suit is a hooded over suit of woodland camofluage. Over the top of this suit the USMC wore their webbing. We are currently building a range specifically to cover the USMC in MOPP but, Our existing range of IBA can be used as a substitute until the MOP range is available.

US Army - The IBA range has been designed specifically to match the US Army during Operation Iraqi freedom.

US Rangers - Currently not Available as their own range (coming soon). In the meanwhile you could use the IBA range to represent the Rangers.

Special Forces - We have a small range of Special forces (SF) which can be used. Due to the nature of SF they can appear in almost any combination of uniforms and equipment, so you can use anyfigures (including enemy figures) to represent them. Our SF range will soon be expanded in more detail with many more variations so keep checking.

Iraqi Army and Republican Guard - the RG range can be used for both of these with any additional figures that may be needed from the Middle East section.

Saddam Fedayeen - Our FDY range is purpose built on the infamous Saddam Fedayeen black uniform and SciFi inspired helmet. Additional figures can be used from the RG sets with black painted uniforms

Insurgents - Use INS range mixed with RG, FDY and Middle East figures.

The FoF Battle Packs labeled RTB are all designed for the above.

Expansion: Enduring Freedom (EF)

 EF covers the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban and the subsequent hunting of Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders from 2001 to 2010.

 A lot of changes were made in equipment and uniform by the ISAF force during this time so it is up to you if you want to get the correct look for the time frame or just use the same miniatures for all battles as long as they are the correct nationality.

 US Army  - the IOT range has been designed specifically for EF and can be painted up as grey digital pattern or multicam. Earlier engagements should really be the IBA range.

 USMC � The MCA Range was developed for EF and features the USMC in their desert digital camo and correct body armour and helmet.

 Special Forces � Our range of Special forces can be used for this range. New and more specific Special Forces will be available soon though.

 British Army/Marines/Para � OSP range of British have been designed for the EF era.  BAV codes can be used to add variation.

 Australian - We do not have any Australian figures yet, but urge you to look at the range we carry Wartime Miniatures who do a great range of Australians as well as others.

 US Rangers � For the moment we suggest using a mix of RAM and IBA. A range of 2003 Rangers is planned and will be available soon.

 US Pilots � A range of pilots can be found in the OBJ section of the US figures.

 Eastern Alliance � Us the TAL range to represent the Allies of the US.

 Taliban � The TAL range.

 Al Qaeda � The TAL Range and Shadow Army in the TAL range.

 Foreigner Fighters � At present we have no specific range of foreign fighters and suggest using TAL mixed with INS. However, we do plan on extending the TAL range that will include more exotic looking fighters.


Additional Forces Already Covered in the ISAF and the West:

 Italian Army � maybe expanded next year (2013) with additional branches of the Italian Military.

 French Army

 Coming Soon in no particular order�

ANA, Canadians, UK 2010+, Danish, Dutch, Germany, CIA, SAS, ASAS, GROM, Polish, KSSK, Afghan Police


Day of the Rngers (DotR)

DotR covers the US operations in  Moghidisu, Somalia including the loss of Black Hawks.

 

Cold War Gone Hot (CWGH)

 Focusing on the Cold War possibilities of the 1980�s. Nato take on Warpac in a variety of what if scenarios.

 

Ambush Valley (AV)

 AV covers the Vietnam war.

 

Bush Wars (BW)

 The conflicts in Africa during the 80�s

 

Fallujah (F)
 
 
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