First the sad news, although old. Two years ago one of our members quit the historical wargames hobby. Quitting is hard. It’s harder than quittting smoking. But he did!

He’s now a member of Infinitics Anonymous – he quit Bolt Action, but he moved to the Dutch clan of Infinity players. We wished him luck. Friendly guy. Bolt Action was just not his game. Infinity is a very smart designed miniatures game, btw. A classic. Addictive.

Now the good news. When he left, he donated his 14 unpainted leftover Finnish WW2 figures to our club. Finland and the USSR were at war in 1939, and the Finnish troops fought in German uniforms against the Russians (Democratic Finland never was a formal ally in the Nazi pact, but the Finns were supported by the Germans). Until 1944, when they changed sides.

So the Finnish miniatures are ‘Germans in light grey uniforms, longcoats and white winter parkas’. These 14 metal miniatures hid themselves in my painting room. No urgency. We have a German club army already, painted 3 years ago.

But now the even better news – I rediscovered these lost figures this weekend and finally, finally, finally gave them a quick –  German – paint job. Not a true bleak grey/ white ‘Finnish’ uniform because a 14-figure Finnish battlegroup is too small as independent unit on the table. Nobody will notice. Ready!

I painted them carelessly, hastily, as fast as possible and covered all mistakes with quickshade Army Painter dip. Umpteenth German. Game models, not museum miniatures. I fully admit: they’re neither the most detailed nor the best painted miniatures that I ever – finnished – forgive me the bad pun.

At least the Nazi Schweinhunde have extra cannon fodder. Sturdy metal, some interesting poses, engineers, sharpshooter, good for the club pile.

I also found a lost US army mortar team that I will add to the club reserves.

I. Will. Beat. That. Lead. Mountain!