The Laird of Glencairn's Commandos (SnapForce)

A new project started last week and resulted in some strange coincidences!

Mycroft Holmes: What do we say about coincidences?
Sherlock Holmes: The universe is rarely so lazy.

I already had some Commando miniatures and bought this set from Warlord, simply because I think they look superb.

Warlord photo

Then I saw some Artizan Commandos for sale on the LAF and bought them. One of my favourite miniatures of all time is this one from Artizan.

I painted BSM Tudor Bryn 'Shut Up' Williams as a Royal Marine to use in the game at DevLAM '18. I knew I wanted to paint my new army commandos in brown uniforms so I ordered another mini from Artizan and then saw that Windsor Davies had sadly died. "Oh dear, 'ow sad!" as he would have said.

Anyway, I picked some figures out to paint first and, as usual a sort of story came into my head as I was painting. Inspired by the figure on the right, I decided my unit would have been formed by the Laird of Glencairn. They would be called the Laird of Glencairn's Commandos or SnapForce for short.

I then went on to decide that I would have all sorts of characters in this motley unit to make it more interesting and started to think, maybe a Seikh and an Australian, maybe even a Frenchman? So then I was trying to work out the back story as to how this band of heroes and cowards were recruited. Heroes like my Fijian Commando Sergeant Talaiasi Labalaba shown here.

Cowards like the Lieutenant Gerald Cadman character from 'The Victor' comic and Lieutenant Dick Coward from the James Delingpole novels.

Then, blow me down, along comes my Commando comic subscription with issue number 5198, entitled 'Operation Eclipse' and it's almost as if they had been reading my mind!

Operation Eclipse

To take out Germany's strongest U-boat base would need a ship packed with explosives, a bunch of blokes with nerves of steel... and an eclipse of the sun.

The eclipse could be counted on, but what about the cowardly captain and his crew of convicts? Could they do the job?

They had to - thousands of Allied lives depended on it...

Tremendous stuff and exactly the sort of thing I had in mind. Obviously the Commandos opponents are the ubiquitous U-boat crew who last appeared in "On the Day, Went the Eagle's Landing Well?"

So, on with the painting of the Commandos, more to come...