On my way to looking for something else, I stumbled over photos of this M8 Grizzly. It’s a small resin kit that is part of Warlord Games Konflikt ’47, an imaginary scenario where World War II continued, and advanced scifi type weapons were introduced.
I’m not a tabletop game player at all, and I’d never heard of Konflikt ’47. But I do know a cool stompy shooty pew-pew when I see one. When you get down to it, a fun model is a fun model. Period. Who cares if it’s not what you usually build? If you see something and and think “that might be fun”, forget the local club or neighborhood unfriendly Bookface group’s opinion of it and just build it!
Building it was easy, as there were only a few parts. The resin needed a bit of cleanup, but it wasn’t odious. And while I am not a fan of “white metal” (otherwise known as “metallic butter”), I managed to get along with that too.
The fun in it was that the paint and weathering felt much like a beat up P-40 or a Sherman tank. But the shape gave it an element of cool that goes beyond those fun but often so familiar standbys. There’s nothing wrong with a P-40 or a Sherman, but I think we often feel an unwarranted tug to do it “correctly”. But with this… there is no “correct”. Because it’s all made up nonsense to put it bluntly. It’s just pure imagination.
Of course, I didn’t stretch any artistic limits in the end. It’s pretty much weathered like a Sherman tank. Yet part of the value was allowing me to experiment with a few things here or there, with no low-number thumping IPMS member in the back of my head saying “that’s not right”. No sir… that guy was over in the nacho line having been bewildered by the fact that this wasn’t “normal”.
But the other benefit, and this is really the major one, was simply how fun the build was. It was pretty much like building as a kid would. Only with a larger budget and more supplies. The happiness that comes from just painting and weathering without a care in the world.
Looking at the photos, the 10-year-old in me salivates at the thought of this thing entering the battle in my plastic soldier wars in the backyard. Anything that puts me in touch with that is just fine with me.
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