AHPC 9: Mercenary Bonus Round

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese propaganda derided the collective Free World Military Forces (including US, Australian, New Zealand, Phillipines, South Korea and Thailand) as "Mercenaries" in the pay of the "illegitimate cronies" of the Republic of South Vietnam. In this vein, I have used this bonus round in homage to one of my favourite screen characters: Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore - callsign "Big Duke 6" - Commander of 1st/9th Air Cavalry, in Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

Kilgore is fantastically portrayed by Robert Duvall and delivers some of the most memorable parts of the movie including: distributing Death Cards, the 'Charlie Don't Surf!' beach BBQ scene, the Helicopter Assault playing Ride of the Valkyries and the iconic 'I love the smell of Napalm in the morning' monologue.

I have endeavoured to faithfully reproduce Kilgore's uniform from the film, though trying to get his flat jungle greens looking a bit more exciting was a challenge.

"You either surf, or you fight soldier!"

From start to finish I loved painting this figure and attending to detail like shiny spit polished boots, the orangy tint of the Vietnam soil, making the death card in front of him, and of course the pearl grips of his M1911A1 Colt sidearm.

"Big Duke 6" watches his boys in action

In addition to this Bonus round submission, I guess that I have now started a Bolt Action Vietnam force. Maybe just a few of those nice Company B grunts to watch his back in the jungle...  :-)

The sculpt is from Wargames Illustrated's "Giants in Miniature" range

http://analogue-hobbies-theme-rounds.blogspot.com/2019/02/mercenary-from-paulog-charlie-dont-surf.html