Hi
I'm looking for a pack of German and Allied (prefer British, but Soviet or US will do) WW2 infantry figures, all in the same pose.

I'm making a chess set, so need 8 infantry soldiers the same. Prefer 1/35 but will consider 1/48.

Or if you think this isn't possible (without buying 8 packs of the same figure set) how would you do it? Have 8 figures in different poses as the pawns then something distinctly different for the other pieces? Mortars as rooks? Mg42 on tripod as bishop etc?

Thanks!

It's amazing how creative some people can get, I love it

I saw someone do something like this previously.

Pawns - Jerry Cans and miscellaneous equipment (German and US type then, these days could be British Flimsy cans as there are kits with them)

Rook/Castle - MG 34 gunner and Lewis Gunner (troops carrying the weapon)
Knight - Panzer crewman and British Tanker
Bishop - German Paratrooper FG 42 & British Paratrooper with Sten gun
King - Rommel and Monty (Tamiya 'Famous Generals' set 1/35th)
Queen - Officers (one German and One British)

For the pawns you could use any basic infantryman, whatever pose, and have the "specialist" figures retained for the higher value pieces.

You could use the Generals as the 'Queens' and maybe use a Hitler and Churchill figure for 'Kings', seeing as they are available in kit form - Riich does a set with Churchill and Mongomery and I think Warriors did a pre-war Hitler.

Ask around, a lot of guys will have spare figures they might never use and are prepared to part with. I know a lot of guys bought several of the kit with Monty and tank men (Masterbox?) but how many Monty's do you need from these kits?

Preiser do a set of 1/35th marching Germans. There are nine figures in the set, they are designed to be a marching unit so although there are slight differences (three of each figure) when put together they all look the same. Standard is not to Dragon or ICM standards, but acceptable for a chess set pawn.

I am the fella who produced the Flames of War chess set shown above. I built 2 and donated to the USO of NC some years back for a silent auction. Brought in $1500 and $1250. The link above is from the FoW web site. Still have plans to build one for myself.

Very Cool

Custom chess pieces are very cool, especially for us modelers. Not so with my Dad (RIP). He was very good at chess. The only time I was able beat him was when we used custom pieces. He had a hard time keeping track which piece is what.

I play computer chess a couple of times a day. I have trouble now going to the "real" chess board on my coffee table because of the difference in appearance. I can't imagine playing chess with the "FoW" sets-- they do look confusing. I'd think a military figure set would be easier, and have seen a "North and South" civil war set, and a Medieval knight themed set before. My big issue with all these sets is that eventually the paint would wear off in places if one was a serious (as in frequent) chess player. In answer to the original question though, how about the Airfix 1/32 scale figure sets? You would probably need to buy lots of them to get the proper amount of figures though. You could also go with the Zvesda or Revell Germany 1/72 sets, and mount them on some sort of base. You could leave them unpainted, or just give them a coat of a base color like green, tan, brown or gray.
VR, Russ

Thankyou very much for all rbecsuggestions, much appreciated.

I hadn't considered using 1/100 scale vehicles, might do that. To prevent confusion as to what each piece is, I could do little flags with the piece icon showing, like a flag with a castle or a horse on it for rook & knight.

I'll check out the set of marching infantry, sounds ideal though.

There were some interesting Napoleonic and fantasy sets put together in 54mm scale and even one using different sizes for different pieces.

Pawns were 54mm, kings were 90mm, others were 70mm.

I'd really prefer white metal to plastic though. Plastic would be too fragile if there's any kind of detail to it?

Have you thought of using 28mm plastic figures?