Combat Storm: Your little plastic army men now have a use again!

Ever had those little green plastic Army men you can buy by the buckets at the supermarket? I had tons of those when I was a kid, and they looked hella awesome with the lot of them standing around in a diorama. But back then that's all they were good for (except for sometimes tying them to a cheap plastic bag and making them paradrop for no reason), and they were either discarded or left to rot in bodegas forever.

It was then that I came across talk of organized rules for setting up a miniatures gaming system similar to Warhammer or Heroclix using these Army men guys. They called it Combat Storm.

I think I'd like to repeat that.

Organized rules. For a miniature war game. Using cheap plastic army men.

My mind was blown.

So I checked them out and sure enough, I was impressed. Dubbed as "the definitive rulebook for miniature wargaming using plastic army men," Combat Storm is a rules system that makes use of Army men from the 'dirt-cheap toys' aisle to play out your own tabletop battlefield scenario. It's crazy to think that someone looked at those little green guys and thought, "there should be a 'grown-up' game I could play using these. I think I'll go make one."

What's cool is that they gave personalities to each Army men sculpt. That guy with the Garand? That's a Rifleman, able to make shots from long range. That dude throwing a grenade? He's a Demolition's Expert, with enough grenades and C4 to level a building. There's also a Sniper, an Anti-Tank Personel, and lots more, and you can put them all together to make a badass 'army' and recreate all kinds of wartime scenarios!

Not only that, they also provide papercraft buildings in case you're too lazy or can't be bothered to make a 3D map of your war zone. But where's the fun in a war zone if it ain't 3D? They have free downloads of their buildings in their website, but the better stuff are for sale at their online store.

So it now comes down to price. That's right, the Combat Storm Rulebook isn't for free (unless you get it unscrupulously). It's $19.99 (roughly P1,000 here) at their online store, but if it's as good as they say it is, that one-time sale is a steal in itself. You get a gaming system for those cheap plastic Army men (I still can't get over that fact!), have lots of fun, and indirectly help whoever the hell continues to manufacture those little guys.

Check out more of the stuff at the official Combat Storm website.