| Despite having 100+ unbuilt figure sets, choosing one set for the next dio has always been hard - will it match with the armor historically?, so on and so forth. |
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The biggest problem with figures is that using them with the out of the box poses is very limiting. Learning how to kitbash figures will open up many more possiblities and stories... That way one can make the figures fit the story, rather than making the story fit the figures... It's not hard, but it does take some skills that need to be developed. One can start with simply turning heads and swapping arms, until you move up into complete kitbashes of a figure that has body parts from 4 or 5 manufacturers... Like a head from Verlinden, torso from Tamiya, legs from Italeri, arms from Dragon, and hands from Airfix...
A great number of dioramas can simply reflect the day-to-day life of a crew or fire-team in the field and often work better and are more interesting to the viewer than bang-bang, shoot 'em up dios... Mail-call, chow lines at a field kitchen, a tank crew that's lost or out of gas, a flakpanzer crew examining the wreckage of a plane that they shot down, a laundry day that turns the tank's gun and a nearby tree into clothes-line supports, a crew that's shootin' the breeze with some local civilians, a shower pail that's hung from a main gun tube, a traffic jam with a harried MP or Feldgendarme trying to sort it out, a jeep stuck in a hole with the two occupants arguing, an infantry fire team raiding a wine cellar or chicken coop, the list goes on and on... Kitbashing figures will definately open up more and more ideas... Everyone knows that soldiers fight, but those without a military background often have no idea what it's like to live in a truck or armored fighting vehicle for months and months on end in every conceivable weather condition, from the Russian Steppes to the jungles of Guadalcanal and New Guinea to a "peaceful" garrison life of Pioneers building obstacles in Normandy during the weeks before Overlord... Build the figures to fit your story, not the other way around... If you can make figures to fit your story, you could conceivably have only one type of vehicle and tell dozens of stories...